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RIAA Appeals Award of Attorneys' Fees
Posted by
kdawson
on Thu Feb 22, 2007 01:14 PM
from the first-up-against-the-wall dept.
from the first-up-against-the-wall dept.
Fishing Expedition writes in with a story in Ars reporting that the RIAA has decided to appeal a judge's decision to award attorneys' fees to defendant Debbie Foster in Capitol Records v. Foster. If the award stands, the RIAA could find itself in trouble in numerous other cases, and they know it. Their real fear, more than the attorneys' fees, is the judge's finding that the RIAA's arguments for contributory and vicarious infringement claims in cases like this one are not viable.
Related Stories
[+]
RIAA Victim Wins Attorney's Fees 171 comments
VE3OGG writes "Debbie Foster, one of the many caught-up in the RIAA's drift-net attacks who was sued back in 2004 has recently seen yet another victory. After having the suit dropped against her "with prejudice" several months back, Foster filed a counter-claim, and has just been awarded "reasonable" attorney's fees. Could this, in conjunction with cases such as Santangelo, show a turning of the tide against the RIAA?"
[+]
News: RIAA Drops Tanya Andersen Case 164 comments
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "After 2 years, the RIAA has finally dropped its longstanding case against disabled single mother Tanya Andersen in Oregon, Atlantic v. Andersen. The dismissal (pdf) relates merely to the RIAA's claims against Ms. Andersen, and does not relate to her (a) claim for attorneys fees or (b) counterclaims against the RIAA, which are presently before the Court on a motion to dismiss. The counterclaims were first interposed in December 2005. This is the same case in which the RIAA insisted on taking a face to face deposition of a 10 year old girl. Prior to the case, neither the mother nor the child had ever even heard of file sharing."
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Why do we have to put up with this crap? (Score:2, Interesting)
Yashoor, yoobetcha! (Score:5, Funny)
Feeshing Ixpedeeshun vreetes in veet a stury in Ers repurteeng thet zee RIEA hes deceeded tu eppeel a joodge's deceesiun tu everd etturneys' fees tu deffendunt Debbeee-a Fuster in Cepeetul Recurds f. Fuster. Iff zee everd stunds, zee RIEA cuoold feend itselff in truooble-a in noomeruoos oozeer ceses, und zeey knoo it. Zeeur reel feer, mure-a thun zee etturneys' fees, is zee joodge's feending thet zee RIEE's ergooments fur cuntreebootury und feeceriuoos inffreengement cleeems in ceses leeke-a thees oone-a ere-a nut feeeble-a. Bork Bork Bork!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, instead of all these legal terms that I don't understand, I think he should have written the summary in pseudocode.
All jokes aside, I thought it was standard for the loser of a court case to have to pay the winner's lawyer fees. Let me clarify what I'm saying:
if (judge.decision().winner == defendant){
defendant.bankbalance += plaintiff.getmoney(defendant.fees);
}
Re:Why do we have to put up with this crap? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
if (judge.decision().winner == defendant && case.frivolous)
{
defendant.bankbalance += plaintiff.getmoney(defendant.fees);
) else {
defendant.bankbalance -= defendant.fees;
plaintiff.bankbalance -= plaintiff.fees;
}
}
i love pseudocode
seeing the light (Score:4, Funny)
Well, when you put it like that I really hope the judge sees the light and overturns the previous ruling...
Re:seeing the light (Score:5, Interesting)
What the RIAA *is* worried about is other people winning, for whatever reason, and there being prior judgments against them charging for attorney fees -- which means that people will be happy to go to court against them and possibly win meaning that the RIAA can't play the extortion game as well as they have been.
Parent
Re:seeing the light (Score:5, Informative)
Makes me want to keep not buying CDs.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I always wondered if hearing-impaired persons should get a refund of their portion of the fee when
Re:seeing the light (Score:5, Insightful)
-Eric
Parent
Re:seeing the light (Score:5, Informative)
It seems fair to me that the loser in a nuisance suit is forced to pay the winner's legal costs. A countersuit for damages would be even better.
