RIAA Appeals Award of Attorneys' Fees

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.

Poor arguements!

[RingDev]

From TFA: "The RIAA also argues that should the attorneys' fees award stand, it would deter other copyright owners from pursuing infringement claims."

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

Risky, too

[Weaselmancer]

If they lose this one, it sets a precedent.

Courts = state sponsored corporate gambling

[Volante3192]

In it, the plaintiffs lay out their disagreement with the judge's reasoning while taking time to point out that the fees awarded far exceed any damages they could have recovered should their suit have been successful.

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...

Why fight

[Anonymous Coward]

FTA
"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 .02 cents worth. Feel free to flame or mod me down.

time for business model change?

[amigabill]

The RIAA also argues that should the attorneys' fees award stand, it would deter other copyright owners from pursuing infringement claims.

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"

[Steve B]

The RIAA also bemoans what it calls the premature end of the discovery process

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:Poor arguements!

[sulfur_lad]

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.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Afraid of losing

[bill_kress]

If you blast out thousands of anything, you expect to lose a few--epically when you've been as careless as the RIAA has in bringing these cases.

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.

Re:Very difficult for RIAA to win

[flosofl]

Well, the way I see it is that most people, regardless of their liability in these cases, would find the cost of defending themselves prohibitive. It is far less expensive for them to settle than to pursue the issue in court. The RIAA counts on this. If all of a sudden the option to recover legal costs becomes viable, I think we may begin to see less settlements and more fighting.

Re:"Premature End Of The Discovery Process"

[jasen666]

You'd think they'd WANT the discovery to end.
They had no evidence to support their claims, which is one reason they lost.

So let me get this straight...

[s31523]

The record labels say that Foster failed to take advantage of the plaintiffs' offers to "end this litigation without paying anything."

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.

Re:Why fight

[faloi]

So you're ok with letting someone walk all over you, as long as you don't have to pay any money? The sad fact is, that unless more people stand up against groups like the RIAA in cases like this, they'll continue their legal fishing expeditions forever.

Deters Lawsuits

[s31523]

The RIAA also argues that should the attorneys' fees award stand, it would deter other copyright owners from pursuing infringement claims.

No, it would deter copyright owners from bringing baseless lawsuits against innocent people.

Re:Why do we have to put up with this crap?

[anagama]

In the US, the basic standard is both sides pay their own costs and attorney fees. There are exceptions to the general rule in certain circumstances, for example, a statute might allow fee shifting in certain kinds of cases, suits deemed frivolous under the court rules may also result in fee shifting. So anyway, you should rewrite the code so that the default is not fee shifting, with exceptions that provide for fee shifting.

Re:Courts = state sponsored corporate gambling

[MindStalker]

Actually in the US we do not have a true loser pays rule. Partially for this very reason, no one would dare sue a large corporation if they had to pay their fees. Currently any loser pays fees rules are completely up the the judge, and I've never heard of an individuals forced to pay a corporations fees outside of filing fees.

Re:seeing the light

[elrous0]

Not only that, but if lawyer fee awards become commonplace, people will be able to hire much BETTER lawyers (who will work on contingency). This will make it very easy for people to fight back with lawyers who can consistently win, which will break the RIAA's little extortion scheme VERY quickly.

-Eric

Re:Courts = state sponsored corporate gambling

[CowboyBob500]

And that's why the US legal system is so unfair - those with the money always win. Here in the UK, for example, if I had a genuine case against anyone - no matter how large they were - I could and would be able to afford to take them to court because I would know that if I won then I would not be paying any legal fees. This allows a much better balance of justice IMO.

Bob

Re:Very difficult for RIAA to win

[Artifakt]

Imagine yourself as about to be sued by the RIAA, and it should be clearer

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.

3 RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Well maybe not exactly. In fact, not at all.

IMHO this is one of the few times the legal system HAS lived up to my expectations. If there is a civil lawsuit, the loser should pay court/atty fees. Yes, that puts some risk/reward into your decision to sue. GOOD. FUCKING AMAZING GOOD!

I mean seriously, why do we allow a system to exist where you can sue someone into financial submission? It allows Big Company (tm) to threaten to sue Little Guy (tm) and then offer to settle for $1/4 of expected atty fees. Well lets see. Spend $20k on lawyers and *hopefully* or pay them $5k outright and be done. Tactics like this - regardless of what the suit is - should be illegal. Thank god *ONE* judge managed to step up to the plate on a visible case.

Oh, and their complaints are insane. First off - they lost the case. If you want to appeal THAT - ALONE. Go for it, it's your right. Past that, their argument against the defendant's award... *YOU* sued someone and then *THEY* declined to settle on your terms. Again: *Y O U* initiated the lawsuit. One deemed by a judge to be without merrit. Cry me a river. The problem here is the RIAA has an unreasonable expectation. They expect to settle (or, at worst, win - including atty fees i'm sure) every case. You can't sue someone with the EXPECTATION that they will settle. File a motion of intent, then go for (binding?) arbitration.
Once you stick your nose into a courtroom, there isn't a 'just kidding' button.

So does anyone know or remember if the RIAA also asked for atty fees in their suit? Because if they did someone should get up on a big podium with a mega phone and give them a big HA HAA . Heck, they deserve it regardless.

Really, every civil lawsuit SHOULD automatically include atty fees for the defendant if they're found for. They didn't ask to go to court. They (by the judge's ruling) didn't do anything wrong. They don't deserve to suffer the financial penalty of hiring a lawyer just because they were accused of something. Punative lawsuits are illegal already but you STILL need (to pay) a lawyer to argue that point!

Re:"Reasonable attorney fees"...

[Adambomb]

Sadly i do not see this flying, although it'd be a nice jab to the RIAA collective chin. If someone attempted that, all the RIAA would have to do is cite "reasonable and customary costs" with regards to the legal fees.

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.