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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?"
It removes responsibility. In particular, assume that RIAA declares bankruptcy, or simply decides to say that it is none-existent. The labels will simply spin up RIAAII. What is needed is to require the parent companies to take full responsibility for ALL of their subsidiaries, ownerships.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Mod +1 Sad but True
I'm assuming Capitol Records is in CA, specifically LA County, as I regularly drive by the Capitol Records building -- it's shaped like a stack of 45s with a needle stylus on top.
LA County Sheriff Lee Baca is well known for being starstruck and accomodating to the entertainment industry. See the Paris Hilton fiasco for details.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Too bad that Capitol Records has plenty of office space, furniture, computers, and don't forget very expensive studio recoding equipment that they own. There is probably $5-10 million in each recording studio worth of assets that can and will be auctioned off if they fail to pay.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Sure - but until it get to the actual act of that, there are steps to take and the deptor can turn around anytime and just put the money (including fees) on the table.
It's harrassment, as previously mentioned. I have something like that going on with a larger company with a ridiculously small amount - they just show you the finger and have their fun with it.
Underlying reason for this behavior? I'd say immaturity.
Pretty much what this whole RIAA chase after small people is. Must be a bunch of brainless corporate robots "doing their job".
I won a federal lawsuit against a car dealer a few years ago and when they wouldn't pay the damages and attorney's fees as awarded by a jury my lawyer froze all their accounts. When employee's paychecks started bouncing they paid up pretty fast. I say freeze their accounts and see if their lawyers work when the checks don't clear
I once worked at a major retail store in high school, and one day a guy walked in wearing a hard hat and indicated that if they didn't FAX a copy of a check to the electric company and hand it to him in 15 minutes he'd be cutting the power. You never saw so many managers scramble!
You'd be amazed at the little details that get missed by major corporations. Just look at microsoft forgetting to send in their $8 payment for hotmail.com...
My mom went through something similar too with the contractor that re-did her basement after a flooding but butchered the decontamination.
Since it was a private company at the time (the guy did incorporate his company between that job and the court proceedings) and the guy had no seizable property to his name (all under his wife's), the judge gave my mom the paperwork to request bailiffs at her leisure. Since he wouldn't give my mom her money by claiming he did not have it, my mom decided to pay $2000 to have bailiffs lock up all the guy's credit and banking accounts right away. The guy noticed his accounts were frozen the next day and his wife wrote my mom a ~$60k check right away. (And yes, it cleared.)
I wonder how long the RIAA would defer payment of their fine if the woman in this case did get bailiffs to suspend RIAA banking and credit accounts until payment is delivered... that would certainly be funny - imagine how the RIAA's lawyers would react to their bouncing paychecks!