A recent Law 360 story by Mike LaSusa, “Napster Knocks ‘Widely Inflated’ Fee Bid By Songwriters’ Atty” reports that the company behind Napster has urged a California federal judge to reject a "wildly inflated" request for $6.1 million in attorney fees lodged by songwriters as part of a settlement aiming to end claims that Napster failed to pay millions in so-called mechanical royalties.  Rhapsody International Inc., which rebranded its streaming service with the famous Napster name in 2016, said in a filing that the songwriters' attorneys at Michelman & Robinson LLP had "dragged out" the litigation to enhance their fees.

The parties agreed on the outlines of a settlement as early as May 2017, Rhapsody said, alleging the songwriters' lawyers "concocted issues" over the following months to prolong the litigation and keep their fees piling up.  "This has been to the detriment of their class, for whom relief has been delayed," Rhapsody said.  "The evidence shows that it was plaintiffs, not Rhapsody, who refused to bring the settlement to a close — a tactic that would have been self-defeating for the financially strapped Rhapsody."

In addition, Rhapsody said Michelman & Robinson's billing record was "replete with questionable time entries."  The company also urged the judge to reject a request for $103,067.52 in expenses because "many claimed costs appear to be unreasonable if not questionable."  Moreover, Rhapsody filed a motion seeking to exclude testimony by an expert the songwriters brought in to back up their fee request.  The company said the expert appears to have been "brought in late in the game, did not have adequate knowledge to form opinions, and merely reverse-engineered an opinion to support plaintiffs' fee demand."

The songwriters had asked the court earlier this month to approve $6.1 million in attorney fees, from a deal the court has preliminarily approved.  David Lowery and other songwriters claimed in their bid that the suit sought to resolve "cutting edge" issues related to the Copyright Act.  But Rhapsody countered that the songwriters' lawyers "never litigated any issues of novelty or complexity" and mostly "engaged in settlement efforts and discovery disputes."

The songwriters also valued the settlement at $20.4 million, but Rhapsody said that wasn't accurate.  The company said instead that the claims in the case total a paltry $50,032, calling the $6.1 million fee request "wildly inflated" in light of that small monetary amount.  The class action was one of several filed against streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal over mechanical royalties, which go to songwriters when a song is reproduced.  Such litigation was one of the driving factors behind federal legislation that simplified how those royalties are paid.