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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?"
Unfortunately, this isn't RIAA v. Foster, it's Capitol v. Foster. Capitol Records is going to have to pony up or face the wrath of a spurned judge.
Time for more popcorn. This is gonna get interesting.
*piracy - producing crap loads of crappy music and selling it at over inflated prices
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex. I could pinch them."
Marvin the Martian
Unfortunately, this isn't RIAA v. Foster, it's Capitol v. Foster.
Or, fortunately. The RIAA is just a shell, if the expense ever got too high (and I don't think amounts of money this small would do it), they could just dissolve it. It's much harder to dissolve an ongoing concern like a record label.
They haven't, because this lawsuit was brought by Capitol, not the RIAA. The RIAA only digs up the possible infringements -- the actual lawsuits are made in the name of the allegedly infringed company.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Here they're spending about $5000 in attorneys fees to try and squeeze $543 out of a 20 year old. I guess
-they really do need the money, and
-they're really bad businessmen.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
I don't believe that you have any requirement to communicate with someone who owes you a judgment at all, much less prove that you did. It's their obligation to pay, and to prove that they paid to the court. The legal document that needs to be sent certified mail is the complaint they're placing before the judge (and I'm sure it was), not the request for information that was sent via email.
That's what the 'post judgment collection proceedings' are all about. The RIAA would be wise to just pay up before things get really expensive for them.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Contempt is the judge's prerogative for behavior related to proceedings they're currently presiding over. After a trial is over, a complainant usually needs to file a contempt complaint to enforce compliance. So it actually is up to the aggrieved party.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
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.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
It's only unfortunate if you're Capitol Records. >;-)
For the rest of us, I think it's time to grab a bowl of popcorn or some equally suitable munchie and sit back and watch them squirm- this is going to be fun.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
You really should do some research on how this sort of thing works. If you have a judgment against someone who has the assets, it is generally a very simple process to force collection. In California, you subpoena appropriate employees of the company in to court to answer questions - somebody like the CFO, to answer questions like "Where are you bank accounts" and "What is the account number and current balance" and "What is the license plate number and VIN of every car owned by the RIAA and issued to employees to use." Then you just pick what you're going to have uniformed Marshall's deputies go out and seize, at gunpoint if necessary, to sell off. Banks are very cooperative about taking money out of a bank account.
And if they ignore the subpoena, judges tend to do things like issue arrest warrants, eventually.
Anybody who fails to collect on a judgement against someone who actually has the wealth has no one to blame but themselves.
Hell, even $cientology was forced, on pain of prison time for higher-ups, to pay a judgement.
Much like the Chrystler Building, the Capitol Records company no longer owns the "Capitol Records Building"
Here is an example what that means in human terms: almost 20% of a group of fisherman involved in the spill have died since it happened. http://www.oiledfishermenvsexxon.com/
To put this in perspective, Exxon-Mobil had the largest single year profit for a corporation in 2005 $36.13 billion: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/business/30cnd-e xxon.html?ex=1296277200&en=8ec83a7f4025b22b&ei=508 8&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
And they have still avoided paying the roughly 5 billion (2.5 billion to start with almost 20 years of interest.)
This is not justice, it's legalized rape.
"A bank customer who was angered by the refusal of his branch to refund thousands of pounds of charges responded by sending in the bailiffs.
Customers at the branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) in North London were stunned to see debt collectors that were hired by Declan Purcell seize four computers, two fax machines and a till filled with cash."
More:
Times Online: Bailiffs seize bank's cash
For Megadeth and Anthrax, check out Iced Earth. They got a thrash / power metal style with Iron Maidenesque melodies with Halford like vocals, awesome band. You might like some later Arcturus, Sideshow Symphonies or The Sham Mirrors albums. Maybe even some melodic death metal, Hypocrisy, In Flames (although they change a lot), Amon Amarth. Maybe symphonic black metal bands like Dimmu Borgir. There is also Mastodon, that resembles a later, Bush era Anthrax. I haven't found a band yet that did early Anthrax like songs.
If you like Rammstein, check out Skinny Puppy, the later records, especially the live Greater Wrong of the Right DVD might be something a Rammstein fan would like. They are not metal but pure electro industrial, but lot of metalheads like em. Check out Falkenbach also, a viking metal band, that use a lot of electronic sounds in their records.
As for CoC, Tool and Faith No more, try out The End Records. Probably the best metal label out there. Ulver, Green Carnation and Stolen Babies might be something you might enjoy. The End Records have some insane metal bands from all weird genres, progressive, experimental, avant-garde, name it. Again, Mastodon would probably be a bit like CoC and Tool, although heavier and a bit less progressive. Some avant-garde stuff you might enjoy could be Cult of Luna or Isis.
For Type O Negative, check out Tiamat. Although Tiamat is more gothic rock style lately, some older albums are more gothic/doom style. You'd probably want to check out Wildhoney or Prey. You'd probably like some Tiamat records like Judas Christ and A deeper Kind of Slumber if you like Monster Magnet. Oh, and The Gathering, for sure, Mandylion, if_then_else and How to Measure a Planet.
