On Wednesday, October 26, 2011, Las Vegas company named Righthaven LLC was ordered by a federal court judge to pay $119,488 in attorneys fees and costs. This past summer, federal judge Roger Hunt dismissed Righthaven’s lawsuit against former federal prosecutor Thomas DiBiase on the basis that Righthaven did not have standing to file its lawsuit.

The basis of Righthaven’s lawsuit was essentially that DiBiase, who maintained a nonprofit website on murder cases, including suspected murder cases where no body has been found but authorities suspect the cause of death is murder. Last year, Righthaven filed suit against DiBiase claiming DiBiase posted a murder story on his website without authorization by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Righthaven claims it had standing to file the suit against DiBiase on the basis of its lawsuit contract with Las Vegas Review-Journal owner Stephens Media LLC.

DiBiase’s attorneys, at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, argued that DiBiase was performing a public service by posting information on his nonprofit website, i.e. that DiBaise’s website assisted law enforcement in bringing justice to crime victims, and that DiBiase’s online postings are protected by the fair use exception in copyright law.

Federal Judge Roger Hunt ultimately dismissed the case on the basis that Righthaven did not have standing to file the suit against DiBiase and made no findings on DiBiase’s fair use argument. However, Judge Hunt did rule that Righthaven had wrongly been claiming it had the right to seize DiBiase’s website domain names, which is a standard lawsuit demand often criticized by attorneys as simply a way for plaintiffs to push early settlement.

Unfortunately, for Righthaven, the Copyright Act states that the prevailing party may recover reasonable attorney’s fees and costs. Since the court granted DiBiase’s motion to dismiss earlier this summer, DiBiase is deemed the prevailing party. Judge Hunt made clear that his decision ordering Righthaven to pay nearly $120,000 in attorneys fees was based in part on various factors including “frivolousness”, “motivation”, and “objective reasonableness.”