for influence/termination of activities, the short answer is YES!
DU did survive...
December 8, 2010 | By Kurt Opsahl
Democratic Underground Responds to Righthaven Copyright Troll Lawsuit
Righthaven is attempting to make a business out of suing Internet websites for copyright infringement. It has filed 180 copyright actions so far —without ever first asking that a work be removed from the target website—in each case alleging “willful infringement” and attempting to extract settlements by threats of statutory damages (up to $150,000), attorneys’ fees and seizure of the domain name.
Democratic Underground -- represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Fenwick & West LLP, and attorney Chad Bowers -- was sued by Righthaven on August 10 for a five-sentence excerpt of a Las Vegas Review-Journal news story that a user posted on the forum, with a link back to the Review-Journal website.
Democratic Underground, a political message forum, refused to be intimidated by Righthaven’s action. They retained counsel and responded with a counterclaim that joined Righthaven’ affiliate and funder, Stephens Media, LLC (publisher of the Review-Journal), and laid bare the numerous defects not only in Righthaven’s claims, but in its business model itself. Not surprisingly, Righthaven now wants out—so badly, in fact, that it has moved to voluntarily dismiss its claim with prejudice in order to avoid a decision on the merits. However, Righthaven pleads to be let off the hook for Democratic Underground's fees and costs defending the lawsuit.
Democratic Underground responded to Righthaven's motion yesterday. DU agrees that this case should be over—indeed, it should never have started. But it should not end until Righthaven is called to account for the cost of the defense it provoked. To allow Righthaven to avoid compensating innocent defendants who refused to be coerced would be unjust and unsupportable. Accordingly, Democratic Underground asked the Court to deny the conditions Righthaven wrongfully proposed for the motion for voluntary dismissal and instead grant summary judgment in its favor.
link:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/12/democratic-underground-responds-righthaven
Here is what happened with the case... (A big thank-you to Newsjock for the article)
Ninth Circuit Vacates Fair Use Finding in Righthaven Case
Source: Bloomberg
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit sealed the fate of copyright enforcer Righthaven LLC today by ruling that the minima; "right to sue" copyright assignments that Righthaven acquired from newspaper publishers did not confer standing to sue third parties for copyright infringement.
So far, that's good news for bloggers and others who had been targetted by Righthaven. However, the Ninth Circuit's ruling contained a bit of bad news for them: along the way, the court vacated the lower court's ruling that the defendant's posting of the entirety of a copyighted article to an online discussion board was a protected fair use.
... With this part of the lower court's ruling in Hoehn swept aside, the high-water mark for fair use rights online is arguably another Righthaven case, Righthaven LLC v. Democratic Underground LLC, D. Nev., No. 2:10-cv-01356 (D. Nev., March 9, 2012), where the district court ruled that the posting a five-sentence excerpt of a fifty sentence news article on a political discussion forum was a fair use.
link:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014479380
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