Righthaven hit with class-action counterclaim

Righthaven hit with class-action counterclaim
Vegas Inc. ^ | May 17th 2011 | Staff

Posted on Tuesday, May 17, 2011 7:00:01 PM by Cardhu

One of the website operators accused of copyright infringement by Righthaven LLC has retaliated, hitting the Las Vegas company with a class-action counterclaim seeking to represent defendants in all 57 Righthaven cases in Colorado.
While the counterclaim mentions all 275 Righthaven lawsuits, it covers only those filed in Colorado.

It charges defendants in all the Righthaven lawsuits "are victims of extortion litigation by Righthaven, which has made such extortion litigation a part of its, if not its entire, business model."

"As a result of Righthaven’s unlawful actions, class plaintiffs and members of the proposed class were forced either to fight needless litigation or to pay Righthaven a settlement fee, which they would not have had to pay, had Righthaven engaged in legitimate business practices," charges the counterclaim, which specifically accuses Righthaven of violating Colorado’s law against unfair and deceptive trade practices.

The counterclaim says Righthaven has victimized defendants by failing to send takedown notices prior to suing, by threatening to take their website domain names when that’s not provided for under the federal Copyright Act, by falsely claiming it owns the copyrights at issue and by failing to investigate jurisdictional and fair use issues before suing, among other things.

The claim seeks an adjudication that Righthaven’s copyright infringement lawsuits amount to unfair and deceptive trade practices under Colorado law, an injunction permanently enjoining Righthaven from continuing the alleged unfair and deceptive trade practices, an unspecified financial award to the class-action plaintiffs for damages as well as their costs and attorney’s fees

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