That works out to $229 an hour. The are lucky some lawyers charge $500 an hour in the US. I say charge them $1500 an hour :)

The RIAA should be fined at least 1 (if not 2) billions for the oubvious false claim who have only one objective: STEALING MONEY. Better yet , since the RIAA have no LEGAL reason to exist because all their activities are crminal, just shut the dam ting down.

Buying a CD produced by members of the RIAA is illegal in most country as it make you accessory to a CRIME becasue you are directly financing one of the most dangerous criminal organisation in the world today.

The RIAA (and sister in crime MPAA) is reponcible for destroying more lives arround the world (especialy in the USA) then any terrorist organisation. Not to USA goverment: before trying to police the world, why not clean you own backyard.

The RIAA hopes so, they hope its rare and exceptional and loose.

Not all the work is done by the attorney: they have office staff to pay too. These rates are a bit artificial to cover the whole operation.

Knowing this didn't help any when I realised the advise I was getting was being given over a mobile phone from the Dartmouth ferry.

Reclaim the total value of music and video that everyone involved in the case could have illegally downloaded had they not been involved. Compensation for lost piracy opportunities.

Mine's the one stuffed with cassettes.

If innocent people are not properly reimbursed for their costs, the RIAA could well bankrupt people whom the courts have found to have done nothing wrong.

EVIL MUST BE DESTROYED

If a case is 'rare and exceptional' then the lawyers will gain valuable experience and so they ought to pay their client an amount which reflects the value of this learning experience to them.

Similarly, "talking to media" is a bonus for the lawyers in that it provides them with publicity they wouldn't have had if the client hadn't appointed them, hence they should pay the client every time they talk to the media about the case.

If a mechanic asked me for X2 rates because the job I asked him to do was outside his experience and had a risk of failure, I'd think he was a chiseling jerk and get myself another mechanic.

Anybody who takes on hourly paid staff to perform an unknown job is the one who is taking the risk. The hired help are taking no risk at all.

Lawyers - chiseling assholes.

A nice Libel and Slander case should be able to rack up some SERIOUS fines....

What a brilliant idea!

The RIAA could acknowledge that the defendant had NOT illegally downloaded the tracks they were suggesting, and then be forced to cough up for every CD "owned" by an RIAA member company.

It'd make them look less monsterous (or at least make it look like they play fairer, sort of like a bluff in poker I guess), drive up CD / legal download sales as people would be "investing" in "protection CDs", while giving the RIAssA a good reason to NOT accuse anyone who's ever owned a computer. Or not owned one, or who is currently dead.

It'd also mean that their outdated business model could be perpetuated for a bit longer, which they'd be happy about.

"is currently dead." why currently? are you expecting some kind of mass resurection?... I think we ought to know!

as an aside what are the implecations of copyright (x years after death etc) if the artist is resurected? is there some method that an army of undead artists could claim dues from the Ass of Ammerica? is it somethign we should be working on?

It appears the Fat Lady has re-appeared for an encore in the Jamie Thomas case, so the RIAA may end up with a problem there as well:

See http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/15/1742257

In a development that must have caused much swearing in the RIAA camp, the following notice emerged:

"The judge in Capitol Records v. Thomas said today he's thinking about granting a new trial because he may have committed a 'manifest error of law' in his jury instructions. He says that his instruction that simply uploading music to a P2P network without any proof that anyone actually downloaded it may conflict with a case in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals that said 'infringement of [the distribution right] requires an actual dissemination.

Maybe they can hire Steve Ballmer to do that chair throwing?

You make a good point, unfortunately comprehensively undermined by the fact that you couldn't string a coherent sentence together if somebody rammed a Speak 'n' Spell up your ass.

In your defence you're clearly blighted by the all too common disorder of MSNitis, defined as the "tndncy 2 wr8 words wiv the lst psbl l8rs in rdr 2 comunic8 wiv ur m8s ovr MSN", with the major symptom being a complete inability to spell even the most basic words correctly.

Who am I kidding, that's no defence.

Illiter8 plonkR.

Note that the multiplier for attorney's fees was not for the client, but for the plaintiff. Basically, stating that the plaintiff provided a needlessly difficult case, because they were overly novel in their scam. I think the basic idea is, because the plaintiff had delved into an unusual area, they had a greater chance of succeeding despite their lack of merits, and to compensate for that, they should be penalized more. To encourage lawyers to take contingency cases in that sort of situation, pay that additional penalty to the lawyer who was brave enough to face that additional risk.

One must realise that it is a given that any lawyer is a chiseling jerk to begin with. Makes negotiations simpler you see.

Come to think of it, it works with mechanics too...

This is just the beginning of the monetary siphon that Tanya Anderson - hero to all music pirates and p2p users, and her fearless companion Lory Lybeck - champion legal crusader, are going to drop in to the bank accounts of the RIAssA, this was just the reward for the defense of the illegal onslaught from the RIAssa, next comes the spoils of the counter-assult...

Anybody who takes on hourly paid staff to perform an unknown job is the one who is taking the risk. The hired help are taking no risk at all.

You forget that there's a very real risk the hired help won't get paid at all. Kudos to the lawyers who don't get scared off by the deep pockets of the RIAA.

Bravo......Come to think of it, it works with mechanics too...

£50 per hour at local motorcycle shop

Peanuts for pigopolists... They can sue at will and at close range, if when they blunder they only have to pay a tenth of what they rake in when they hit it right.

Joe PC User doesn't have an army of lawyers on retainer, so the RIAA will always keep the upper hand.

My anger burns in the desert like the proverbial Bush...