Insolvency
On September 7, 2011, Legal Wings Inc., a process server used by Righthaven between May and October 2010, filed a lawsuit against Righthaven in Las Vegas Township Justice Court for unpaid bills valued at $5,670.
On September 8, 2011, the MediaNews Group, which is the publisher of a number of newspapers including the Denver Post, announced it was terminating its deal with Righthaven at the end of the month, and called it a "dumb idea". The new CEO of the company, John Paton, said he would not have entered into such a deal, had he been CEO at the time of the decision.
On October 26, 2011, Righthaven was ordered to pay $119,488 in attorney's fees and court costs in the case of Righthaven v Thomas DiBiase.
On October 29, 2011, the defendant from Righthaven v Wayne Hoehn asked a Nevada court to award the seizure of the company's bank accounts and property to provide for the payment of the $34,045.50 fee from the August 2011 ruling. The company had previously delayed the payment to avoid bankruptcy.
On November 1, 2011, the Nevada court authorized the US Marshals Service to use reasonable force to seize the debt in cash and assets from the company. The total amount of outstanding debt had ballooned to over $63,000, with the additional costs and fees from the delay. When it was discovered that the company bank account held less than $1,000, the court issued an order for Righthaven to turn over its intellectual property to a court-appointed receiver to be sold at auction. Righthaven did not comply by the December 19, 2011 deadline, and filed an emergency appeal with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to stop the auction from going forward, a motion which was rejected on January 10, 2012.
On December 21, 2011, the righthaven.com domain name was transferred to the receiver for auction. On January 6, 2012, the righthaven.com domain name sold for $3,300 to a Switzerland-based hosting service with the stated goal of protecting clients against "frivolous or overly aggressive take-down tactics".
On March 13, 2013, what copyrights Righthaven held regarding Stephens Media assets were sold off in order to satisfy financial obligations. Proceeds from the sale were divided between the receivers of the Righthaven Receivership Estate, the litigant Wayne Hoehn, and Hoehn's lawyer, Marc Randazza. As stated by the receiver, "…Righthaven’s rights acquired from Stephens Media were sold back to their original source in a commercially reasonable manner, as no other market existed for them."
Read more about this topic: Steven A. Gibson, Lawsuits