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Text of the law referenced: (4) Where the notification is unjustified or ineffective, the person notified may demand reimbursement of the necessary expenses inc
by hermannj314 3y ago
Text of the law referenced:
(4) Where the notification is unjustified or ineffective, the person notified may demand reimbursement of the necessary expenses incurred in respect of defending their rights, unless the person giving notification was not able to recognise at the point in time when notification was made that the notification was unjustified.
So it seems the notified party doesn't have to demand any money, but if they do so then only necessary costs can be demanded. I find it hard to believe that $1000 (or whatever) was a necessary cost. Otherwise, you could create companies that operate on the legal fringe that pretend to "serve humanity" when the real MO of your org is to profit from charging legal fees to regular people confused about the law. This is a new type of patent troll.
Addendum - to clarify my point, I am arguing that someone is almost definitely profiting handsomely from charging $1000 to send an email saying "nope, we still aren't infringing" and that "necessary costs" (as required by law) probably doesn't include such leeway for egregious profit taking. Otherwise, you create a huge moral hazard that silences dissent under threat of arbitrarily inflated legal fees. Not a German resident and not a lawyer though.
- prepend 3y ago$1000 is an hour (maybe two) of attorneys time to draft the response. It was incurred after the photographer received a “free” letter saying “this is legal if you pursue we are legally entitled to recoup fees from you, so please don’t.”
- hermannj314 3y agoI don't doubt they found someone willing to charge that rate. Very convenient for them. But you won't me convince me that such a routine letter required 2 hours of work at what is probably the top 0.1% wage rate in the nation as a "necessary" cost. A company that routinely crawls millions of websites can't send a form letter for less than $1000 a pop? Don't buy it. Scam.
- ISL 3y agoAttorney-time isn't just for drafting simple documents. It is also for knowing which documents to send and when.
- Kim_Bruning 3y agoEh, I sometimes mess with bureaucracy and legal stuff (not a lawyer) and I can quickly lose a morning in figuring out what's actually going on, what the rules are, who to actually contact, etc etc. Not to mention just the initial phone call might cost an hour and it all adds up really quickly. Yes the final letter can be written in 5 minutes by ChatGPT these days. It's the homework that comes before then that takes the time. At a normal lawyer rate of Eur 300/hour * one morning (or afternoon) of 4 hours of work, that sounds about right?
- number6 3y agoThe costs are codified. The attorney has to change this cost depending on the value of the claim
- prepend 3y agoI, thankfully, don’t interact with council frequently. But the few times I do, I’ve never encountered a letter, even perfunctory like described in the article, that takes less than a few hours. You’ve got an hour conference call and then the drafting of letter and transmission. This enters the “lawyer time” world where it seems crazy to you and me, but they will describe all the rules and customs that show exactly how this time is permissible. And they’ll bill you for the time that they describe it to you. It’s not that they can’t send the letter for less than $1000. It’s that they don’t have to, and have no motivation or incentive to do so. And why would they? What’s their benefit for cutting costs? And the risk is they mess something up. Therefore, they spend an hour or two and bill the time. This sucks, but what are you going to do? You could petition the EU to set a statutory level for damages and fix the remedy at that amount. Good luck with that. I actually think that $1000 is them being nice as if it was RIAA they’d probably bring in 20 lawyers to review the letter and bill $20k.