Friday, March 26, 2010

Court assesses $2249 in attorneys fees against Prof Nesson & Joel Tenenbaum

In SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, the Court has assessed $2249 in attorneys fees against the defendant and his attorney Professor Charles Nesson, in connection with plaintiffs' motion to compel production.

Order assessing attorneys fees



Keywords: lawyer 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 portable music player

9 comments:

Travis said...

So apparently it is possible to get attorneys fee's. Just so long as your not being wrongfully sued.

raybeckerman said...

It would be wrong to generalize. This was a very specific discovery situation, in which defendant failed to produce something which was required to be produced.

Darrell Greenwood said...

asseses --> assesses

Xetheriel said...

I would have to agree with Ray on this count. If a judge grants a motion to compel, it's time to stop messing around and do what's been asked of you.

If you continue to play games after a motion to compel is granted, you do so at your own peril. As a lawyer, Professor Nesson should have known this.

X

raybeckerman said...

There hadn't actually been a prior court order, but I think Judge Gertner's earlier ruling granting the motion shows that this was a very specialized situation, not a general award of fees, and certainly not applicable to other cases or situations.

raybeckerman said...

In fact, the defendant did not oppose the motion.

Anonymous said...

Yes, the defendant did oppose the motion to compel. I won't repeat my previous comment regarding the judge's erroneous granting of that motion.

freddie

raybeckerman said...

The motion to which I was referring was the motion for fees and expenses.

Alter_Fritz said...

if freddie will not repost his earlier comment, I "infringe his copyrights" by reposting his earlier comment. ;-)

"Nesson was correct. Actions by Tennebaum's attorney are unrelated to the admitted infringements dating to 2004, or whenever exactly it was. The Motion to Compel should have been denied. If Plantiffs wanted discovery on this matter, they could have brought an action against Nesson for copyright infringement. Then, and only then, would the discovery Plantiffs moved to compel be relevant to some action. Gertner erred. She allowed her frustration with Nesson's tactics and procedural lapses to interfere with a proper determination. The order of June 16 bleeds with that frustration. Approval of the subsequent sanctions motion is puzzling in that Gertner failed to realize her initial error regarding the motion to compel having the benefit of the intervening elapsed time."

I second freddies argument!
It should not be the responsibility of defendant Joel Tennenbaum when one of his student lawyers (independently from his alledged infringing actions years before!) creates years later a sampler of mp3 files, uploads that archive to a digital storagelocker, mails his professor the "key to the locker" and this professor then post the information about the locker and the key on his blog.

This is what happened as far as I understood the events and Judge Gertner IMO clearly made a mistake in the first place, probably because the facts misstating lawyers presented them to her falsly!

IMO should not Joel be jointly responsible for this ~$2.2k but it should be finaly time that the "lying lawyers" from the industry be held responsible for their "lying" to judges!
(in this and in other [for example in Lindor] cases)

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A_F