RIAA Directed To Pay $68K In Attorneys Fees

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In Capitol v. Foster, in Oklahoma, the RIAA has been directed to pay the defendant $68,685.23 in attorneys fees. This is the first instance of which I am aware of the RIAA being ordered to pay the defendant attorneys fees. The judge in this case has criticized the RIAA's lawyers' motives as 'questionable,' and their legal theories as 'marginal' (PDF). Although the judge had previously ordered the RIAA to turn over its own attorneys billing records, today's decision (PDF) made no mention of the amount that the RIAA had spent on its own lawyers."

And the winner in all of this is . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

the lawyers, of course.

Sad

[GizmoToy]

It's sad when it costs you $70,000 to defend yourself against an RIAA suit. At least in this case the RIAA had to pay for the defense's lawyers, but there have been plenty of others were the defendants were on their own when all was said and done. On top of that, the RIAA is well aware of the costs of defending against their lawsuit and uses this cost to force people into settlements.

The whole situation makes me sick.

Re:So

[ChromeAeonium]

They should have to buy $68K worth of CDs, then give the defendant $150,000 for each song on each individual CD.

This is why so many take the RIAA $3K settlement..

[Newer Guy]

This is exactly the reason why so many capitulate and take the RIAA $3000.00 settlement. maybe, just maybe people will begin fighting these RIAA thugs in suits because of this ruling.

Re:And the winner in all of this is . . .

[tehwebguy]

Yes, but at least that is motivation for lawyers to take on more cases like this. Hopefully this will benefit people who could not afford a decent lawyer normally.

Re:Sad

[chuckymonkey]

I agree, it is sick. I can only hope that this becomes a trend for companies trying to sue their way into a profit margin through fear. It's ugly and despicable that it has even gone this far before someone was awarded their lawyer fees.

Exactly

[Rix]

Even if they did end up paying all her legal fees, plus interest, plus lost wages, the MAFIAA would still be ahead.

The point of these lawsuits isn't to recover "damages". It's to frighten the rest of the country into acting the way they want them to. If their skin were a little darker, it would be called "terrorism".

Re:Noticed

[beadfulthings]

The court order referred to in the article states that "reasonable attorney's fees" should be set at somewhere between $175 and $225 per hour. That seems a bit low by comparison with what senior attorneys make around here. (Here being the East Coast.) If you think about it, even a higher hourly rate for a lawyer would be fairly well in line with what's commanded by other skilled and/or professional individuals--including computer consultants. It's interesting to stop and think what the doctor who takes out your appendix earns in an hour. The woman's actual bills as submitted summed up to a little over $114,000. That included a lot of other expenses besides attorney fees, including fees paid to expert witnesses. The RIAA seems to have put up quite a fight of their own, and they've succeeded in whittling down the sum to be awarded to the plaintiff.

The problem is that not everybody has $68,000 or $114,000 or even a few thousand dollars to put up that kind of fight. If it's beneficial to continue to carry the fight back to the RIAA in this manner, it's going to take a combination of well-heeled individuals and civic-minded lawyers.

After I read the article and the document, a chilling thought occurred: If the RIAA knows that certain people have the means to turn and fight, will they then concentrate their efforts on those people without the means? That would be students, children, the elderly, people just starting their careers, people working at lower-paying jobs.

Re:This is great stuff

[darkmeridian]

Now the decision and order has loaded, it seems that the defendant and her attorneys engaged in gamesmanship and got caught by the judge.

The defendant's attorneys charged for costs associated with answering e-mails, phone calls, and leaving voice mails. He also billed the same work twice by having two attorneys attend the same motion hearings. The Court got real pissy and took away some hours that it thought were due to the incompetence of the defendant's attorneys resulting in things having to be done twice.

Most tellingly, the Court was annoyed that half of the attorneys fees demanded were incurred after the defendant had been declared the victor and had already initially filed for attorneys fees. It seemed that the defendants/his attorneys belatedly realized that they were going to file for fees and had to rack up the hours. The Court found that there was an "increased, almost frenetic activity on the part of counsel for the defendant after it was determined that Defendant was the prevailing party" and was thereby eligible for attorneys fees.

And the defendant's attorney was trying to get away with $1.50 for each photocopied page. The Court granted them $.20. Kinko's charges $0.02.

So it sounds like I was right -- the defendant's attorney was running up the fee request by asking for things that no sane client would ever pay, and no sane attorney would ever ask from a real-life paying customer.

Chutzpah

[Bob9113]

From the filing:
[Plaintiffs] further argue that the defendant is not entitled to fees for work that could have been avoided had she assisted the plaintiffs or acceded to the settlement.

She can't charge for attorneys' fees because she decided not to settle? Does that imply that if she had settled, she would have gotten attorneys' fees? What planet are these people from?

Finally, [plaintiffs] contend the case was of too simple and mundane a nature to warrant a fee in excess of $100,000.

Yet they see nothing wrong with a fine of $100,000 per violation for copyright infringement.

