Dec 8, 2010 3:42 PM

EFF Demands Copyright Troll Pay for Suing Democratic Underground

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is demanding that the newspaper lawsuit factory Righthaven pay the EFF’s costs for its successful defense of the website Democratic Underground from one of Righthaven’s many copyright lawsuits. “Attorneys’ fees would be appropriately awarded, even apart from a statutory authorization, where dismissed claims were frivolous or pursued in bad faith,” (.pdf) the group […]

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is demanding that the newspaper lawsuit factory Righthaven pay the EFF's costs for its successful defense of the website Democratic Underground from one of Righthaven's many copyright lawsuits.

"Attorneys' fees would be appropriately awarded, even apart from a statutory authorization, where dismissed claims were frivolous or pursued in bad faith," (.pdf) the group told a federal judge Tuesday night.

Righthaven has just made news for signing up MediaNews Group, the nation's second-biggest media concern, to litigate on behalf of that group's intellectual property. Righthaven's sole business model is to acquire intellectual property rights of newspaper content and sue alleged online infringers.

In the Righthaven-EFF legal flap, EFF claims Righthaven cannot be allowed to file bogus lawsuits and seek their dismissal without paying the defense's legal bills. That's an assertion Righthaven, based in Las Vegas, strongly disputes.

The case centers on an EFF client, the political community site Democratic Underground. Righthaven sued the site months ago after a user posted four paragraphs from a 34-paragraph Las Vegas Review-Journal story in May on Sharron Angle, the unsuccessful Republican Nevada candidate for Senate.

After suffering a defeat in a lawsuit with a similar amount of infringement, Righthaven moved to dismiss the Democratic Underground case last month. Righthaven, which has been taking advantage of a loophole in copyright law to win settlements in dozens of cases, has told a Nevada federal judge it could still win the case, so it should not have to pay the EFF's legal tab.

But the EFF, which has countersued Righthaven, said in a legal filing late Tuesday that Righthaven must pay for Democratic Underground's defense.

"The undisputed facts demonstrate that plaintiff's claims were meritless from their inception," the group wrote.

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David Kravets is a WIRED senior staff writer and founder of the fake news site TheYellowDailyNews.com. He's a dad of two boys and has been a reporter since the manual typewriter days. His PGP fingerprint is 066F 245D 22A0 7511 B36B CB4F 0F53 B742 5919 4A18. ... Read more

Senior Staff Writer

TopicsDigital Millennium Copyright Act Electronic Frontier Foundation Intellectual Property Threat Level

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