Obitutary: Righthaven Dies Today

From the Las Vegas Sun: Like a gunfighter with no bullets, Las Vegas copyright company Righthaven LLC no longer has any copyrights to sue over.
A federal judge in Las Vegas on Monday stripped Righthaven of whatever interests it has in its 278 federal copyright registrations as well as its trademark.
Judge Philip Pro ordered that the copyrights and trademarks be transferred to a court-appointed receiver so they can be auctioned to cover some of Righthaven’s debts.
Righthaven gained notoriety beginning two years ago when it started filing no-warning copyright infringement lawsuits over material from the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Denver Post.
Righthaven, in its 275 lawsuits, targeted individuals, nonprofit groups and companies it said posted material from those papers online without authorization.
Righthaven said the suits were needed to crack down on rampant copyright infringement, but defense attorneys said Righthaven was running a lawsuit shakedown operation aimed at coercing defendants into settling so Righthaven could earn a profit.
As the lawsuits progressed, judges sided with defendants. In four cases they ruled defendants were protected by the fair use doctrine of copyright law.
Also, eight judges in three states ruled Righthaven lacked standing to sue.
Righthaven claimed to own the material it was suing over, but judges found that under flawed copyright assignments, the newspapers actually maintained control of that content. That meant Righthaven had no standing to sue.
Righthaven, even while accumulating legal expenses to appeal several of the adverse court rulings, has lately said it has no cash or assets to pay its debts, including $186,680 in legal fees of defendants who defeated it in court.
Pro’s ruling came Monday in the case of defendant Wayne Hoehn, whose attorneys are owed $34,045 by Righthaven.
Hoehn was sued for posting an entire R-J column on a sports betting website message board. His attorneys defeated Righthaven on both standing and fair use grounds.
http://www.vegasinc.com/news/2012/mar/05/judge-strips-righthaven-rights-278-copyrights-and-/
Unlike most bloggers out there, I think Righthaven had the right idea but just went about it wrong.  Righthaven is correct that many blogs abused the copyright laws, but instead of suing them right away, they should have sent a letter informing the blog owner of the law.  If the blog owner ignores them, then sue them and their case would be almost airtight.
So, Righthaven went belly up today, they have nothing to sue for and they haven't sued anyone since late 2009 .
So, RIP, Righthaven, sometimes it's good to see you go.