RIAA Directed To Pay $68K In Attorneys Fees 192
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."
Noticed (Score:5, Interesting)
I do wonder if this really does cover costs though. I couldn't read the link the article posted too - busy - but I did read the New York City lawyer reply indicating he feels the dollar amount isn't enough. I am sure he has a better idea of costs then I do.
So is it the RIAA or is it Capitol Records? (Score:5, Interesting)
If, instead, we referred to the actual company(-ies) involved, it would let people know who is really filing these lawsuits. I realize that it's mostly the Big Four who are doing this, but I feel that just slapping the RIAA label onto everything clouds the discussion.
Re:This is great stuff (Score:4, Interesting)
Moreover, answering emails, phone calls, and voicemail are all billable time. Every attorney charges for those costs. They also charge for long distance airtime. "Billing twice" for attendance is also potentially billable if the services of both attorneys are integral or appropriate for the proceedings. If you've got two people at a meeting from one department, both get paid for the time they spent there. Why should lawyers eat the cost of extra bodies? What you're saying holds true if and only if the presence of more than one attorney is superfluous. Also, given that courts themselves charge attorneys up to $1 per page for photocopying, the $1.50 assessment has to be put into perspective. Copying isn't free--even if you do use Kinko's, there are other expenses related to punching, binding, and preparing documents for filing. I also happen to know that Kinko's charges $.08 for self-serve copies, at least around here, and that's with the corporate discount. They also have a tiered pricing system, but that's beside the point.
The examples you chose are not all pushing the envelope. Most of them are sane, standard, and assessed charges, in point of fact.
Re:Noticed (Score:4, Interesting)
In my experience (working with lawyers on public and high-profile corporate projects across the U.S.), even mid-level lawyers tend to make more than senior level architects and engineering consultants. For example, (again, IME) an expert engineering consultant (where by expert I mean someone who has 30+ years experience, P.E. registration, advanced degrees, and engineering methods named after them) would bill on the order of $300 per hour. I've seen entry level lawyers bill jobs at $225 per hour.
I would suspect that a typical lawyer would make far above what computer consultans make unless the consultant has a name like "Woz", "Tog", "Spolsky" or "Berners-Lee."
Re:This is why so many take the RIAA $3K settlemen (Score:4, Interesting)
Eh, I dunno. It looks like the lady still has $46k in fees to pay. She just doesn't have to pay the lawyer.
A $3k settlement would suck, but I'd sigh, whip out the credit card, and resign myself to not buying any goodies for the next month until it's paid off. $46k would basically ruin my life for the next couple years. I completely understand why people settle.
And the winner in all of this is . . . ME (Score:2, Interesting)
That's their point, and it's tricky. (Score:5, Interesting)
Boycotting the big fours is a good start, but a good thing would be RIAA-tracking sites like http://www.riaaradar.com/ [riaaradar.com] or some other way people can know. It's very difficult, since idependent labels might have a joint venture with a small RIAA member, but it's probably possible to turn it into some kind of "rotten" percentage.
The problem is how to make it easy to use. A user-friendly, but probably infeasible solution would be if you just took a picture of the bar code of an album, then submitted that image to a search function that would immediately return all the dirt of any company involved in releasing said album.
Re:Noticed (Score:3, Interesting)
You're assuming they get to bill 40 hours per week, and have no costs. They have to spend some of their time on non-billable running-the-business work, possibly pay secretaries and legal researchers, rent, malpractise insurance, attending conferences...
IANAL, so I don't know what the overheads are like, but they'll be a non-negligable fraction of that $400,000.
Re:Objection: misleading the jury (Score:2, Interesting)
I disagree.
Let's assume legal fees are 100k for both sides. If RIAA have to pay 60k extra for every tenth or so trial the average cost is increasing less than 10% - a marginal change.
On the other hand fear factor is not going down, the defendant still lost 40k, at least few years worth of income (after rent, etc.).
Now think about how much the losers have to pay RIAA, and how much money they get in out-of-court settlements. So even if RIAA loses two thirds of the cases (and have to pay) I think they still would be winning (monetary wise). Not as much as previously, but enough not to stop their racketeering activities.
Re:Exactly (Score:2, Interesting)
Nah, I used to love music. It used to make me happy and make me think about wonderful things. It used to excite me and relax me, whichever I needed at the time of listening to it.
I bought about a half-dozen of CD's every month, of many different kinds of music. I lovest finding new music and listening to it.
Until this shit started. Almost every time I hear new music now, it makes me think of sleazy bastards in a courtroom, or lying producers with unfounded promises of wealth to naive beginning bandmembers. It now often just makes me angry.
Sometimes it doesn't, but that is very rare now: I have bought four CD's in the last four years.
Maybe someday, when the musicians, bands, and artist shed themselves from the bastards and sleazebags, when music re-discovers their soul, their power to inspire, maybe then I'll feel the 'vibe' too and spend my dollars on music.
Until that day comes, oh I still have some old music that I like, and I'm beginning to get used to hearing the sounds of nature, you know, that what you hear outside of the city when you turn off the music...
The 'Music Industry', that is sooooo 20st century...
Does that come with high-fructore corn syrup or aspartame? No thanks anyway.
Re:Noticed (Score:5, Interesting)
10 hours @ 200$/hr = 2000$
6 faxes @ 4 each = 24$
long distance 80m@.90/m = 72$
court filing fees = 135$ (3x45$)
mediation fees = 980$
GST = 336$
(the GST is the federal level tax at 7%, no the math does not work out, amount listed is for GST on total bill (4800$) while I am only providing selected excerpts to illustrate my point.)
My wife has an excellent lawyer, the antithesis of all those lawyer jokes you've heard. However, note that while he makes 200/hr, this is only when he is in court for us. (Each appearance seems to be rounded to the nearest half hour in the detailed bill.) On the other hand, he "nickel and dimes" us for absolutely everything done on our behalf. I am quite sure that he charges 4$ per fax because that is the pro-rated amount it costs him to have an employee handle those. Similarly, while he charges more than the prime rate for long distance, I suspect that this rate also includes the basic overhead of having the multi-line phone set up in the first place. He charges a much lower rate when simply meeting us and the ex in a conference room in his own offices, a fee which probably not only covers his time, but the space as well.
Finally, GST applies to everything except the court filings themselves. My wife was charged almost 5 grand for a comparatively simple case being handled by a small town lawyer. Based on her experiences, I can easily see a battle against a RIAA suit going into the six figures. Where many people go wrong when figuring legal costs is to assume that the entire sum is based purely on "billable hours". Quite often that final sum will include a LOT of little things like faxes or phone calls. While not as large a percentage of the total as the main billable hours, it's not negligible either.
Re:Noticed (Score:3, Interesting)
Forget doctors and lawyers. You want to hear the story of low pay per unit of schooling, become an academic. It's much better now that I'm a full prof, but I'm married so I don't get to bang coeds any more. I need to take a closer look at that contract...
They didn't nickle and dime her (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Ouch for the defense lawyers (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Noticed (Score:2, Interesting)
With that kind of change being thrown around, $68k comes pretty quick.