Damages-as-revenue case merits minimum damages

The court granted default judgment against infringement defendants who did not respond to the plaintiff’s lawsuit, but awarded only the minimum in statutory damages and found counsel’s requested fees unreasonable.

Background

According to its complaint, Plaintiff LHF Productions holds the copyright to the 2016 action film London Has Fallen. LHF alleges that the Defendants have willfully infringed upon its copyright by using a BitTorrent protocol to copy and distribute it. LHF identified the Defendants through their IP addresses.

LHF properly served the Defendants and, after the response deadline passed, moved for entry of default.

Liability

LHF has alleged that it owns the copyright to the film and that the Defendants copied it. Because the court accepts plaintiff’s well-pleaded allegations as true upon default, LHF has established that the Defendants violated its copyright. The court will enter default judgment in LHF’s favor.

Injunctive relief

Where, as here, a plaintiff establishes a copyright-infringement claim, courts have routinely entered permanent injunctions. Thus, the court will grant LHF’s request to permanently enjoin each of the Defendants from future infringement of LHF’s copyright to London Has Fallen.

Statutory damages

LHF also seeks statutory damages in the amount of $6000 against each Defendant. The court has discretion to award a just amount between $750 and $30,000.

A recent trend has emerged in courts across the country to award the $750 minimum in infringement cases brought by copyright holders who seek damages not to be made whole, but rather as a primary or secondary revenue stream, and who file mass lawsuits against anonymous Doe defendants with the hopes of coercing settlements.

LHF has sued multiple Doe defendants in this district alone, and this lawsuit aligns with the national trend of seeking damages as a revenue stream. The court will award $750 to be paid by each Defendant, without interest. This amount is sufficient to compensate LHF for the harm in this case and to deter future infringement.

Attorneys’ fees, costs

LHF requests $2,520 in attorneys’ fees from each Defendant, which reflects 8.4 hours of work per Defendant at an hourly rate of $300. The court does not find these fees reasonable.

Counsel filed formulaic complaints and motions in this case, as well as in a related case pending in this court. Nor does the court believe that this case involves novel or difficult questions or requires a high level of skill. A lower fee is also consistent with the court’s decision to award only $750 in statutory damages. Finally, the court notes that counsel recently received $600 per Defendant in a substantially similar case in this district. Thus, the court concludes that two hours per defendant at the $300 rate is reasonable.

Motions for default judgment granted.

LHF Productions Inc. v. Lindvall, Case No. 5:16cv30, Sept. 4, 2018. WDVA at Harrisonburg (Dillon). VLW No. 018-3-368, 6 pp.