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In other words, "Happy Birthday to, you!" Gotta love it when a lawyer (judge) loves another lawyers (plaintiffs) work so much, that they tell the losers that t

In other words, "Happy Birthday to, you!" Gotta love it when a lawyer (judge) loves another lawyers (plaintiffs) work so much, that they tell the losers that they sucked so badly that they are going to get screwed even more. What annoys me about this is that the extra payment does not appear to have been decided based on losses, but more punitive because the song should possibly never have been copyrighted (which I agree with). Isn't it enough to win and get payment for the work? Do they need to be given some windfall beyond standard judgement? I'm happy for the ruling, but it doesn't necessarily seem like a fair judgement to say that they were just that good.

bluGill 10y ago
"Happy birthday" made Warner a ton of money of the years, and it was all fraud. Most of the damages cannot be recovered (many of those harmed are dead of old age!). Thus long term fraud needs to be discouraged, one way you do that is ensure that the punishment is greater than the value of the crime.
- 1_2__3 10y ago
  Indeed, and what better way to improve society by requiring lawyers get paid.
  - ceejayoz 10y ago
    Incentivizing lawyers for taking big, risky, expensive cases that are in the public interest seems like a positive.
    - gozur88 10y ago
      The problem is there isn't wide agreement on what constitutes the public interest.
  - digler999 10y ago
    Let's see you file your own lawsuit and collect anything, much less contribute toward a landmark case.
frandroid 10y ago
> What annoys me about this is that the extra payment does not appear to have been decided based on losses, but more punitive How are you going to deter fraud if the only penalty is a reimbursement of the stolen money? That incentivizes everyone to commit fraud because the penalty would be to go back to status quo ante. You'd be a sucker not to commit fraud.
- bluejekyll 10y ago
  Were they guilty of fraud? I don't think the court found that. Now granted I agree with you, that there needs to be a deterrent, but it doesn't seem like the article says that is the reason for the higher damages. It says that, it's for public good basically. What I'm questioning is the basis for the increase in damages.
  - FireBeyond 10y ago
    There were definitely elements of 'significant attempts to mislead'. The most glaring? The copy of the original score supplied during Discovery by Warner? Perfectly clear and legible. Except for (shocking) the Copyright/Authorship line at the bottom, which was smeared beyond recognition. Warner resisted supplying the original, saying the copy was a perfect facsimile. When eventually ordered to do so, (shocking), the Copyright/Authorship line was perfectly legible too, contradicted Warner's claim, and showed that Warner had had no authority or right to be licensing performance.
    - jessriedel 10y ago
      Incredible. Do you have a link?
      - FireBeyond 10y ago
        Trying to find something definitive, and some of my details weren't accurate: "The "smoking gun" in the whole thing was the copy of the original publication that Warner presented to the court. It has a smudged-out piece of text that they claimed no knowledge of. Someone found a copy of the book in a library, and the text wasn't smudged out. It was the original copyright information." - https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/15/12/10/2156223/happy-birthday-to-you-set-to-finally-reach-the-public-domain https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/15/12/10/2156223/ha... Oh, here we go, smoking gun: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150727/16042931768/happy-birthday-copyright-bombshell-new-evidence-warner-music-previously-hid-shows-song-is-public-domain.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150727/16042931768/happy... (see images on the above).
DanBC 10y ago
When someone abuses the legal process to copyright something, and then aggressively protects those bogus rights, they need something that dissuades them from doing it again.
cortesoft 10y ago
I think you are misunderstanding.... the judge is NOT imposing a higher judgement against the defendants.... this is just deciding that the lawyers are deserving of a larger percentage of the already-agreed-upon settlement amount. This is in no way punitive. Basically, the judge is saying that based on the amount of work and skill the lawyers used, they are deserving of a bigger slice of the existing pie... not a whole new pie. I am assuming the rest of the settlement is going to the class members... all of the people who have had to pay fees for using happy birthday.
- mmanfrin 10y ago
  deserving of a bigger slice of the existing pie I think you mean birthday cake.
- dctoedt 10y ago
  > ... the judge is NOT imposing a higher judgement against the defendants.... this is just deciding that the lawyers are deserving of a larger percentage of the already-agreed-upon settlement amount. That's not how it works under the statute. In this case the amount of the attorney-fee award was computed as one-third of the settlement amount (this is the "lodestar" mentioned in the article), then the judge added a kicker for exceptional results; that's the traditional way it's done in the U.S. on the rare occasions when attorney fees are awarded [0]. But under 17 USC 505 [1], the attorney-fee award would be in addition to the settlement amount. [0] http://www.americanbar.org/content/newsletter/publications/gp_solo_magazine_home/gp_solo_magazine_index/magratten_phillips_connolly_feldman_mamaysky.html http://www.americanbar.org/content/newsletter/publications/g... [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/505 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/505, explained at length in, e.g., http://www.rbs2.com/caf.pdf http://www.rbs2.com/caf.pdf
sliverstorm 10y ago
It sounds like it's basically an award for taking on complex, risky work that resulted in something positive for the public. Perhaps he's trying to set a precedent/example to entice other lawyers to consider pressing these kinds of cases. To me, reminiscent of performance awards within a company. "X & Y took on risky/ailing project Z that everyone else wrote off, and hit it out of the park. Bravo"

bluGill 10y ago

"Happy birthday" made Warner a ton of money of the years, and it was all fraud. Most of the damages cannot be recovered (many of those harmed are dead of old age!). Thus long term fraud needs to be discouraged, one way you do that is ensure that the punishment is greater than the value of the crime.

