US court grants Jay-Z $200k in copyright dispute
A US district court has awarded Shawn 'Jay-Z' Carter nearly $200,000 in attorneys’ fees following a copyright dispute and said that the fine will help to deter frivolous lawsuits.
On Friday, July 17, the US District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that Jay-Z and his music label Roc Nation were due 90% of the legal costs incurred during a dispute with sound engineer Chauncey Mahan.
Last year, Mahan alleged that Roc Nation and Jay-Z had infringed his copyright when they used 41 recordings that the engineer produced between August 1999 and November 2000.
During that time Mahan was employed by Roc Nation.
Of those recordings, 31 were used on two albums produced by Jay-Z—“Vol. 3 ... Life and Times of S. Carter” and “The Dynasty: Roc La Familia”. The albums were released in 1999 and 2000 respectively.
The remaining ten recordings were used by other Roc Nation artists.
But the New York court threw out all the claims in April, stating that Mahan had waited too long to assert his rights.
Judge Lorna Schofield, presiding over the case, said the “commercial success” of the albums should have alerted Mahan to the possible infringing use of his material.
In response, both Jay-Z and Roc Nation filed a motion to recoup the $282,000 that they had spent on lawyers during the case.
According to Schofield, when deciding whether to award attorneys’ fees, judges have to assess the “frivolousness” and “objective unreasonableness” of, and “motivation” behind, the lawsuit filed by the plaintiff.
Schofield said that in this dispute “objective reasonableness” is the most important factor and said that Mahan’s claim was “objectively unreasonable”.
“An award of attorneys’ fees here would promote the interests of the Copyright Act because it would deter frivolous lawsuits,” she added.
But the judge awarded only 90% of the attorneys’ fees because one of the claims asserted by Mahan in the initial suit was not relevant to copyright.
Mahan had claimed that Roc Nation initiated a “ sham” criminal proceeding against him when the label asked the Los Angeles Police Department to recover computers containing files of the sound recordings at the centre of the dispute.
Overall, both parties were awarded 90% of the fees spent on attorneys, which amounted to a total of $253,409 in legal costs—$194,328 for Jay-Z and $59,081 for Roc Nation.
Gloria Phares, of counsel at law firm Hoffmann Marshall Strong, said: “The facts are straightforward: the plaintiff waited 15 years to assert a copyright interest in the music at issue, almost three times the three-year statute of limitations. One may be able to conjure circumstances that would justify the delay, but they don’t apply here,” she added.
Other lawyers told WIPR that there needs to be a balance between deterring frivolous litigation and ensuring that legitimate claimants can step forward.
Michael Albert, partner at law firm Wolf Greenfield, said judges face a difficult choice when deciding whether to award attorneys’ fees.
“On the one hand awarding fees discourages future frivolous litigation. On the other hand, the threat of such fees might deter some meritorious claimants,” he said.
“There is significant tension between seeking to conserve judicial resources and seeking to create a robust system of rights in creative works,” he added.
Awards of attorney's fees are “unusual” and the seldom application of them can mean some courts are “hesitant” to issue such rulings, said Margaret Esquenet, partner at law firm Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner.
But Paul Fakler, partner at law firm Arent Fox, said that when there are claims that are “objectively unreasonable”, such rulings are more common.
“This was one of those cases,” he added.
Mahan could not be reached for comment.
