A father who livestreamed his son's birth on Facebook and then sued various media outlets that used his clips has been ordered to pay $120,000 in attorneys fees after losing his case.

US District Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled in February that TV stations broadcasting clips of the 45-minute livestream, published online by Kali Kanongataa, qualified as fair use. NBC used 30 seconds of the video on one of its morning shows, while ABC and Yahoo used 22 seconds of the video for a segment that was broadcast on Good Morning America and a Yahoo site that hosts ABC content. The father also sued COED Media Group.

In June, Kaplan said that "no reasonable lawyer" would have sued news organizations for using short clips of the publicly shown, viral video and that he intended to award fees . Kaplan agreed with ABC's arguments that the video was used in the context of news reporting and social commentary. Essentially, ABC was reporting on how Kanongataa himself chose to use social media and what that says about society today. That makes him the subject of the news, not a ripped-off creator.

Yesterday, Kaplan published his 6-page fee order (PDF) on the matter. The judge notes that Kanongataa says he is "a person of limited means" and that a full fee award could result in bankruptcy. "The difficulty here, however, is that plaintiff has submitted no evidence at all as to his financial circumstances—only an unsworn statement in a memorandum by his lawyer, which does not cut it," Kaplan wrote.

Kaplan goes on to note that however destitute Kanongataa may be, he has at least some money from other copyright lawsuits he filed. Kanongataa brought three other cases over his livestream. In one of those cases, the public record explicitly shows that the case was settled. The other two were dismissed on consent, leading to the "logical inference" that they were settled as well.

Given that Kanongataa didn't show any evidence of his limited means and that he declined to provide evidence of the additional settlement money, Kaplan granted the full fee awards—$60,000 to ABC and Yahoo, $30,839 to COED Media Group, and $30,630 to NBC.

Kanongataa's attorney didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on the fee award.