A recent Law 360 story by Hailey Konnath, “Hollywood Studios Seek $6.4M Atty Fees for VidAngel IP Win” reports that Disney and other Hollywood studios say VidAngel should pay $6.4 million in attorney fees after Munger Tolles & Olson LLP attorneys secured the studios a $62.4 million verdict in a long-running copyright suit over streamed films, claiming opposing counsel "made this litigation as difficult and costly as possible."

Last June, a California federal jury found that VidAngel Inc. willfully infringed the copyrights of nearly 820 films owned by Disney Enterprises Inc., Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. and other Hollywood studios.  The streaming service also violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act when it used illegal software to bypass anti-piracy measures and rip the films off DVDs, the jury found at the time.

In a motion, the studios slammed VidAngel's litigation tactics, saying the company violated a preliminary injunction and forced the studios to file a motion for contempt, which the court granted.  VidAngel also filed numerous meritless motions, including one for which it was sanctioned, raised frivolous arguments and rehashed multiple rejected arguments in post-trial motions, they said.

Ultimately, the company "forced plaintiffs to proceed to the bitter end rather than settling," the studios said.  "All told, VidAngel has forced plaintiffs to spend more than $8 million in attorneys' fees to protect their copyrights and stop VidAngel's willful infringement and violation of the DMCA," they said.  The $6.4 million request doesn't cover all the fees racked up by the studios, and, by any measure, it's a reasonable request, the studios' motion said.

VidAngel promptly fired back, saying it's not requesting the same amount of time afforded to plaintiffs to prepare their fees motion — which was four months — but are rather seeking a continuance of three weeks "to permit them to respond to plaintiffs' evidence, marshal their own evidence and arguments, and file their opposition."

"A thorough review of plaintiffs' voluminous billing document — which fills 109 small-print pages and totals 10,572.5 hours — to identify fees that are potentially unreasonable cannot be completed in one week, and if anyone is to blame for the need for a continuance it is plaintiffs," VidAngel said.