1_2__3 10y ago
Indeed, and what better way to improve society by requiring lawyers get paid.
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  Incentivizing lawyers for taking big, risky, expensive cases that are in the public interest seems like a positive.
  - gozur88 10y ago
    The problem is there isn't wide agreement on what constitutes the public interest.
- digler999 10y ago
  Let's see you file your own lawsuit and collect anything, much less contribute toward a landmark case.

frandroid 10y ago

> What annoys me about this is that the extra payment does not appear to have been decided based on losses, but more punitive How are you going to deter fraud if the only penalty is a reimbursement of the stolen money? That incentivizes everyone to commit fraud because the penalty would be to go back to status quo ante. You'd be a sucker not to commit fraud.

bluejekyll 10y ago
Were they guilty of fraud? I don't think the court found that. Now granted I agree with you, that there needs to be a deterrent, but it doesn't seem like the article says that is the reason for the higher damages. It says that, it's for public good basically. What I'm questioning is the basis for the increase in damages.
- FireBeyond 10y ago
  There were definitely elements of 'significant attempts to mislead'. The most glaring? The copy of the original score supplied during Discovery by Warner? Perfectly clear and legible. Except for (shocking) the Copyright/Authorship line at the bottom, which was smeared beyond recognition. Warner resisted supplying the original, saying the copy was a perfect facsimile. When eventually ordered to do so, (shocking), the Copyright/Authorship line was perfectly legible too, contradicted Warner's claim, and showed that Warner had had no authority or right to be licensing performance.
  - jessriedel 10y ago
    Incredible. Do you have a link?
    - FireBeyond 10y ago
      Trying to find something definitive, and some of my details weren't accurate: "The "smoking gun" in the whole thing was the copy of the original publication that Warner presented to the court. It has a smudged-out piece of text that they claimed no knowledge of. Someone found a copy of the book in a library, and the text wasn't smudged out. It was the original copyright information." - https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/15/12/10/2156223/happy-birthday-to-you-set-to-finally-reach-the-public-domain https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/15/12/10/2156223/ha... Oh, here we go, smoking gun: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150727/16042931768/happy-birthday-copyright-bombshell-new-evidence-warner-music-previously-hid-shows-song-is-public-domain.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150727/16042931768/happy... (see images on the above).

DanBC 10y ago

When someone abuses the legal process to copyright something, and then aggressively protects those bogus rights, they need something that dissuades them from doing it again.

cortesoft 10y ago

I think you are misunderstanding.... the judge is NOT imposing a higher judgement against the defendants.... this is just deciding that the lawyers are deserving of a larger percentage of the already-agreed-upon settlement amount. This is in no way punitive. Basically, the judge is saying that based on the amount of work and skill the lawyers used, they are deserving of a bigger slice of the existing pie... not a whole new pie. I am assuming the rest of the settlement is going to the class members... all of the people who have had to pay fees for using happy birthday.

mmanfrin 10y ago
deserving of a bigger slice of the existing pie I think you mean birthday cake.
dctoedt 10y ago
> ... the judge is NOT imposing a higher judgement against the defendants.... this is just deciding that the lawyers are deserving of a larger percentage of the already-agreed-upon settlement amount. That's not how it works under the statute. In this case the amount of the attorney-fee award was computed as one-third of the settlement amount (this is the "lodestar" mentioned in the article), then the judge added a kicker for exceptional results; that's the traditional way it's done in the U.S. on the rare occasions when attorney fees are awarded [0]. But under 17 USC 505 [1], the attorney-fee award would be in addition to the settlement amount. [0] http://www.americanbar.org/content/newsletter/publications/gp_solo_magazine_home/gp_solo_magazine_index/magratten_phillips_connolly_feldman_mamaysky.html http://www.americanbar.org/content/newsletter/publications/g... [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/505 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/505, explained at length in, e.g., http://www.rbs2.com/caf.pdf http://www.rbs2.com/caf.pdf

sliverstorm 10y ago

It sounds like it's basically an award for taking on complex, risky work that resulted in something positive for the public. Perhaps he's trying to set a precedent/example to entice other lawyers to consider pressing these kinds of cases. To me, reminiscent of performance awards within a company. "X & Y took on risky/ailing project Z that everyone else wrote off, and hit it out of the park. Bravo"