Once again, court rules copyright troll Righthaven lacks standing, must pay opponent's expenses
Although the assignment of the bare right to sue is permissible, it is ineffectual. Standing alone, '[t]he right to sue for an accrued claim for infringement is not an exclusive right under [US copyright law]'.
This is delightful news. In brief, US copyright law bestows upon the owner of copyright a "bundle" of exclusive rights. See 17 USC § 106. One must be the owner of the copyright in question before one can sue for infringement of one of those rights. Righthaven made a deal with certain publishers and got the right to sue for infringement. They hunted for bloggers and other who posted the publisher's images and text without permission, and filed suit. They did not, however, obtain any of the ownership rights required to show standing to sue for infringement, which is what burned them in this case.
It's sort of like having the keys to the car but no title. You can drive around for a while, but eventually someone will pull you over and notice you're not the one who owns the thing. They have been suing people for infringement for a while now, but this is the second time a court has told them they lack standing.
Joyride's over, pal.
The icing on this cake is that, besides being told they have no standing to sue before they even got to argue the case, they're being told to pay for the alleged infringer's defense costs, for the second time.
I'm all about copyright owners suing in good faith when they think there's a cognizable infringement claim (i.e. copyright subsists in the work AND plaintiff owns that copyright AND defendant infringed that copyright). But the Copyright Act was built to encourage innovation and creativity in the arts, and incentivize the production of more of creative works for public consumption and use. It was not written to provide a business model to trolls like Righthaven.
I'm a law student, currently taking Copyrights class, and even I know that without one of those § 106 exclusive rights, one simply cannot sue for copyright infringement. In essence, the right to sue, confusingly, does not confer the right to sue, at least under the Copyright Act.
Perhaps Righthaven would like to sit in on a copyright class or two.
Source: Out-Law. The opinion itself is embedded below.
