Righthaven v. Leland Wolf

On September 27, 2010, Judge John Kane of the District Court for the District of Colorado issued an opinion and order dismissing the matter of Righthaven v. Leland Wolf.

Late last year, the Denver Post published a photograph of a TSA agent performing an enhanced pat-down search at Denver International Airport.  The photograph was originally owned by that newspaper, but at some point after its initial publication the copyright was purportedly transferred to  Righthaven.  Righthaven, an organization many are calling a "copyright troll," filed fifty-seven lawsuits against bloggers and others who had displayed the photograph without permission.

At issue was whether Righthaven had standing to bring a copyright infringement lawsuit against Wolf.  The court said "no."   According to the Court, Righthaven had obtained neither "legal ownership" nor "beneficial ownership" of an exclusive right in the copyrighted photograph and therefore lacked standing to sue under 17 U.S.C. 501. This is because Righthaven had obtained no interest from the newspaper other than the right to proceeds from infringement actions. According to the Court, Righthaven held no underlying copyright, rather it held only a "bare right to sue for infringement - no more, no less." 

The Court refused to recognize the free assignment of the right to sue for infringement, as permitted by the Fifth Circuit in Prather v. Neva Paperbacks, Inc., 410 F.2d 698 (5th Cir. 1969), as to do so would "skew[] the delicate balance which underlies federal copyright law." The Court wrote:

"A third-party who has been assigned the bare right to sue for infringement has no interest in the legal dissemination of the copyrighted material.  On the contrary, that party derives its sole economic benefit by instituting claims of infringement, a course of action which necessarily limits public access to the copyrighted work. This prioritizes economic benefit over public access, in direct contradiction to the constitutionally mandated equilibrium upon which copyright law is based."

On this basis, the court granted summary judgment in favor of Leland Wolf, and, in light of what Judge Kane stated is a need to discourage the abuse of the statutory remedies for copyright infringement, ordered Righthaven to reimburse Mr. Wolf's full costs in defending the action, including attorney's fees.