RIAA Short on Funds? Fails to Pay Attorney Fees

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Can it be that the RIAA, or the "Big 4" record companies it represents, are short on funds? It turns out that despite the Judge's order, entered a month ago, telling them to pay Debbie Foster $68,685.23 in attorneys fees, in Capitol v. Foster, they have failed to make payment. Ms. Foster has now had to ask the Court to enter Judgment, so that she can commence 'post judgment collection proceedings'. According to Ms. Foster's motion papers (pdf), her attorneys received no response to their email inquiry about payment. Perhaps the RIAA should ask their lawyers for a loan?"

Comments

Re:Dragging their feet

[AKAImBatman]

Is there any penalty for failing to pay?

Other than having assets seized by the Sheriff and auctioned off to settle the debt? No, none.

Re:Show Me the Money

[krgallagher]

"So where is all that cash going that they are "winning" in settlements??"

It is being eaten up by all the money they are losing because people are downloading their songs instead of buying them.

Re:Dragging their feet

[Esion Modnar]

Other than having assets seized by the Sheriff

They paid off the Sheriff. (But they did not pay off the Deputy.)

Re:Ay, There's the rub....

[TDyl]

OT: I was going to use "Therein lies the rub" as the title, but it looks like that is an abuse of the original phrase.

Surely in a music related thread it would "Theremin lies the rub"

Re:E-mail?

[Rakshasa Taisab]

I installed a 'spam filter', or should we say 'spam shredder', in my RL mailbox. After that I haven't gotten a single herbal advertisement, etc.

Oh, and I'm loaded now since my cell-phone provider and landlord seems to have forgotten to send me the bills these past few months.

Re:Dragging their feet

[MattPat]

They paid the Sheriff, but they did not pay the deputy...

Whoa, watch it there... you might just become the RIAA's newest source of income if you get too close to the original.

Re:Get some perspective

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Yeah. The summary seems like a paltry attempt to get some yuks from the audience. It seems pretty childish to me. Sorry.

Re:Dragging their feet

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

They paid the Sheriff, but they did not pay the deputy... Whoa, watch it there... you might just become the RIAA's newest source of income if you get too close to the original. No problem. It's a fair use.

Maybe the RIAA should release an album

[Torontoman]

Maybe the RIAA should release an album - If it was a hit and not downloaded too much they could collet enough royalties enough to pay for their court cases.

Re:Maybe the RIAA should release an album

[digitig]

The royalties would never get to them; they'd never get past the RI- oh, wait...

Charity

[phiz187]

Is there somewhere where we can send donations to help out the poor beleaguered RIAA, who can't afford their legal bills? -PHiZ

Seize Their Building

[Nom du Keyboard]

Maybe, once they have this order in hand, they can seize the RIAA's main headquarters building. After all, that would create great publicity, which is what all these lawsuits is about.

It's the RIAA's stubborn refusal to pay a single cent in exoneration that puts them at the top of the list of most evil organizations ever!

Re:E-mail? Hotmail.

[Nom du Keyboard]

have never had a single instance that I can recall of any email communication going astray.

You obviously don't use Hotmail.

Re:Charity-YES

[Nom du Keyboard]

Is there somewhere where we can send donations to help out the poor beleaguered RIAA, who can't afford their legal bills?

Send them directly to me. Make them out to CASH, which is much easier to write than my entire name otherwise. I promise to be as honest in passing along the proceeds to the RIAA as they are in all of their other business dealings.

Re:RIAA attorney's statement before the bench

[Bobby Mahoney]

But damn, wouldn't it be beautiful irony if in fact, they did plummet to the ground at terminal velocity tethered to golden parachutes?

Re:RIAA attorney's statement before the bench

[chubs730]

We've got hungry executives to feed, and those Gulfstream jets don't exactly fly themselves, you know

There's more truth to that than meets the eye.

So...their gulfstream jets are transformers?

Re:not if they're using email...

[Dragonslicer]

They could send messages to them via singing telegram. And get sued for copyright infringement again?

Re:Show Me the Money

[Anonymous Coward]

This dude is my new hero

hmm

[British]

* Fat Tony voice *

Excuse me Mr. RIAA, I'm a building safety hobbyist. Just out of curiosity, how fireproof is your building?

Re:not if they're using email...

[andphi]

[to the tune of "Happy Birthday"]

Give me money right now
Give me money right now
Give me money
Effing cheapskates
Give me money right now.

Re:Show Me the Money

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignoring a judgement is a pretty dangerous game. A creditor who knows what they're doing can get liens on property, seize bank accounts, etc. Please seize Celine Dion....
Please seize Celine Dion....
Please seize Celine Dion....
Please seize Celine Dion....
Please seize Celine Dion.... ....

Re:And How Much Does That Cost?

[Paradise Pete]

Oh yeah, that's likely - last time I checked, firing on uniformed law enforcement officers while they're performing their lawful tasks

I thought when he said bullet point maybe he meant they would whip out some powerpoint presentation. Hey, it makes about as much sense.

Re:not if they're using email...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your use of Happy Birthday is a violation of copyright law. Our lawyers are en-route.

Signed,
The RIAA

Re:Par for the course

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

This is precisely the kind of behaviour to be expected of a big modern corporation. It's not quite accurate to say that they ignore the law completely. It's more that they don't have any of the emotional respect for law that some (I hope, many) of us individual citizens have. Sure, we might cut corners in a few small matters... parking where we technically shouldn't, taking some stationery from the office cupboard, that kind of thing. But we would never dream of defying a court order. Joel Bakan explains what's going on in his great book The Corporation. Thanks to a framework of laws set up in Britain, the USA and other places in the late 18th and 19th centuries, corporations get treated as people - except that they don't have all the responsibilities of people. You can't imprison a corporation, and if it runs out of other people's money, it can simply declare bankruptcy and leave everyone else holding the bag. As Bakan explains, while corporations are hard to pin down legally, they are increasingly compelled by law to leave no stone unturned in the search for profits. Not just profits, maximum profits. Not just maximum profits, but maximum profits NOW. That makes them liable to behave, in some important ways, just like human psychopaths. A corporation has no "better nature"; no decency, no innate or learned morality, and very little actual reason to fear the law. To it, "ethics" means a set of showy acts designed to improve its public image. So it's hard to be surprised when a corporation behaves the way the RIAA has done. It simply compares the upside with the downside, and acts accordingly. Don't expect it to think or act like a decent human being: there's no "there" there. So what do you want me to do, only post stories when I'm surprised?

There is nothing these people could do that would surprise me, as they have shown themselves to be (a) totally irrational (i.e. outside the bounds of behavior that would tend to serve their best interests and survival) and (b) totally indecent (i.e. unrestrained by the sense of conscience that is instilled in most people who are born of a human mother).

So if I can only write about what surprises me, I will be silent.

As you may have discerned, silence is not my strong suit.

Re:Show Me the Money

[theun4gven]

So where did you stay while your room was flooded?

Re:That is the problems with our INCs.

[Anonymous Coward]

define "interesting"

oh god, oh god, we are all going to laugh

g

captcha: wetting :)