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The Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) is helping struggling "Copyright Troll" Righthaven by filing an amicus brief to support sections of Righthaven's case. The Association of American Publishers (AAP) is also joining the case.

The case involved is the one Righthaven filed against Wayne Hoehn alleging copyright infringement over a newspaper article that Hoehn had reposted on a message board. The judge has already ruled in favour of Hoehn, throwing out Righthaven's case, and has even ordered Righthaven to pay for Mr. Hoehn's legal costs. The court's ruling hinged on two decisions, one that Righthaven did not have standing to sue Hoehn due to contractual issues with the right holders, Stephens Media, and two, Hoehn had fair use rights in relation to non-profit reposting of the newspaper article.

But seeing a major fair use copyright decision going against their way, the RIAA and AAP are stepping up in support of parts of Righthaven's case, even though they say they're only filing "neutral" briefs.

The RIAA/AAP's claim is that, since Righthaven had not standing in the court's eyes, that there cannot be any "fair use" related rulings, and thus avoiding setting a precedent that could hurt the music and book industry's future litigation, political lobbying, attempts. 

This claim, however, has been shot down by the defendant's lawyer, Marc Randazza, as being not exactly "neutral". 

"You stated that your clients intend to pay you to file a 'neutral' brief, which would be 'not in support of either party.' Once you elaborated, you shared that your clients intend to argue that Righthaven’s lack of standing precluded the District of Nevada from making a finding of fair use.

This is precisely the sum and substance of Righthaven’s argument, and thus I consider any claims of this being 'neutral' or 'not in support of either party,' to be untruthful," wrote Randazza in a letter to the lawyers representing the RIAA/AAP in this matter.