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A federal judge has ordered (PDF) Cox Communications to pay a bruising $8 million in legal fees to BMG Rights Management after the ISP lost a landmark case over Internet piracy.
The legal case began in 2014, when music publishers BMG and Round Hill Music took the long-threatened step of actually suing a major Internet provider for its users' infringement, saying that Cox didn't do enough to stop the piracy. BMG and Round Hill were both clients of Rightscorp, an anti-piracy outfit that produces millions of e-mail notices to consumers alleged to have infringed its clients' copyrights by using BitTorrent software. Rightscorp warns ISPs that if they don't forward the notices to subscribers, they're risking a massive lawsuit.
Turns out, in this case, the threat was real. After a year of litigation, the case went to trial in December 2015. Before the trial, the judge had already ruled that Cox unlawfully blew off key provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and so wasn't protected by its "safe harbor" against litigation. The jury found against Cox and ordered the cable company to pay $25 million. That result is now on appeal, but in the meantime, US District Judge Liam O'Grady considered various post-trial motions, including one in which BMG requested legal fees.
O'Grady chose to award BMG $8.38 million in attorneys' fees, which is 80 percent of what the company asked for. BMG's motion for "nontaxable expenses" like travel expenses and expert witness fees, which asked for nearly $3 million, was denied. BMG's request for court costs such as transcripts, copies, and filing fees was granted, with the judge finally arriving at $146,790.76 after making various deductions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 21 2017, @06:56AM
Oh, gawd, how I wish some judge would tell these "rightsholders" that in exchange for giving them a favorable judgement in their piracy cases, by granting them their rights to keep the whole thing locked up, the "rightsholder" assumes FULL responsibility for mayhem caused by their stuff, including wasting their customer's time with unskippable ads or demands to agree to yet more crap.
I would still hold the author harmless, as the author is likely required to put the junk in by the guy hiring him. Been there, done that, hated it so much I quit.
Disagreement with the terms of EULAs should be grounds for complete money-back, despite the package being opened and a software installation attempt.
We keep trying to tell the industry that their product is inferior by choosing another. Even though we have to jump through extra hoops to get it. But they won't listen. All they can seem to hear is another moneymaking opportunity if they will burden their customer with yet another business moneymaker. There comes a time when people get fed up with being manipulated so much and start revolting. In this case, its piracy. Mutiny against the Ad and the Demand for Compliance with Additional Crap.