Kicking Righthaven to the Curb

TechDirt.com reports on the amicus brief filed by Todd Kincannon of South Carolina in one of the Righthaven suits, pointing out that what Righthaven is doing has been found repeatedly by many courts to be the "unauthorized practice of law," because they are not a law firm.  There's an even more impressive amicus brief by Kincannon that has not yet been filed for Colorado along the same lines.

Vegas Inc. reports that attorneys for Wayne Hoehn, who prevailed in a legal battle with Righthaven, is demanding attorney fees:

U.S. District Court Judge Philip Pro in Las Vegas on June 20 dealt Righthaven a double blow when he found Kentucky resident Wayne Hoehn was protected by fair use in posting an entire Las Vegas Review-Journal column on a sports website; and that Righthaven didn’t have standing to sue over the post.

Righthaven has hinted it may appeal Pro’s ruling but as of Tuesday morning had not done so. Hoehn’s attorneys, in the meantime, submitted a $34,000 bill to Pro on Tuesday and asked that he require Righthaven to pay it.

Part of why my co-defendant and I caved when we were sued is because we were expecting a legal bill of about that size if we had fought Righthaven, and we did not yet know that Righthaven's complaint was based on a false claim of owning the copyright.  That's not a trivial amount of money.