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:Show Me the Money

[an.echte.trilingue]

They obviously have the money to pay. But the point (or one of the points) of these lawsuits is to make people's lives hell, to make examples, to discourage copyright infringement by others. Here, they are trying to make show that even if you fight and win, you still lose.

baffles me

[SEAL]

According to Ms. Foster's motion papers (pdf), her attorneys received no response to their email inquiry about payment.

If you're trying to collect money owed due to a legal ruling, it'd be prudent for your attorney to pick up the phone, and/or put the request in writing and send it via certified mail.

Do I Hear A Bid For (1) Capitol Bldg?

[cmholm]

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

Which occasionally leads to an attorney for a major corporation running to the court house steps as said corporation is about to have its home office auctioned off to cover some paltry judgement. Sometimes the suits forget that the legal process does in fact have an end game, and that their team lost.

Re:RIAA attorney's statement before the bench

[dch24]

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. I'm sure, if all the assets in Enron were totalled, there was enough to settle accounts. That is, before the Execs cashed out, hopped in their Gulfstreams, and exited the country.

If the RIAA or the Labels behind it are about to go under, I promise you long before any of us knows about it, the Execs will bail with golden parachutes. Everyone else can scrabble over the pennies.

Re:Contempt of court?

[Speare]

'Contempt of Court' is a charge that comes from the Judge, not the parties. You can't file to hold the other litigants in CoC. An annoyed Judge might listen appreciatively to the complaint, but usually they don't even want to hear either party make the suggestion.

Re:Email inquiry?

[kebes]

Email is not verifiable, sure. However the email in this case appears merely to have been a follow-up along the lines of "Remember when that judge ruled you needed to send us a cheque? We still have not got it!" It was a courtesy to send the email at all. Even without sending the email, Capitol is legally required to send the cheque for the amount owed. Failure to do so is breaking the law. It's not the defendant's job to run after them, continually requesting that they pay what they were legally mandated to pay.

But an email seems to be wide open to "we never got it" or "the guy that checks that account was out the last two weeks."

I'm sure either excuse would be laughed out of court. The court ruled against Capitol, at which point they were made aware of their legal obligations (in particular, to pay a certain sum). They are now breaking the law, regardless of whether they got the friendly reminder.

The only reason to mention the email at all is that the fact that they are ignoring communication attempts is itself somewhat amusing.

Re:Show Me the Money

[iluvcapra]

"The purpose of the suit is to harass and discourage rather than win. The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway, well knowing that he is not authorized, will generally be sufficient to cause professional decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly." --L. Ron Hubbard

Different end in LRH's case, but the same means. The tort system, without careful rules, is just a big harassment system that rich people can use on poor people.