RIAA Loses In File Sharing Case

Well it’s about time a court ruled against the RIAA and awarded money to the defendant. An Oklahoma mother, Debbie Foster, was accused by the RIAA of copyright infringement back in November 2004, and her daughter Amanda was added to the complaint in July 2005. According to the RIAA, the Internet account paid for by Debbie Foster was used for file sharing, with an unspecified number of songs downloaded. Well, Debbie being the great mom she is, went to bat for her kids against the RIAA. And she won! Click here for court filing (pdf).

In November 2004, the recording industry, in this case Capitol Records filed the suit “Capitol Records, Inc. vs. Debbie Foster and Amanda Foster”. The Plaintiffs claimed that Debra Foster had “contributorily and/or vicariously infringed Plaintiffs’ copyrighted recordings, including, but not limited to the extent that one of members of their household engaged in copyright infringement.” The music group offered to settle the case for US$5,000, but Foster decided to take her chances in court. She requested that the RIAA provide specifics such as the dates of the alleged downloading and the files involved. The RIAA failed to provide the requested information and Foster filed a motion for summary judgment. In turn, the RIAA decided to cut its losses and asked the court to withdraw its case. The court approved the RIAA’s request, but named Foster the winner and awarded her attorneys fees over the RIAA’s objections.

So how much was Ms. Foster entitled to? Well this was determined yesterday…Initially, the defense requested attorney fees of $105,680.75, with additional fees bringing the total to $114,363.18 – a total that Capitol objected to immediately. Capitol argued the attorney fees in particular were objectionably high, and requested a 40% reduction. The court agreed with Capitol’s objection due to “unnecessary time” spent resisting the plaintiffs, and reduced the attorney fees to $61, 576.60.

The exact dollar amount came under more scrutiny, as the plaintiffs argued the defendant was not entitled to recover her expert witness fees. The court this time disagreed with the recording industry, and granted full recovery of witness fees totaling $4,668.75.

Ms. Foster had submitted other miscellaneous fees, a majority of which were copying and printing documents, which totaled $4,013.68. However this was disputed by the plaintiffs, as they point out that charging $1.50 per printed documents was excessive. The court agreed with the recording industry, and granted only $0.20 per page. The court reduced Ms. Foster’s expense reimbursement to $2,439.98.

In total, as the prevailing party Ms. Foster was awarded $68,685.23. This is the first time any defendant was ever awarded attorney fees against an RIAA member.