The German legal system does put somewhat of a damper on "every bit of money". First, it can only be charged as attorney fees, and if it exceeds the legal schedule, it needs to be very clearly called out as an attorney fee agreement. So "or not" is off the table.

Secondly, there is a morality clause with regards to attorney fees, so usurious rates like some US attorneys charge are harder to achieve.

This doesn't mean German attorneys are cheap. It's just not quite as out of control as the US legal system. (Though attorney's professional bodies are obviously lobbying to make it easier to charge more)

The legal fee schedule does put a damper on attorney work, and more importantly, makes it somewhat easier to predict costs should you need an attorney. If it's enough of a damper is open to interpretation. I

The short answer would be to make legal representation less valuable. Ensure that all cases (civil, criminal or otherwise) are tried and concluded quickly including appeals and streamline the law so that there is a lot less maneuverability. Lawyers wouldn't vanish (having someone knowledgeable and with proper negotiating distance will always be valuable), but they would lose a lot of leverage.

Of course, if there's one thing that lawyers are less likely to do than cap the earnings of their profession, it's to devalue it entirely.

You could also increase supply by reducing the level of qualification needed to become a lawyer. Increased competition would drive prices down. That too is highly unlikely.

I think the joke is just that awarding "attorney fees" sets up a perverse incentive, much like "cost plus" pricing agreements. It's a bad idea.

Note that Germany generally has a loser pays system (there are some caveats), so this will definitely not be true, because they can recover the legal costs from Chessbase.

Statutory damages are per work infringed, not per infringement.

They are normally from $750-30000 per work infringed.

The lower limit can be lowered to $200 if the defendant can prove that they were an innocent infringer (they were not aware and had no reason to believe they were infringing). The defendant has the burden of proof for this.

The upper limit can be raised to $150000 if the infringement is "willful". The statute does not define "willful". Courts have taken it to mean reckless disregard. The defendant knew they were infringing and did it anyway.

The jury decides where in the range you end up, and they certainly might take into account the magnitude of your infringement so 10000 downloads might cost you more than 1000 by convincing the jury to choose somewhere high from the range, but the cap on the total will be $30k (or $150k if it was willful).

Note that this means that willfully distributing 10000000 copies of one movies is going to be a lot better for the defendant than distributing a single copy each of 300 different movies, if the plaintiff elects to ask for statutory damages.

The 10000000 copies of one movie is just one work infringed, so you are looking at $150000 worst case.

The single copy each of 300 movies is 300 works infringed, so best case (assuming you are not an innocent infringer) is the minimal amount of statutory damages per work, $750, times 300 works = $225000.

(But remember that the plaintiff gets to choose between statutory damages and actual damages. If you've distribute 10000000 copies of their movie, they'll probably go for actual damages which could be considerably more than $150000!)

But crucially, in that case the infringer did not make money based on their infringement, and the actual infringement was minor. (Specifically, a university failed to provide a copy of the GPL license alongside a download of the software, which they offered free of charge.)