How did the judge feel about this?

The plaintiffs argue that the defendant is not entitled to fees incurred after some point when she allegedly "could have avoided [fees] altogether but chose not to do so." Throughout the course of this litigation the plaintiffs have alleged that had the defendant appropriately assisted their copyright infringement investigation and litigation, she could have avoided being sued. The Court has rejected this argument on numerous occasions and declines to entertain it yet again. The defendant was entitled to litigate the claims the plaintiffs chose to bring against her and, as the prevailing party on those claims, she is entitled to recover the reasonable attorneys' fees she incurred in doing so.

Or, in layman's terms: Did your Mom drop you on your head when you were little?

Pro Bono

[arth1]

It should of course come from the lawyer, who does it at a personal loss. Much like when I set up computers and networking for non-profit charity, I don't charge anyone for those hours, but accept that I won't be paid for those hours, and thus make less. If I charged other clients more to cover getting paid for those hours too, I would be committing fraud.

Re:Noticed

[panaceaa]

I'm personally waiting for TV commercials saying, "Have you been threatened by a record company accusing you of copyright infringement? Get the justice you deserve!!"

Once these commercials are plastered all over Judge Judy's commercial breaks, I bet the record companies will stop their foolishness.

Re:Objection: misleading the jury

[borizz]

That's just not how it should work. RIAA* sued, RIAA were wrong, RIAA pay. The woman did nothing wrong and thus should not have to pay for anything.

* Yes, I know it's not the RIAA that's doing the sueing...

Two points

[benhocking]

1. Don't think the US is unique in this regard.
2. The "richest" lost this case and have to pay the legal fees of the defendant. How is this revolting?

Cost of doing business

[benhocking]

The RIAA members will merely consider it the cost of doing business.

This is almost definitely true. Just like car manufacturers have actuaries that calculate the expected number of deaths from a design flaw and whether they can withstand the expected legal costs, etc., I have no doubt that the RIAA is doing exactly the same thing here.

However, and this is an important point, this ruling has just increased the cost of doing business "as usual" for the RIAA. Their actuaries suddenly have to adjust the parameters in their equations accordingly. That makes this ruling a good thing and not revolting, IMO.

Re:Objection: misleading the jury

[Sephiro444]

This is not necessarily the case

In asking for over $100,000 in her request for attorney fees, the defendant used a lodestar method of calculating the fee (which is really just a fancy way of saying multiple reasonable number of hours by a reasonable rate and that's what you pay). She said $175/hr was reasonable for one of her attorneys and $225/hr was reasonable for the other, but she gave no reason for the increased rate for the second attorney. IN FACT, $175/hr was the rate she agreed upon rate, so I'm not so sure that request wasn't an attempt to reap a windfall.

As far as the reasonableness of the number of hours, the defendant's lawyers used a block billing style that made it very difficult to determine what hours were spent on what (and the attorney's fees award was for only part of the case, not simply "everything she would have paid the attorneys"). Both sides submitted expert evidence of how reasonable or unreasonable the hours were, and the court agreed with Capitol Record's more detailed analysis.

So ultimately will she have to pay something? Probably, but you can blame HER lawyers for that, not the court. Lack of detail in the billing records, unexplained increases in hourly rates, and an INCREASE (rather than a decrease, what they're supposed to do) in hours after they thought they could get fee shifting, made it look like the defendant's lawyers were trying to take the plaintiff for a ride. And the court agreed.

Unfortuntately for them...

[mengel]

Unfortunately for them,in the minds of the public (and especially the teenager / college student public, who used to buy most of the music), they (the RIAA) have become the Sherrif of Nottingham, and folks like the defendant in this case are Robin Hoods.

That kind of publicity they can do without, as it will turn their prophecies (of internet music sharing being the doom of the music industry) into self-fulfilling prophecies.

Absolutely

[benhocking]

I wasn't trying to insult anyone (car manufactures or the RIAA) by the comparison, just stating that I'm sure they both use actuaries to calculate expected costs, etc. You're absolutely right that there's no simple ethical choice that is obviously correct. One has to, at the end of the day, attribute some dollar value to an anonymous human life if you want to decide algorithmically on the best course of action. Saving everyone's lives (if it were possible) at the cost of abject poverty and misery probably isn't the most ethical thing to do. Allowing people to make their own choices (and not hiding the actual risks from them), I think is more ethical, although it is admittedly never black and white. As you say, let them decide between the $20k car and $100k car.

On a side note, I was on a trial a while back where we were deciding how much money to award a plaintiff for the loss of a father. We all agreed rather quickly on the liability of the defendant, and we agreed very easily on a reasonable figure for the expected lifetime earnings, but the hardest part was trying to decide what was the value of a father? More than one juror (rightly) pointed out that one could not put a price tag on that. However, (and I'm not sure I ever completely conveyed this point to one of them), by not putting a price tag on that, we were effectively putting a price tag of $0 on it. I don't want to give all the details, but I am satisfied with the final dollar value that we came up with.