The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently issued what looked to be a significant ruling. There, for the first time, a Court of Appeals was going to decide whether the tactics of so-called “copyright trolls” were reasonable when considering whether to award prevailing party attorneys' fees to a successful BitTorrent defendant. However, the language and procedure that the Court of Appeals utilized leaves one with the impression that not much has been clarified. Nova Southeastern University's Copyright Officer, Stephen Carlisle J.D., digs into both the trial and appellate opinions to explain why the impact of the decision is less than certain.
