Intellectual Property Law

Lawyers in DVD-Copying Case Charge up to $765 Hourly

By David Kravets

SAN FRANCISCO ? Hollywood studios are paying up to $765 an hour for attorneys litigating a lawsuit aimed at preventing RealNetworks from marketing software that allows movie fans to copy their DVDs, according to court documents.

All told, legal fees in the nearly year-old case against the Seattle-based company are likely to total millions, as Hollywood fights to retain its grip on the DVD and prevent companies from offering copying services. At a hearing in federal court here last month, more than two dozen lawyers from both sides filled the courtroom for days of testimony surrounding the RealDVD software, which U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel has blocked from the market pending the outcome of what is likely to become protracted trial-court litigation and appeals.

Legal fees from three of dozens of lawyers in the case were contained in a court filing (.pdf)  late Wednesday. The hourly rates, reported from $490 to $765, offer a glimpse into the financing behind the high-stakes case. Yet the rates are by no means extraordinary.

For example, class-action attorneys representing 6.3 million TD Ameritrade customers whose data was stolen by hackers are proposing at least $1.8 million in fees, or $1,360 per hour.

In the RealDVD case, the studios allege the $30 software circumvents technology designed to block copying in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998.

The studios, represented by the Motion Picture Association of America, claim the RealDVD software breaches the Content Scramble System that encrypts DVDs. RealNetworks, however, maintains the contract’s language for the descrambling license does not prevent the duplication of DVDs, an assertion rejected by the MPAA and a central issue in the case.

Judge Patel is expected to rule any time on whether to lift her September order blocking distribution of RealDVD. RealNetworks is likely to demand a jury trial if Patel doesn’t rule its way, a move that likely would eat thousands of billable hours in attorney fees.

The MPAA and the DVD Copy Control Association, which issues the CSS license, told Patel in court filings (.pdf) late Wednesday they want RealNetworks immediately to pay nearly $40,000 in legal fees. That would compensate them for litigating RealNetworks’ failure to retain an engineer’s notebooks that could have been used as evidence.

Patel has ruled the notebooks should have been kept, and ordered Hollywood to submit costs associated with litigating that issue.

Photo: Tracy O

See Also:

• MPAA-RealDVD Trial Portends Legality of DVD Copying
• RealNetworks: ‘We Didn’t Think’ MPAA Would Sue Over DVD Copying …
• MPAA Claims RealNetworks ‘Destroyed’ Evidence in DVD Copying Case …
• DVD Copying Case Focuses on ‘Fair Use’
• MPAA Pounds RealNetworks’ Glaser on Witness Stand ? Update …
• RealNetworks: MPAA Is ‘Price-Fixing Cartel’
• Wink Wink: RealNetworks Says Don’t Copy Rented DVDs

Full post as published by Threat Level on June 16, 2009 (boomark / email).