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Record Companies Ordered to Pay Attorney's Fees

By Stephanie Robinson

The District Court of Oregon recently ordered a group of record companies to pay an accused file-sharer's attorneys? fees in the amount of $300,000 for defending her suit over a two-year period. Plaintiffs Atlantic Recording Corp., Priority Records LLC, Capitol Records Inc., UMG Recordings Inc., and BMG Music accused Tanya Andersen of sharing more than 1,000 music files from her computer via the peer-to-per file sharing network Kazaa in 2005. The plaintiffs were unable to locate sufficient evidence to convince the court that the Defendant infringed any copyrights and attempted to depose Andersen's 10-year-old daughter. Eventually, the record companies stipulated to a dismissal of the case with prejudice. Andersen thereafter moved to recover attorney's fees. The record companies disputed Andersen's status as ?prevailing party.? The Copyright Act allows the court to award reasonable attorney's fees to the prevailing party in a copyright action. The court stated that awarding fees under this provision is a matter of the court's discretion, but that it is to be applied in an evenhanded manner. In other words, prevailing plaintiffs and prevailing defendants are to be treated alike. Although Plaintiff record companies argued that fees may not be awarded to a prevailing party unless there is a material alteration of the legal relationship of the parties as demonstrated by an enforceable judgment on the merits or a court-ordered consent decree, the court refused to apply such a strict analysis. Instead, the court reviewed the underlying social policy of the Copyright Act to determine how the purposes of the Act would best be served given the specific facts and relevant considerations. The court ultimately concluded that the policy underlying the Copyright Act was best served by awarding Anderson the $300,000 she incurred in defending the copyright infringement suit.

Full post as published by Business and Technology Law on April 30, 2008 (boomark / email).