RIAA legal fees revealed
p2pnet news view | RIAA news:- As p2pnet first revealed on Monday, a judgment against RIAA victim Michelle Santangelo will be vacated. In other words, to all intents and purposes, “it’s been dropped and Michelle can go back to square one, pleading her case as if the ruling had never been made”.
The judgement as it stood had meant she was liable for $30,750, plus another $490 in costs.
When p2pnet ran the story, no documents were available. That’s no longer so, however and they show Holme Robert & Owen, the RIAA’s current legal gun-slingers, want $513 for processing the paperwork, as this chart shows.
Richard Gabriel is a primary RIAA out-sourced attack lawyer. He’s front and centre in more than just a few of the cases and the proceeds from a good week’s work for him would be enough to settle claims lodged against one or two of his victims.
Because as Recording Industry vs The People points out, he gets a handsome $375 an hour.
It seems more than a little ironic that the record labels who pay these breathtaking fees to companies such as HRO are using the money to sue an estimated 30,000 very ordinary, very innocent, American men women and children who are unable to scrape up enough to properly defend themselves against the vicious legal attacks.
Behind this so-called trade organisation are, principally, the four multi-billion-dollar music companies who together control the corporate music industry.
And fronting for them around the world are scores of so-called trade organisations such as the RIAA.
Equally ironic, ‘RIAA’ is short for Recording Industry Association of America but only one of the big four labels, Warner Music, is American, and even that’s controlled by a Canadian.
The others are EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France) and Sony BMG (Japan and Germany).
For them, money is nothing.
Considering the obscene amount of legal and government clout the Big 4 routinely wield, things are fast reaching the point where it’s safer to be found guilty of being a drug pusher or burglar, say, in a criminal case than a copyright infringer in a civil suit.
Jon Newton – p2pnet
Also See:
p2pnet – Michelle Santangelo vs the RIAA, July 16, 2007
Recording Industry vs The People – Phone (s?) Take Down Duke University Wireless Network?, July 18, 2007
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July 19th, 2007 at 8:38 am
I find it interesting that you choose to vilify Mr Gabriel for the amount he earns. $375 is by no means an unusual rate for a senior, or even mid-level, attorney and many are paid far more than that, particularly those who work within the entertainment industries.
Lawyers are paid for their expertise and for using their knowledge to represent their clients to the very best of their abilities. It’s as simple as that.
July 19th, 2007 at 10:22 am
I believe Jon was vilifying the RIAA(in addition to other trade orgs), and it’s clients, not Mr Gabriel. It might seem a perfectly reasonable sum to a legal professional, however, it’s viewed as wholly exorbitant to ordinary people who are being prosecuted by them.
Myself, i am a contract software developer, and regularly charge £250-300 PH. This is fine for large companies, as they have the funds to deal with it. But to the individual, this is a prodigious amount.
July 19th, 2007 at 11:49 am
“I find it interesting that you choose to vilify Mr Gabriel”
These lawer area pack of parasites and criminals.
Thank you for exposing their names to th epublic shame.
After them!
July 19th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
” Lawyers are paid for their expertise and for using their knowledge to represent their clients to the very best of their abilities. It’s as simple as that. ”
It should be.
Go visit .. http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/ …
Read for a while, and see just how inept MR. Gabriel and staff appear,
or should I say, have been exposed to be.
$ 1.50 an hour would be too much.
Not only that …
This SAME lawyer, at 375 dollars and hour, fought the reasonableness of the LESSER fee’s
of the Attorney representing Ms. Foster ( a case that he LOST for his client , I may add. ).
Not so simple.
BTW,
This is only my OPINION and not necessarily the opinion of the site ops or owners.
The site owner and/or operators have no control or responsibility for MY personal
opinion.
July 21st, 2007 at 10:49 am
> I find it interesting that you choose to vilify Mr Gabriel for the amount he earns. $375 is by no means an unusual rate…
I don’t think that’s the point, here. This isn’t a criticism of how much a partner in a legal firm earns.
Rather, this is an insight into the RIAA litigation method. Litigate on the cheap, using a collection call center, outrageously misjoined ex parte John Doe lawsuits, and drift net MediaSentry investigation based on bad network science.
Until someone fights it.
Then it’s all-out war. They don’t go to just any old attorney, as Debbie Foster did — Marilyn Barringer-Thompson’s rate in Capitol v. Foster: $175 an hour. They go to the guy in the big corner office on the 41st floor.
Extra irony bonus: When the RIAA loses, they then file objections, then reconsiderations, then requests for discovery, over the reasonableness of the $175 rate.
What we’re seeing here is, in fact, a litigation business model eerily similar to the recording industry’s business model. Just as EMI, Sony, Vivendi, and Warner mass produce recordings for pennies apiece, then spend zillions on promotion to entice people to buy, the RIAA mass produces lawsuits for a few dollars per John Doe, then spends zillions against those who fight it to entice people to settle.
This model makes good economic sense, but justice is about fairness, not profit. I think the courts, especially in recent ex parte John Doe decisions, are beginning to recognize and grow tired of the injustice on a massive scale the RIAA’s business model creates.