People like Matt Drudge gave up their first amendment rights and now can NEVER utter anything about Righthaven. No wonder Righthaven was so quick to jump the gun on Arstechnica to make them sign a gag order that would make them not able to ever right another story on Righthaven again.

I was absolutely disgusted with this "Press Release" that Righthaven was demanding Brian Hill and David Kerr agree to. Righthaven was demanding false statements by the two and imposing a permanent gag order on both of them. Brian would have had to publicly renounce everything he ever said or written about Righthaven.

So Righthaven is now put in the position it has put so many others in. Do they want to spend more money to fight these counter claims or maybe it will just be cheaper to settle?

85,000 innocent sites have already been shut down by Homeland Security Ice. This bill would give the government sweeping authority to shut down sites that they merely suspect infringements. It will also give Righthaven a legal basis for shutting down websites. This bill also would put undue burdens on ISPs which many will simply not have the capacity to police all their users. This is a bad bill and will not protect IP but give government more power over us.

We also must oppose the "IP Protection Act" that is making its way through Congress. This bill might as well be called the Copyright Troll Protection and Proliferation Act". If this bill becomes law the United States along with China will have the dubious distinction of having the most censored Internet on the planet.

If Righthaven has the funds to fight all these lawsuits and continue on it will give credence to my contention that Righthaven is being well funded and is part of something bigger than just protecting a couple of newspapers content.

It is good to see someone step up and start one of I suspect many class action suits involving this outfit. The class action suits also needs to name Media News Group as a co-defendant in this action also since they are just as culpable as Righthaven.

boftx

What is also going to get them in trouble is the very wording of their lawsuits where they claim Righthaven has the exclusive right to display and distribute the content when according to their agreement they clearly do not. The amendments do nothing to address this fact.

The amendments they have presented are going to blow up in their faces because both Righthaven and Stephens media are acknowledging that at most their content is only worth $1. They have severely devalued their own content and in doing so devalued their own lawsuits.

Boftx

Yes I understand. Those were my own embellishments. To me the whole arrangement reeks.

boftx

Creative book-keeping aka money laundering and balance sheet manipulation? It seems like Righthaven has an unlimited amount of cash. They aren't bringing in anywhere near enough to cover all of their expenses and yet they have enough cash to hire a very expensive New York lawyer as well as mount expensive appeals and fight counter-suits?

My guess is that Stephens Media has given them a blank check that is enough to bring even a number of cases all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary to establish IP friendly precedences (which may be their ultimate plan) and Stephens Media can keep any losses and expenses off their balance sheet as to not effect stock prices.