Parent
Re:seeing the light (Score:4, Interesting)
It's less "an opinion that has no bases in fact" and more like a declaration that the sky is blue.
Parent
Re:seeing the light (Score:4, Funny)
Go Zig, For Justice!
Parent
Very difficult for RIAA to win (Score:4, Interesting)
Hence no upper court will overturn attorneys fees as RIAA has been proven wrong.
Risky, too (Score:5, Insightful)
If they lose this one, it sets a precedent.
Parent
won't someone think of the industry? (Score:5, Funny)
all they want to do is ruin people's lives! is that so wrong?
Parent
Re:Very difficult for RIAA to win (Score:5, Informative)
IANAL but being wrong in a lawsuit does not mean attorney's fees. In most cases no fees are awarded. Why the judge is awarding fees in this case is that despite proof that the defendant's daughter and not the defendant was the infringer, the RIAA chose to pursue the case further against the defendant. Nearly a year later on did they dismiss the case. There is a difference between being wrong after filing a suit and knowingly pursuing a suit that you know is wrong. Also the American Association of Law Libraries (AAL), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), ACLU of Oklahoma, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and Public Citizen joinly filed an amicus brief supporting the defendant's right to attorney fees. Their point was that attorney's fees are appropriate to remind the plaintiff that they cannot abuse the judicial system by suing people they know to be innocent.
Parent
Re:Very difficult for RIAA to win (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Very difficult for RIAA to win (Score:5, Insightful)
1. The RIAA is suing you. You have a 30,000$ a year income. You don't want to settle, but it will cost a lot by your standards to fight it, and even if you win, you will still be out those costs. Do You Fight It?
vrs.
2. The RIAA is suing you. You have a 30,000$ a year income. You don't want to settle, though it will still cost a lot by your standards to fight it, if you win now, it will all cost you nothing. Now Do You Fight It?
Now Imagine you are the RIAA and it should become even clearer.
1. You sue some chump making only 30,000$ a year. If that suit starts looking troublesome, you can drop it, and the chump can't force the case into court.
vrs.
2. You sue some chump making only 30,000$ a year. If that suit starts looking troublesome, you can drop it, but the chump can probably still force the case into court as part of getting a declaration that makes him eligble to recover his legal costs in a countersuit, and he may well be able to countersue just based on you dropping the case even if he doesn't yet have a not- guilty verdict. In other words, depending on jurisdictional issues, either he can force the case to go on, or dropping it is still legal, but it doesn't help you (the RIAA) avoid costs anymore. You have no control over how quick that chump rushed out and found a lawyer, or how much he agreed to pay that lawyer on contingency. If he hired OJ's entire defense team (those still living) that's what you risk having to pay for. Any precedent he gets applies to all the other suits you have outstanding, so if he can get 450,000$ in legal fees, it's possible the other 1,329 cases you have outstanding can all get them too. Your downside is now over 600 million dollars. All those cases you settled earlier, out of court where no precident was established? They aren't really settled now, unless the duration for appeals has also lapsed. If some Boston Legal sized firm takes one client's case, they will call all the new and old litigants that look promising, put together a whopping big countersuit, and your worst nightmare downside is now, at the very least, several billion dollars.
The RIAA thought that having all those cases where the accused just settled without a trial made them very strong. They are now at risk of finding out that all those cases are worth precisely zero against just one precedent. This is how the American legal system is supposed to work - let's hope it actually does.
Parent
You got one part wrong, I think (Score:4, Informative)
First of all, there was no court judgement, so there is nothing to appeal. Second, remember what settlement of a lawsuit generally means. I just about guarantee that the RIAA settlement offers included the stipulation that the defendant could not pursue any legal action against them. So those who have settled have already sold off that right.
