Another Censorious Copyright Case Results In a Big Fee Shift–Inglewood v. Teixeira
20 10 2015[Eric Goldman] recently wrote about Katz v. Chevaldina, where a real estate tycoon didn’t like a candid photo taken of him, so he bought the copyrights to the photo and sued a blogger to suppress the photo. The courts had no problem seeing the censorious overreach of the lawsuit, and a federal appellate court found decisively that the blogger qualified for fair use. Separately, the district court awarded the defendant over $150k of attorneys fees pursuant to copyright’s fee-shifting provision (17 USC 505). Though the plaintiff can surely afford it, the court’s message is clear: censoriously abusing copyright law doesn’t pay.
A different court delivered the same message to the City of Inglewood, but instead of the fee award coming of a billionaire’s pockets, local taxpayers will bear the cost. UGH.
Case citation: City of Inglewood v. Teixeira, 2:15-cv-01815-MWF-MRW (C.D. Cal. Oct. 8, 2015)
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