Judge to copyright troll: your lawsuits are shams, give it up

This is a devastating loss for Righthaven.

Among other things:

1. The core defect exposed by this ruling - Righthaven's lack of standing to bring any claims for copyright infringement - applies to all 200 RH cases pending in Nevada and likely those in Colorado as well.

2. The defect can't be fixed as to the existing cases, putting all pending RH cases in jeopardy.

3. The judge found serious procedural misconduct by RH and gave it two weeks to "show cause," in writing, why it should not be sanctioned. Court rules say you have to disclose the name of anyone who has a financial stake in the litigation. RH failed to do so concerning Stephens Media, which holds a 50% right to any recovery. It failed to do so in any of the 200 cases filed in Nevada, leaving the judge seriously disturbed by this and by other RH misrepresentations made to the court. Thus, not only will RH likely get bounced in all its cases, it will probably have to pay a pretty penny for having abused the court's processes in putting on its charade. No more devastating outcome could be imagined for a litigation campaign of this type.

4. Perhaps the most interesting tidbit that came out: in an editorial, Sherman Frederick, formerly of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, had threatened to introduce his "little friend called Righthaven" to those who published his paper's content, an unmistakable reference to Al Pacino's "little friend" in the movie Scarface, an M-16 machine gun with grenade launcher - capturing in brief the hubris behind the whole RH campaign and perhaps more than anything else explaining why this judge has decided to make RH pay for that hubris.

An appeal is inevitable but, for now, RH is watching its business model crumble.

I believe in this case the judge found that there's no legal ability for Righthaven to be a plaintiff in a copyright case where they don't own the rights to the actual IP.