City owes $117K in legal fees to critic it sued over meeting clips in his YouTube videos
A California city must pay more than $117,000 in attorney’s fees for a critic it sued over alleged copyright infringement due to government meeting footage he included in his YouTube videos.
The Inglewood meeting footage couldn’t be copyrighted, a federal judge ruled in August, and on Thursday he made the attorney’s fees award on behalf of Joseph Teixeira, reports the Los Angeles Times (sub. req.).
Teixeira was represented by Davis Wright Tremaine, which took on the case as a pro bono matter. However, U.S. District Judge Michael Fitzgerald rejected the city’s argument that the law firm should not be compensated because it had agreed to do the work for free, as far as its client is concerned.
“The court is … persuaded that a fee award is necessary to deter future meritless litigations of this kind,” wrote Fitzgerald in his order (PDF) in the Central District of California case.
Inglewood also contended that the law firm’s fees were exhorbitant. The original tally for about 335 hours of work was a little over $135,000.
A Volokh Conspiracy blog post published by the Washington Post (reg. req.) discusses the order in greater detail.
