Monday, February 25, 2008

Good 7th Circuit Case on defendant's presumptive right to attorneys fees on plaintiff's voluntary withdrawal

We came across a helpful Seventh Circuit decision reversing a district court's denial of attorneys fees, where the plaintiff had moved to voluntarily dismiss its copyright infringement case. The court in Rivera v. Jones reaffirmed the principles that (a) notwithstanding the voluntariness of the plaintiff's dismissal the defendant is a "prevailing party", (b) the defendant in such cases is presumptively entitled to attorneys fees, and (c) the defendant is not required to establish frivolousness on the part of the plaintiffs.

February 20, 2008, decision, US Court of Appeals 7th Circuit, Rivera v. Jones*
(Alternate link)

* Document published online at Internet Law & Regulation

Commentary & discussion:

Patry Copyright Blog
Ars Technica



Keywords: digital copyright law online internet law legal download upload peer to peer p2p file sharing filesharing music movies indie independent label freeculture creative commons pop/rock artists riaa independent mp3 cd favorite songs intellectual property






3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The link to the document instead just gives me their home page. And when I bring up your main page with IE6 instead of Firefox, I get a whole pile of Syntax Errors.

XK-E

Unknown said...

Here's an interesting thought. Part of the RIAA plan of action is to file suit against a large group of Does, dig up information about them through ex parte processes, and then dismiss the suit against the Does voluntarily once the fishing expedition is over. In some cases, they've been caught red-handed, however, and the Does have hired attorneys to defend themselves.

Since the plan of action is to dismiss the suit, could this mean that in any case where the Does fight back en masse, the RIAA could end up unable to dismiss the Does suit without becoming liable for attorney's fees up to that point?

Could get quite expensive, especially if each Doe hires his or her own attorney.

raybeckerman said...

Anonymous XK-E....

The link's working fine for me.