Are legal fees typically paid by the other side in copyright infringement cases?

dano1066

If a copyright infringement case goes to court in Ireland, does the defendant have to pay the legal fees if the court rules that infringement did occur or do the damages just need to be paid?

Reason I ask is because I have a personal blog. A firm is saying I need to pay an insane amount of damages that I can't afford since the website is not a business and earns no money. I'm willing to fight it but not if I end up having to pay 10 grand for their solicitors fees. Are the legal fees normally sought in cases like this?

Mr. Incognito

Firstly did you infringe someone's copyright or trademark. Theres a difference.

Generally costs follow the event but until I got a solicitors letter I'd ignore them.

dano1066

Mr. Incognito wrote: »

Firstly did you infringe someone's copyright or trademark. Theres a difference.

Generally costs follow the event but until I got a solicitors letter I'd ignore them.

It was infringement of an photograph. The initial contact them could be considered extortion as it contained threats but no reasonable grounds for the claim. No proof of copyright ownership. Could very well be a random scam hoping to get lucky. Regardless, I want to be prepared for the worst.

I just don't see the point in fighting if I am forced to pay their legal fees. I suspect this would make it to the small claims court. Big money for me personally but not big in the eyes of the court and is well below the max of the small claims court. This would surely negate the risk of huge legal bills but as I said. Just playing it safe. If I fight and the end result is a judge telling me I have to pay, then so be it. So long as there aren't additional expenses that come with it.

Mr. Incognito

There's a few of these recently.

Its a scam.

Tell them to get lost

Unless a solicitor sends you a letter then dont bother engaging.

Peregrinus

You can't take copyright infringement proceedings using the small claims process; they would need to sue you in the regular process. If they sued you, and you lost, they would normally get an award of costs against you.

However as others have said this is likely to be a scam. You can safely ignore this until it gets to the point of them sending you a solicitor's letter. At that stage, you can check with the Law Society whether the firm named on the letter your receive is a real solicitors practice in Ireland. If the answer is no, it's not, send the Law Society a copy of your letter and tell them that these people seem to be holding themselves out as solicitors when they are not. If they answer is yes, it is, then it's probably time to think about taking down the photograph.

dano1066

Peregrinus wrote: »

You can't take copyright infringement proceedings using the small claims process; they would need to sue you in the regular process. If they sued you, and you lost, they would normally get an award of costs against you.

However as others have said this is likely to be a scam. You can safely ignore this until it gets to the point of them sending you a solicitor's letter. At that stage, you can check with the Law Society whether the firm named on the letter your receive is a real solicitors practice in Ireland. If the answer is no, it's not, send the Law Society a copy of your letter and tell them that these people seem to be holding themselves out as solicitors when they are not. If they answer is yes, it is, then it's probably time to think about taking down the photograph.

I have found other people who have been contacted by this company, they are based out of Germany. The typical scenario is they send a series of more threatening emails and eventually hand it over to a "debt collection agency". Since this is a claim that hasn't been through the courts there is no debt to collect as it can't be a debt until the infringer is found guilty. There are no cases I could find where it ever went further than the debt collection threat. I've often heard they back down when pressured to provide tangible proof of the original copyright ownership. I can't imagine the legal headache is worth the effort. Still best to be cautious.

This is sounding very much like racketeering though. Based on my research, without reasonable grounds, these threats are considered extortion.

The second part of your message has me curious. If I am to be taken to court, does it need to be by an Irish firm? A solicitor based in Germany couldn't sue me for example? Unless he or she was registered to practice law in Ireland of course?

Would I be correct in saying that if I were to be sued by a German solicitor, they would need to force me to travel to Germany to deal with this in in a German court? However, since I live in Ireland I have not broken foreign copyright laws, I have "allegedly" broke Irish laws and therefore can only be trialed in Irish court?

seagull

Where is the blog actually hosted?

Mr. Incognito

Dear Sirs

I have passed the matter to my lawyers and they are looking for your address for the service of legal proceedings.

Please provide this by reply

Yours sincerely.

You will never hear from them again.

dano1066

seagull wrote: »

Where is the blog actually hosted?

The server is in France but it's registered to me in Ireland