Wednesday, May 09, 2007

RIAA "Reconsideration" Motion and "Reasonableness Inquiry" Cause Capitol v. Foster Fees to Double From $55k to $114k

The RIAA's challenges to Judge Lee R. West's order awarding the defendant attorneys fees in Capitol v. Foster and to the "reasonableness" of Ms. Foster's attorneys' fees have caused the fees to more than double, from $55,000 to $114,000, as evidenced by Ms. Foster's supplemental fee application:

Supplemental Fee Application*
Declaration in Support of Supplemental Fee Application*

* Document published online at Internet Law & Regulation

Commentary & discussion:

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9 comments:

Scott said...

Sometimes I think the RIAA's attorneys are too smart by half.

Or in this case, 100%

StephenH said...

Brings new meaning to the term "Double or Nothing". The RIAA now has to pay double.

I think there are important lessons in this case for the RIAA:

1) They cannot expect a 100% guilty rate from their non-forensic investigations

2) Not Guilty verdicts and cases where the defendant prevails can cost the RIAA enormus sums of money.

3) In some cases, they should not try to fight not guilty cases, but instead accept the verdict early, because it can run up high amounts of attorney fees, and more importanly cause them a reputation.

4) The RIAA should do better forensics and not pursue cases in which could lead them to "not guilty" verdicts if they are trying to control costs. They should evaluate any serious claim of innocense rather than try to force people to settle without any forensic evidence linking them to the crime.

5) That IP addresses and times from ISP logs do not indentify the person in front of the computer! They sued Deborah here, and the real infringer was her daughter Amanda. There can be cases where multiple people not related to each other at all can share an IP address. These logs do not always prove "same family", "Marriage", or even "living in the same household" or "sharing the same office" due to how TCP/IP networking works..

AMD FanBoi said...

I guess the RIAA doesn't realize that when you're already in a hole, it's a good idea to stop digging.

The most unfair part of all of this is that while the attorney's are compensated for their time, the defendant is still getting nothing for all her hours of toil and anguish. Whoever thought awarding only attorney's fees to the prevailing party made the defendant whole is so seriously lacking in brain-power that they're probably qualified to serve in Congress. Oh, wait – they are already!

Mark Brown said...

wow..

Ray, again THANK you for providing a place where people can see what the RIAA is actually doing, and the harm they are causing themselves.

Mark B

Mark Brown said...

(also see that you had to go to blog moderation... That sucks!)

raybeckerman said...

Let's see... by questioning the reasonableness of Ms. Barringer-Thomson's fees and challenging the judge's order what have they accomplished?

-increased their exposure from $55k to $114k
-gotten a second decision from the judge which called them "disingenuous", called their motives "questionable", and said their declaration under penalty of perjury was "not true" and
-were forced to turn over their own attorneys fees bills, so the judge can write a decision telling the world how much money the RIAA has wasted on this case

Hmmmmmmm.... I wonder how much they paid their lawyers in order to accomplish these things.

raybeckerman said...

markbnj.... yeah, unfortunately i had to go comment moderation.... there were a couple of posts which i suspected of coming from riaa trolls...

Alter_Fritz said...

Comment: Oops!
:-)


(the other stuff I wanted to write in front of it was already done by Ray in "Let's see... by questioning[...]")

Igor said...

Stephen...given that it's a civil case there are no "guilty" verdicts. I believe the term is liable. Also, I'm not sure if the finding is "liable" or "responsible" in these cases, but I'm guessing liable.