Copyright assertion entities must have the exclusive rights
Copyright assertion entities must have the exclusive rights to a copyrighted work to sue for infringement under the Copyright Act, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said (http://1.usa.gov/15t3ccT), affirming the dismissal of Righthaven v. Hoehn. “Merely calling someone a…
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copyright owner does not make it so,” Judge Richard Clifton wrote in the decision that upheld the U.S. District Court in Las Vegas’s decision to dismiss the case. The case was against two individuals who republished online material from the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Under an agreement between the paper’s owner Stephens Media and Righthaven, the latter was granted limited rights for the copyrighted content, which did not include exclusive rights, the ruling said. “The assignment of the bare right to sue for infringement, without the transfer of an associated exclusive right, is impermissible under the Copyright Act.” Because Righthaven did not have standing to sue for infringement, the district court should not have “analyzed the merits of the fair use defense and granted the motion for summary judgment,” Clifton said.