RIAA Finally Pays Legal Fees On Mis-Filed Suit... But Manages To Screw That Up As Well

from the incompetent-or-just-arrogant? dept

Thu, Sep 6th 2007 1:03pm — Mike Masnick

Remember last month when the RIAA was simply ignoring a court order to pay up the legal fees for one of the people that they incorrectly sued for file sharing? Well, they've finally paid up... but even then they ignored both the interest they owed for being late and the instructions for how payment was to be delivered. At some point you have to wonder if they're just messing with people on purpose or if they're really this incompetent.

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Filed Under: lawsuits, legal fees, riaa
Companies: riaa

13 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 6 Sep 2007 @ 2:00pm

Bill collection in 60 to 90 days for an unplaned expense by from a major corporation is normal and somestimes 180 days would still be normal.

For the RIAA and a court ordered payment this does not sound like mallace but a normal muck up.

The only part that I disagree with is that the RIAA should be paying punative damages too. Something with lots of zero in it.
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TheDock22, 6 Sep 2007 @ 2:07pm

I can see....
I can see the RIAA being late paying the judgment and having to owe interest (which I agree with post #1 is normal for big companies), but to not follow the attorney's instructions on payment is completely intentional. The RIAA should either fire their incompetent attorney or the US should deny the RIAA to file anymore claims in court for deliberately making a mockery of the legal system.

Better yet, disband the RIAA so people can fight directly with the companies in charge (Warner and Universal, you are among the long list of cowards).
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The Skeptic, 6 Sep 2007 @ 2:38pm

The RIAA can dish it out...
The RIAA can dish it out, but they sure can't take it. When it comes to filing their lawsuits, they obviously are competent enough to have judgments rendered in their favor. However, they obviously don't have the slightest idea what to do if a judgment is in favor of the defendant. What? Does their strategy actually not take into consideration that they could "lose" a case?
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dainbramaged, 6 Sep 2007 @ 4:25pm

I would like a loan please...
So #1 and #2, I would like a $100K+ interest free loan for 90 days please, or even 180 days. What economic class taught you that 60 to 90 days is acceptable? Are you willing to provide an interest free loan for 90 days? I know of no bank that would. That is exactly what you are accepting. Any company today willing to give an interest free loan on any amount of funds that it is owed is exercising bad accounting practices.
The lawyers are playing the accounting game (not a muck up) and the payee has to unfortunately wait.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Sep 2007 @ 4:46pm

Re:
Bill collection in 60 to 90 days for an unplaned expense by from a major corporation is normal and somestimes 180 days would still be normal.
Considering that they filed a bogus lawsuit I think they should have been planning to pay from the beginning.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Sep 2007 @ 4:48pm

At some point you have to wonder if they're just messing with people on purpose or if they're really this incompetent.
They're just arrogant.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Sep 2007 @ 7:52pm

#4, no said that 60 to 90 days late payment is taught as being acceptable. What is said is that a lot of large (and small) companies take their time making these payments. The original post stated the claim for unplanned expenses, I'd expand that to include any expenses.

Economics classes do not teach you this. Real world operations do. I have worked for a few companies (no, I was not part of the accounting dept) that did take a long time to pay bills. Sometimes it was because the bill was overlooked, misrouted, put into a stack somewhere and forgotten, etc. Many times it was intentional to not pay immediately. In the cases of some companies it is literally because they could.

What is true in business is that a lot of companies now accept that this is going to happen. This is a large part of why you now have lots of companies now including penalty or interest terms if not paid within a certain timeframe.

I agree that in this case, especially since it's a legal case, that the RIAA is intentionally doing this. They want to make it as difficult as they possibly can. There is no real penalty that will be imposed.
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Ray Beckerman, 6 Sep 2007 @ 8:42pm

Definitely intentional
I agree with those of you who feel it was intentional. There isn't the slightest doubt that it was intentional. They want to make it as hard as possible for Ms. Foster's lawyer. It's their way of sending a message to the rest of us.
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Ray Beckerman, 6 Sep 2007 @ 8:42pm

Definitely intentional
I agree with those of you who feel it was intentional. There isn't the slightest doubt that it was intentional. They want to make it as hard as possible for Ms. Foster's lawyer. It's their way of sending a message to the rest of us.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Sep 2007 @ 9:17pm

agree with #8 but not #9.
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John, 7 Sep 2007 @ 5:27am

"Refuse/Resist"
#7/8/9 are dead on...I also worked for an employer (a crooked one at that), that often waited 120 days before paying bills, and they often waited for companies to sue them before they paid certain larger bills. For some companies, it's all about buying time (which is money) for free. Avoid RIAA lawsuits by using encrypted file sharing, such as GigaTribe: http://www.gigatribe.com !
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vicbee, 7 Sep 2007 @ 11:43am

paying at 60+ days...
As it's been said, slow payment by companies is an intentionally slow admin process to preserve cash flow. Some companies will use it more aggressively than others (payment at 120 days+) because they have the bullying power to do so. Many smaller businesses depend on the bigger ones for their activities and the last thing they want is a canceled contract which may represent a large share of their revenue. While interest penalties have been around for at least 20 years, they are ineffective for the same reason: lack of power to enforce their payment. Once you get paid at 120 days, will you harass the hand that feeds you for 3-5% of the invoice? Most likely not.
While European businesses aren't immune to this, mid and larger size companies often sign payment and penalties agreeements before even discussing business and I have seen activities halted within days of a late payment. While this means loss of potential business, it also means far fewer delinquent accounts.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Sep 2007 @ 6:03pm

but to not follow the attorney's instructions on payment is completely intentional.

but to not follow the attorney's instructions on payment.

All big companies have procedures in how payments are to be handled. Most often especially historically this has and is by check.

The RIAA cut a check to the individual in a reasonable business time frame.

The real question is why the attorney is insistent that the RIAA deposit this check into the person account of the attorney? This smells. It smell as bad as the RIAA's shakedown. It smells just like a sleaze bag attempting to extract money from both the RIAA and the client.
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