Parent
Poor arguements! (Score:5, Insightful)
So let's get this straight, if the Judge sticks to his initial decision it will deter other copyright owners from filling more frivolous lawsuits? Heck, that sounds like a good reason to NOT change his mind!
-Rick
Re:Poor arguements! (Score:5, Insightful)
Translated: "Please help us to maintain our litigation business model."
I can feel what I hope is the collective "oh crap" eminating from the RIAA's 'new revenue' dept.
Parent
Re:Poor arguements! (Score:5, Informative)
Nope, they're going to claim that their "justified, in-good-faith suits, against people who they have evidence of infringement" (not a real quote) could see some impediment if they have to pay the legal bills of people for whom they have been unable to prove wrong-doing.
They want their cake, and to be able to eat it too. To date, their (and I agree with you) frivolous suits could be brought without proof, and without consequences if they are wrong. If they were wrong, they could just say "ooops, we tried", or, if someone hadn't the resources to even attempt to fight it, I bet they forced more than a few innocent people into settling and accepting blame -- because it would be cheaper than defending yourself.
If anything, this might finally give them some burden for evidentiary responsibility, and they can no longer use their tactics unless they are in posession of real evidence. To date, they can claim anything, put together sketchy evidence ("I have a screen shot"), and bully ISPs into handing over information. I think we all agree they need to be reigned in and given some better ground rules.
Lord only knows how the judge will view this, but let's hope you're right.
Cheers
Parent
Afraid of losing (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Afraid of losing (Score:5, Insightful)
The issue here is that they need to win 100% or the cases will all start to unravel.
The grandparent was implying, correctly, that this means they are living off fear to appeal rather than the law. If the law was absolutely on their side, they might allow for the fact that they are not going to get every sing case right and let things like this drop.
The fact that they are not willing to let go of a single case implies they know their house of cards isn't all that steady.
Parent
Courts = state sponsored corporate gambling (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's how it should be. Always. If you lose, you pay, with the theory that you'll learn your lesson and not do it again. Conversely, if they win, they get more money. It's a risk they took from the getgo, and have been getting away with it because there have been few real challenges against them.
Now that their business model is starting to show cracks, they now want the risk removed yet keep the reward.
Hopefully the judge would realize that removing paying attorney's fees would give even more insentive to lawsuits since they wouldn't worry about consequences if they lost.
This is the RIAA pitifully grasping at straws...
Re:Courts = state sponsored corporate gambling (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that no one would sue a large company paying $5000 an hour for attorneys, for fear of losing being more costly than any possible judgment from winning. The law should limit the loser to paying only as much as his or her own attorney fees to the winner. That way it only depends on how seriously each side takes its case, and realistically it will have the same effect where it matters, namely where individuals need to sue large corporations. If they lose, they're only out twice as much as they would have paid their own lawyer, not $millions. If they win, the corporation almost certainly spent more than they did on lawyers, so they'll pay the whole bill. It makes even more sense when you consider that the corporation can essentially throw as many lawyers on the case as they want just to frighten an opponent with huge attorney fees because the lawyers are employees and they'd be paying them no matter what they were working on.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Bob
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Shut the hell up. As a copyright lawyer, I think that fee is entirely reasonable. Perhaps even too reasonable.
Why fight (Score:5, Insightful)
"The record labels say that Foster failed to take advantage of the plaintiffs' offers to "end this litigation without paying anything." Instead, she chose to fight the lawsuit vigorously in hopes of clearing her name completely."
Yep, she could have settled for $0.00 and have a tarnished reputation. What a bargain; if you ask me. I think this falls under the category of "Duhhh".
Just my
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
time for business model change? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe it's time to end the "let's sue innocent people" business model, and find a new one which has less risk of paying out instead of cashing in.
