DU files against Stephens Media to recover $774,683 in Righthaven legal fees

Source: Vegas Inc (Las Vegas Sun)

Attorneys say the owner of the Las Vegas Review-Journal should be required to pay $774,683 in legal fees for what critics call a failed ''shakedown'' copyright infringement lawsuit that threatened the free speech rights of a political website.

The attorneys represent the Democratic Underground, a website that defeated Righthaven LLC, the R-J’s copyright enforcement partner, in one of Righthaven’s copyright infringement lawsuits.

... "Righthaven and Stephens Media had an improper motivation in the pursuit of this lawsuit and their litigation campaign more generally. They sought to shake down website operators and bloggers for nuisance-value settlements with threats of seizure of their domain name and huge statutory damage awards, regardless of whether those defendants’ uses of the works at issue were actually infringing,'' said a filing Tuesday in federal court in Las Vegas seeking recovery of legal fees by Democratic Underground attorneys. ''As to deterrence, an award of fees is necessary to dissuade these parties and others from any similar scheme of shakedown lawsuits threatening staggering statutory damage awards and seizure of websites. Righthaven and Stephens Media pursued these claims such that numerous instances of legitimate fair use, like that here, would necessarily be dragged into their litigation machine."

... Last month, the lawsuit was named the U.S. Copyright Case of the Year by the international publication Managing Intellectual Property.

Read more: http://www.vegasinc.com/news/2012/apr/11/review-journal-owner-facing-774000-fee-demand-righ/