Judge rips lawyers in IP rift over viral Facebook childbirth video

(credit: WSPA.com)

A year ago, the US Supreme Court announced guidance to lower courts in determining whether the prevailing party in a copyright lawsuit should be awarded attorney fees. Under US law, the losing side of a copyright suit can be ordered to pay the legal costs to the winners-no matter which side originally brought the case.

The Supreme Court said that the imposition of a fee award against a copyright holder should be denied if the rights holder held an "objectively reasonable" belief that there was infringement-even if the copyright holder loses the lawsuit.

Today, we're seeing another example in practice on how that ruling is playing out. A New York federal judge on Wednesday ruled that no "reasonable attorney" would have sued news organizations for broadcasting or publishing seconds-long clips from the 45-minute live Facebook video of a childbirth. Hence, the media outlets that were on the receiving end of the lawsuit are entitled to recover what may amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal costs.

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