"Premature End Of The Discovery Process" (Score:5, Insightful)
Newspeak-to-English Translation: The mean old judge didn't let us drag out the case until the defendant had to cave in because the legal bills ruined her.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They had no evidence to support their claims, which is one reason they lost.
Re:"Premature End Of The Discovery Process" ACTUAL (Score:3, Informative)
More accurately, The the premature end to the fishing expedition attempting to locate the actual person who did the infringement because there's no evidence at all that the already sued Internet account holder ever even touched a computer keyboard themselves, let alone actually committed the infringement, if any!
Remember: Providing files to hired Media Sentry investigators is not copyright infringement under the law!
The way it should be (Score:3, Interesting)
But lets face it what chance does Joe Blow on the street have of paying them....6/10 of FSCH-all. All it does is destory a persons life finantially and emotionally.
Its nice to see someone taking a stand and winning. I personally don't know how the judge could reverse his order.
They initiated litigation and lost, (not)sorry but thats why you don't bring frivolous lawsuits in front of the court. Personally i hope that people DO use this in their own *IAA lawsuits and teach these guys that the destroying the "little man" is not how you stop piracy.
Here in NZ we have even more draconian laws, as previewed in a previous
So let me get this straight... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, basically, the RIAA picks a fight with someone, they lose, the person says you lost, pay my fees, and the RIAA calls "foul!"?!?! I reaaaally hope the judgement sticks, forget about the RIAA for a moment and think of all the other cases that could use an overturned decision to their advantage citing "precedence" from this case. If I ever get sued, fight it, win it, I would most definitely countersue for legal fees. We already saw that legal fees will typically outweigh the payout of a lawsuit [slashdot.org] which is cause for so many companies to settle... If you bring a fight, you had better be prepared to lose and pay up, end of story.
Deters Lawsuits (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it would deter copyright owners from bringing baseless lawsuits against innocent people.
No Precedent Here (Score:3, Informative)
The judge said the RIAA can't go after an innocent (the plaintiff) as well as the known guilty, whose name she turned over to the RIAA early on.
I doubt most of us would qualify for this precedent, but I'd like to hear what a real lawyer thinks.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Okay, if that's what you want. Right now I'm thinking that it's a pain in the ass to graduate to the 'hard' level on Guitar Hero II. I'm having trouble getting used to moving my hand up and down the neck of the controller so that I can use the orange fret.
That's how it should work anyway (Score:3, Interesting)
If such a system were in place, we'd see less "I'm gonna sue his ass" crap, a lot less "if I threaten to sue they'll do as we want" crap, and a whole lot less of "we'll sue them into bankruptcy" crap.
"Reasonable attorney fees"... (Score:4, Funny)
What's reasonable for the goose must be reasonable for the gander, right?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sadly, their music has a long history of being overvalued, and have a lot of "process" related costs they can use to confuse or distract from the true "cost" of the intangible good. This makes it possible for them to make ridiculous claims while being safe from feedback in return.
Re: (Score:2)
Not after they have to pay legal fees for both side in all of their future cases......
Layne
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"Don't forget that they have a monopoly on music and have a profit margin on the order of 50%."
What record companies manage to clear 50%? EMI's about to be bought. Virgin is no more; it's being folded into Capitol and lots of people are being laid off. Doesn't sound like an industry that's doing that great.
More to the point, Warner had a profit margin [yahoo.com] of 0.27% and an operating margin of 6.3% last year, and their year over year earnings declined 73%.
I'm aware that many Slashdotters point out that the
Re:Frivolous? (Score:4, Informative)
"Foster said that she owned the account, but that she was completely ignorant of the existence and use of file-sharing software. Foster did say that her adult daughter and estranged husband had access to the account, and may have been responsible for the infringement."
Most legal scholars (and judges, and juries) would agree that no reasonable person would consider a gun safe to give to minors, but for now it's not so clear that an unsupervised internet account is equally unsafe. Regardless, in this case it was an adult daughter.
Parent
Re:Frivolous? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent