Righthaven LLC v. Hoehn, No. 11-16751 (9th Cir. 2013)
Annotate this CasePlaintiff filed separate copyright infringement suits against defendants for posting articles from the Las Vegas Review-Journal online without authorization. In consolidated appeals, the court agreed with the district court that plaintiff lacked standing in both cases because agreements assigning plaintiff the bare right to sue for infringement did not transfer any associated exclusive rights under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 101 et seq. Because plaintiff lacked standing, the court also concluded that the court lacked jurisdiction to rule on the merits of the fair use claim. Therefore, the court affirmed the motions to dismiss in both cases, but vacated the portion of the district court order in Hoehn granting summary judgment on fair use.
Court Description: Copyright. The panel affirmed the dismissal for lack of standing of two copyright infringement suits and vacated the portion of the district court’s order granting summary judgment on fair use in one of the suits. The panel held that agreements assigning plaintiff Righthaven LLC the bare right to sue for infringement of newspaper articles, without the transfer of any associated exclusive rights in the articles, did not confer standing to sue. The panel held that the district court therefore lacked jurisdiction to rule in the alternative on the fair use defense.
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