Top of my head, some labels:
Peaceville = Doom Metal.
Napalm Records = Lots of death metal, some gothic.
The End Records = All kind of progressive, weird, avant-garde stuff.
SPV = Lots of gothic, power and symphonic metal.
Nuclear Blast: Lots of more "popular" stuff like Therion, Nightwish and Opeth.
Roadrunner: Another "popular" label. Some neat bands, pretty much all metal genres.
What, a letter via registered mail was too expensive?
Registered mail is only necessary when you are trying to give someone notice. The RIAA already has notice of the order. From this point, it doesn't really matter how they try to contact them about collecitng. They could send messages to them via singing telegram."That depends on the contract. I'd bet that most of the copyrights are owned by the music companies (for which the RIAA is acting as an agent). I'm not at all sure that misbehavior on the part of the RIAA is enough to allow a lien to be placed on the music company's property."
Ownership of the music and lyrics is typically with the composer and lyricist. The songwriter might assign their rights to a publishing company. Some publishing companies are small (one- or two- person operations) and some are quite large. In some cases a publishing company is owned by a record company, or owned by the same company which owns a record company (Warner Chappell Music is one notable example -- that "Warner" is the same as in "Warner Records"). But it would be inaccurate to say that "most" of the music and lyric rights belong to record companies.
I believe that half a century ago, it was much more prevalent for record companies to have ownership of the lyrics and music than it is now. It probably still happens, but stating that record companies own all the rights works better as a way of justifying piracy than it does as an accurate statement.
The GP is correct that performance rights are managed by ASCAP (which is run by and for artists) and BMI. These rights can be a great way for artists to get a revenue stream from their work that the record company doesn't see and can't touch. But, to make significant money this way generally requires that your song first be a hit on the radio, or enjoy significant CD sales.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
I had a similar experience with a car dealer.
They owed me several thousand dollars, didn't dispute that, but simply refused to pay. I went through the legal process, took them to court. They didn't attend court, and I won a default judgement, but they still wouldn't pay. I went back to the court, and got a bailiff's summons to confiscate property.
They met the bailiff with a cheque for the amount I owed.
I got my money, but it took me more than eight months and hundreds of hours of work to get it. It's a pretty big disincentive to try to recover what you're owed.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Usually they respond to any email within a couple of hours. If they took 2 days to respond to an email of mine I'd know something is up. A response doesn't have to be "OK here's your check" or "OK we'll get you check on the 18th"... It could also be "Got your email, Marilyn, and client hasn't decided what to do."
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
I would have had to apply to the court again to get them. At some point, you have to cut your losses.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Which sentence? There are two in the quotation.....
Have a look at soylentnews.org for a different view
There is an important difference there:
1. That's under the UK legal system.
2. Specifically, it's under the Small Claims court. Which is a system we have in the UK which is designed specifically so that small (under £5,000) claims can be heard in relatively informal surroundings, and where it's not really necessary to hire an army of solicitors to fight your case. Neither is it necessary to wait 2 years for your case to be heard.
Unlike Judge Judy, it is part of the same legal system as everything else and decisions are just as binding. If you decide not to defend, the chances are the court will decide against you. And if you don't pay up, and don't show up when the person taking you to court goes back to ask the court to send the bailiffs in (yes, the court sends the bailiffs in), chances are the court will simply rubber-stamp the request to send the bailiffs in.
If you look at this, though, it looks mostly like a couple sets of judges arguing back and forth.
It looks to me like the story went like this:
Jury/Trial Judge: $5 billion in punitive damages.
Exxon: That's too much!
Appeals Court: It's too much.
Trial Judge: $4 billion in punitive damages.
Exxon: A Supreme Court decision says that's still too much.
Appeals Court: Reevaluate it.
Trial Judge: Fine. $4.5 billion then, bitches! Plus interest!
Exxon: You're dumb. It's too much.
Appeals Court: Yeah, you are dumb. $2.5 billion is the limit according to the recent Supreme Court limits on punitive damages.
Exxon: TOO MUCH!
Appeals Court: TOO BAD!
Exxon: We're telling the Supreme Court on you!
And that's where we are. Assuming they fail in their Supreme Court bid (and there's a fairly good chance that the USSC won't even choose to hear the case) the $2.5 billion judgment will stand.
It seems to me that the judges bickering back and forth is what is dragging this out. If the appeals court had simply set punitive damages themselves rather than telling the original judge to revise his estimates, or if the original judge hadn't taken that opportunity to actually RAISE the penalties when it's pretty clear that's not what the appeals court intended, their final appeal would probably have been over with and they'd either be paying or we'd be talking about something else.
Starscreamer? Starscreamer?!? Hand in your geek card.
I'll be honest, we're throwing science against the wall to see what sticks. -Cave Johnson
ok I went ahead and registered to prevent anon cowards from giving bad info, like rust coating. the dealership violated TILA several times in addition to a couple other transgressions. Since TILA is a federal act I bypassed state and local and went straight to federal, I also passed go and collected $200.