Richard Pennycuick wrote:

>Hyperion has lost its copyright case.  The consequences for the label
>will be severe.  There's a statement at Hyperion's website:
>
> http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/

There is a dead giveaway in the Hyperion announcement; "conditional fee".

This didn't exist in English law until about 5 years ago; what it means
is that, if you lose, you pay nothing to your lawyer but, if you win,
you pay a large proportion of the "winnings", often 30-40 per cent.
Far larger than there would have been under the old system, where you
had to put money up front to instruct a lawyer; the conditional fee is
inflated to offset the cost of losing and getting nothing in a proportion
of cases.

I suspect that a musicologist would not have been financially even close
to instructing Carter Ruck, which is a very high profile and well known
firm of lawyers, if it had not been for the "conditional fee"; without
it an inferior lawyer would have probably prosecuted the case less
effectively, if it had even been brought.

Another problem with this arrangement is that, if Hyperion puts out the
begging bowl, a lot of people are going to say "why provide the fat cats
with cream?".

Alastair