5 ms·

EFF explains why Righthaven's copyright assignment is a sham

31 points by grellas 16y ago

bluedanieru 16y ago
This is great for current defendants I guess, for now. Perhaps I'm confused and this is a bigger deal than I thought, but won't Stephens Media and Righthaven just modify their agreement and then get right back into the copyright-trolling 'business'?
- rhizome 16y ago
  Modify their agreement how, by signing over their copyrights? I highly doubt that would happen, especially when working with a company like Righthaven who now has documented shadiness. Would you trust RH not to skip off with your family jewels? Having the actual copyrights is required for standing to sue for damages, that's why they got smacked down.
teyc 16y ago
If only the following can be applied to patent trolls. Righthaven has continued to assert that it is entitled to a presumption of harm to its market for the work, which makes no sense given that it is contractually prohibited from exploiting the work financially. How about a scheme where people who hold patent portfolios but do nothing with it would be classified as an absentee landlord and temporarily lose their right to block other parties from exploiting it?
jrockway 16y ago
Clearly Righthaven should have provided some stickers in exchange for the copyrights. Then it would have been all good. (When the FSF sends you a copyright assignment form, they send you some GNU stickers. The document says something like, "in exchange for these stickers valued at $1, I provide FSF a non-exclusive copyright assignment." You get stickers, they get software, and it's apparently all good.)
- logic 16y ago
  Funny, but not quite right. :) In this case, I think it can be reasonably argued that Stevens Media and others aren't actually assigning copyright, although their verbal maneuvering would like you to think that they are: 7.2 Despite any such Copyright Assignment, Stephens Media shall retain (and is hereby granted by Righthaven) an exclusive license to Exploit the Stephens Media Assigned Copyrights for any lawful purpose whatsoever and Righthaven shall have no right or license to Exploit or participate in the receipt of royalties from the Exploitation of the Stephens Media Assigned Copyrights other than the right to proceeds in association with a Recovery. They're basically saying that Stevens Media is assigning copyright to Righthaven, but retains a license to do whatever they want with the content. So far, so good. The part that's tricky is: they're trying to constrain what Righthaven can do as the new copyright holder, ie. you own this, but you can't do anything that someone who would normally own a thing can do. In other words, it's a sham assignment.

31 points by grellas 16y ago

This is great for current defendants I guess, for now. Perhaps I'm confused and this is a bigger deal than I thought, but won't Stephens Media and Righthaven just modify their agreement and then get right back into the copyright-trolling 'business'?

rhizome 16y ago
Modify their agreement how, by signing over their copyrights? I highly doubt that would happen, especially when working with a company like Righthaven who now has documented shadiness. Would you trust RH not to skip off with your family jewels? Having the actual copyrights is required for standing to sue for damages, that's why they got smacked down.

teyc 16y ago

If only the following can be applied to patent trolls. Righthaven has continued to assert that it is entitled to a presumption of harm to its market for the work, which makes no sense given that it is contractually prohibited from exploiting the work financially. How about a scheme where people who hold patent portfolios but do nothing with it would be classified as an absentee landlord and temporarily lose their right to block other parties from exploiting it?

jrockway 16y ago

Clearly Righthaven should have provided some stickers in exchange for the copyrights. Then it would have been all good. (When the FSF sends you a copyright assignment form, they send you some GNU stickers. The document says something like, "in exchange for these stickers valued at $1, I provide FSF a non-exclusive copyright assignment." You get stickers, they get software, and it's apparently all good.)

logic 16y ago
Funny, but not quite right. :) In this case, I think it can be reasonably argued that Stevens Media and others aren't actually assigning copyright, although their verbal maneuvering would like you to think that they are: 7.2 Despite any such Copyright Assignment, Stephens Media shall retain (and is hereby granted by Righthaven) an exclusive license to Exploit the Stephens Media Assigned Copyrights for any lawful purpose whatsoever and Righthaven shall have no right or license to Exploit or participate in the receipt of royalties from the Exploitation of the Stephens Media Assigned Copyrights other than the right to proceeds in association with a Recovery. They're basically saying that Stevens Media is assigning copyright to Righthaven, but retains a license to do whatever they want with the content. So far, so good. The part that's tricky is: they're trying to constrain what Righthaven can do as the new copyright holder, ie. you own this, but you can't do anything that someone who would normally own a thing can do. In other words, it's a sham assignment.