Capitol Records, LLC v. Redigi Inc.

Background

Capitol Records, LLC, Capitol Christian Music Group, Inc., and Virgin Records IR Holdings, Inc. sued ReDigi Inc., John Ossenmacher, and Larry Rudolph, also known as Lawrence S. Rogel, for copyright infringement involving digital music files. The court had previously granted the plaintiffs’ summary-judgment motions in 2013 and 2016, and the Second Circuit affirmed those decisions in 2018.

In an earlier fees order, the court ruled that the plaintiffs were entitled to fees for specified portions of the district-court litigation and for 15 percent of their appeal fees. The plaintiffs then requested $514,421.53: $500,000 for eligible district-court work, limited by a joint stipulation, and $14,421.53 representing 15 percent of appeal fees. The defendants did not submit a response by the deadline. The court therefore treated the request as unopposed, except where it conflicted with applicable law or court practice.

Legal standard and fee review

Under 17 U.S.C. § 505, a court may award reasonable attorney’s fees to the prevailing party in a copyright action. The court used the lodestar method, which calculates a presumptively reasonable fee by multiplying reasonable hourly rates by the reasonable hours worked. The fee applicant bears the burden of documenting both the rates and the time claimed.

The court approved the proposed rates for Richard Mandel, Jonathan King, Thomas Kjellberg, and Scott Ceresia. It reduced Nart-Anong Chinda’s proposed rate to $200 per hour because her requested rate exceeded rates generally approved for paralegals in comparable copyright cases. For other attorneys and legal staff, the court set rates at the lower end of reasonable ranges because the plaintiffs provided inadequate information about their education and experience. It set the rates for certain attorneys at $200 per hour, Mark Montague’s rate at $461 per hour because he was identified as a patent lawyer, and the rates for the identified paralegals at $90 per hour.

The court also found inconsistencies in the plaintiffs’ billing records, including claimed work that did not appear on cited invoices, imprecise hour totals, and double-counted time. Some entries were too vague to permit meaningful review. The court therefore reduced the hours for district-court litigation by five percent. It did not reduce the appeal hours because those records did not have similar deficiencies.

Fee amounts awarded

The court calculated the following amounts for the specified categories of work:

- Summary-judgment moving brief: $5,833.29, representing 22 percent of adjusted fees. - Summary-judgment reply brief: $7,110.75, representing 60 percent of adjusted fees. - Summary-judgment opposition brief: $8,523.28, representing 33 percent of adjusted fees. - Rule 56.1 counterstatement of facts: $1,108.41, representing 13 percent of adjusted fees. - Attorney work connected with Doug Jacobson: $7,742.50. The court excluded money paid directly to Jacobson because the governing statutes did not authorize reimbursement of those expert-witness fees. - Oral argument: $4,244.72, representing 25 percent of adjusted fees. - Post-summary-judgment proceedings: $517,229.40 in adjusted fees, subject to the parties’ $500,000 district-court cap. - Appeal: $14,355.38, representing 15 percent of adjusted appeal fees.

Disposition

The court ordered that the plaintiffs’ motion for attorney’s fees was GRANTED IN PART AND DENIED IN PART. It awarded $500,000 in fees for district-court litigation and $14,355.38 in fees for the defendants’ appeal, totaling $514,355.38.