Here’s a quick refresher for those that haven’t followed the Righthaven saga: The Vegas-based outfit, headed up by Dickinson Wright partner Steven Gibson, built its business model on trolling the Web for articles taken from newspapers or magazines, getting an assignment of the right to sue from the original copyright holder, and then filing copyright infringement suits against the Web sites that carried the postings. A South Carolina plaintiffs firm that has tracked Righthaven’s activities in anticipation of a potential class action against the company estimates that Righthaven’s efforts have netted about $350,000 in settlements.
When we last checked in on Righthaven’s efforts way back in September 2010, the Las Vegas copyright troll seemed to have overcome a major obstacle when a Nevada federal judge ruled that Righthaven had standing to bring copyright infringement claims against one of its early targets, a Texas law firm. But Righthaven’s fortunes have been in decline almost ever since.
