I said:
and only if the infringed copyrighted works had been registered before the lwasuit was filed.

To correct lawyer fees the infringed work must have been copyright registered before the infringement ocurred.

Many recordings aout there are not copyright registered and when that are in fact infringed, ther is no right to collect lawyer fees. As a result many potential lawsuits are not filed because withot assurance that lawyer fees can be collected, a lawsuit makes no economic sense, unless the infringement damages were very high.

The statement or argument is true, but incomplete.

Kazaa should have also told the users of their program that if the folder made available to other Kazaa users contained non public domain songs and or recordings there was a risk of being in violation of copyright if a court eventually decided that the making available constituted copyright infringement.

MAKING AVAILABLE AS INFRINGEMENT
Of course at the time Kazaa was distributed the law did not state that making available was copyright infringement (it still doesn’t) and also there was no jurisprudence that said that making available was copyright infrigment.

BTW, in my case, where a music publisher made available for recording licensing and public performance hundreds of songs belonging to my family by placing the songs in their catalog (many actually copyright registered illegally). the judge actually said that making available did not constitute copyright infringement. Under the recording licenses with our songs that were issued illegally by the music publisher, millions of records were actually made, and still the judge did not find copyright infringement.

If such a decision was made on our case, in the Americal federal court system, it is proposterous that kids be charged with copyright infringement simply for making available song files on the Internet without knowing it or its meaning as related to a copyright law that says nothing on the subject of making available.

IGNORANCE OF THE LAW
But back to my main point expressed in another way: No one should pay for using software, materials and equipment in a common sense way if that someone is not savvy on the law and the law’s jurisprudence.

Of course, I consider the old argument that ignorance is no excuse as bullshit when it comes to copyright law, a law not even understood by most lawyers and judges because of their ignorance of the law.

In america, most laws suffer from these:
- They are hidden from the citizens.
- The language used is confusing and too complex for ordinary people.
- The law is incomplete and is completed by even more difficult to find jurisptrudence.
- The are may conflicting jurisprudences.
- Legal opinions from lawyers are too expensive and usually more confusing than the law itself and full of ifs (if a court decides this way or that way).

One has to be biased against the people, the people who it is said re supreme to make the statement “ignorance is no excuse”. Ignorance is a perfect excuse under many situations and one of those situations is copyright related situations for ordinary people, people who do not work in a copyright related trade. To think otherwise is to be cynical.

LAWYER FEES
“However, her attorney, Jordan Glass, says part of the original default issue still remains to be argued: the RIAA may still demand lawyer fees for having lodged the judgment in the first place.”

Makes no sense. In copyright cases tha law (Copyright Act-USA) says that only prevailing partie have a right to be compensated for their legal expenses and only if the infringed copyrighted works had been registered before the lwasuit was filed.