Buh Bye Righthaven?

Righthaven, the law firm(?) that sued bloggers and other media over copyright infringements is in danger of going belly up very quickly. Federal judges in Nevada have ordered Righthaven to pay attorney fees to bloggers they sued but lost before the case even went to trial.
From the Las Vegas Sun: With the holiday weekend under way, Las Vegas copyright lawsuit filer Righthaven LLC appeared to remain in danger Friday of seeing its intellectual property auctioned off.
That’s because the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco had not acted through Friday night on Righthaven’s "emergency motion" filed Tuesday to block the threatened auction.
So far, a court-appointed receiver has seized Righthaven’s website domain name with plans to auction it. The receiver through Friday night hadn’t announced the auction procedures or when the sales process would begin.
A court has also ordered Righthaven to surrender its 278 copyrights to the receiver to be auctioned. With the appeals court not yet acting on Righthaven’s appeal, it’s unknown if or when Righthaven will turn over the copyrights or whether its CEO will be forced to appear in court to sign them over. http://www.vegasinc.com/news/2011/dec/23/appeals-court-so-far-not-assisting-righthaven-auct/
The web site Righthaven lost was nothing really and I highly doubt it will bring in more than a dollar or two, if that.
However, the copyrights that Righthaven has control over now formerly belonged to the Las Vegas Review Journal because they are the one's who wrote and printed the articles.
So, it will be interesting to see if an auction of the copyrights of the articles that Righthaven controls is auctioned off to a Tom, Dick, Harry or Bonnie. Then, can those people who control the copyrights, then demand payment from the LVRJ for using those articles?
I think the goal of Righthaven was well founded- people were stealing entire articles from news sources and did not credit the news sources. Most bloggers who did this, did so innocently and if asked, they would have modified their behavior. However, there would also be some people who didn't care about copyrights and violated the copyright on purpose.
The LVRJ and Righthaven got greedy and included everyone in their lawsuits- innocent bloggers and the blatant violators. Righthaven got some settlements from the likes of Matt Drudge from the Drudge Report, Sharron Angle, from liberal groups, conservative groups and people who blog about puppies and cupcakes.
Once some lawyers got involved, many who volunteered their time, the Righthaven business model crumbled like a house of cards. They lost based on fair use, that Righthaven was not a law firm and that Righthaven did not properly own the copyrights. They also lied before the Federal judges, who then lost sympathy for Righthaven. Even though Righthaven has appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, they have lost at the level as well.
Because of the greed of the LVRJ and Righthaven, they may have destroyed or set back copyright laws for years to come and that is a shame because it will hurt those who have legitimate copyright claims in the news industry and probably writers of books, music, film and others and that is a shame.
So, buh bye Righthaven and see you in bankruptcy court.