Troubled copyright outfit Righthaven has to hand over its hard-drives or its CEO has to pay $500 a day.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Peggy Leen in Las Vegas told Righthaven to turn over to a creditor hard drives from its computers so the creditor could determine if Righthaven has any assets that can be liquidated. She gave Righthaven two weeks to surrender the drives or mirror images of them and said noncompliance would result in a daily sanction of $500 against the company and its CEO.

Righthaven CEO and Las Vegas attorney Steven Gibson fired off a letter to Righthaven’s attorney, Shawn Mangano, ordering him to comply with the directive. This is the latest in a yearlong effort by the creditor, former federal prosecutor Thomas DiBiase, to recover $119,488 in legal fees he was awarded after he beat back the Righthaven suit against him. Righthaven owes DiBiase and other creditors $318,000 for legal fees after Righthaven failed with its copyright lawsuits against them.

Righthaven partnered with the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Denver Post to file 275 no-warning copyright infringement lawsuits in 2010 and 2011 against parties that used content from those papers without authorisation. But the whole thing backfired after three Judges rejected the lawsuits because Righthaven lacked standing as the newspapers — not Righthaven. Some defendants also were cleared by the fair use concept in copyright law allowing some uses of copyrighted material within limits.

Afterwards the company shut down and said it was broke.