Calling Capitol Records Inc.’s copyright win against defunct music storage service MP3-tunes and its founder a “Pyrrhic victory,” a federal judge in Manhattan ruled in April that he’d grant the record company “only a fraction” of the $7 million that it sought in attorney fees.
In March 2014 a jury found MP3tunes and its founder, Michael Robertson, liable for infringing Capitol Records’ copyrights and awarded $48 million in damages. In September U.S. District Judge William Pauley III slashed the award to $12.2 million, ruling that many of the record company’s claims were “just too big to succeed.” (MP3tunes is no longer in business, and Robertson has appealed.)
