RIAA Short on Funds? Fails to Pay Attorney Fees 341
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?"
Re:That is the problems with our INCs. (Score:5, Informative)
Time for more popcorn. This is gonna get interesting.
Blame the pirates (Score:3, Informative)
*piracy - producing crap loads of crappy music and selling it at over inflated prices
Re:That is the problems with our INCs. (Score:2, Informative)
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.
Re:Compartmentalized? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:E-mail? (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe they really do need the money (Score:5, Informative)
-they really do need the money, and
-they're really bad businessmen.
Re:E-mail? (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, but there is... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Contempt of court? (Score:3, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:That is the problems with our INCs. (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:And How Much Does That Cost? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Dragging their feet (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Maybe they really do need the money (Score:5, Informative)
As between the plaintiff record companies, who pays how much? Let's remember, we've got a bunch of plaintiffs:
Re:They'll drag it out for years (Score:5, Informative)
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/ [oiledfishe...sexxon.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 [nytimes.com]
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.
Re:Show Me the Money (Score:5, Informative)
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 [timesonline.co.uk]
Re:I for one.... (Score:3, Informative)
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 [theendrecords.com]. 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.
Re:not if they're using email... (Score:5, Informative)
What, a letter via registered mail was too expensive?
Re:Show Me the Money (Score:3, Informative)
"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.
Re:Show Me the Money (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:baffles me (Score:4, Informative)
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."
Re:Show Me the Money (Score:2, Informative)
Re:They really can't though (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Show Me the Money (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:They'll drag it out for years (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:RIAA attorney's statement before the bench (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Show Me the Money (Score:2, Informative)