Very difficult situation with music producer in Dublin - any advice appreciated

Savman

artvandulet wrote: »

Well then i don't see why you cant go the small claims route. It's not a business to business transaction. I know you can only claim a max of 2k but at least it's something, and only costs 15 quid. You can do it online in 5mins. Very little hassle.

I took a claim against a company recently and won. It all happened via email and I never had to go to court. Worth 15 quid if you can deal with only getting a potential 2k back.

Sorry but this is not good advice. If it ends up before a judge in any court, he may well ask, if they were dealing in such amounts, why didn't they register as a legitimate business? Technically speaking the band would be in dangerous waters here. If you are a band and make any income whatsoever then you should be registered either as a Sole Trader or Limited Company with CRO and, more importantly, the Revenue. This is the only legitimate way of operating.

Just because the OP wasn't registered as a business does not make this a Consumer transaction. The small claims court is mainly for when you buy a telly and it breaks after 3 months, trust me, they will not entertain anything remotely like this.

It's clearly a business deal gone bad, so we need to lose this "big bad wolf' mentality as the Producer has his right to a fair hearing. I suspect he will paint a grim picture of the band as being tossers to work with etc etc., so we cannot take any of this as fact but rather opinion. Unfortunately you cannot run somebody's name into the ground, Boards will be held liable. Freedom of speech? I don't think so.

Judge Judy ftw.

Denalihighway

Yeah I wondered about this Savman. You seem to know what you're on about so I don't doubt you - so technically even a band doing the odd gig, and selling the odd tune should be registered as a company then? I assume that's just to be tax compliant.

Does the artists exemption not come into play if you start earning any reasonable dough or do you have to have applied for this and be granted it? And if you have it, then you still have to be registered?

I always assumed we'd have to look at something like in the unlikely event of signing a deal or something but I wonder how many who are releasing their own stuff are set up properly? Probably going a bit OT here but I suppose its relevant enough.

Funny enough, I would be surprised if yer man has paid tax in about 50 years but I suppose I should just be worried about my own house.

artvandulet

I'm not so sure. And I'm Not here to intentionally dispense bad advice! I'm just saying, I went the small
claims route and it worked for me. Surely you are a consumer who purchased a product and a service. What happens beyond that in terms of you making money from it is irrelevant in this instance as it didn't go that far. You still have rights as a consumer.

Court is the very last outcome of a small claims. In the main, you do not deal with a judge at all. The district court acts as a mediator between the two parties. You put forth your claim and the business you are claiming against has 15 days to respond.

My point about small claims is moot though, if 2k is less than what you would be willing to go after.

Denalihighway

artvandulet wrote: »

I'm not so sure. And I'm Not here to intentionally dispense bad advice! I'm just saying, I went the small
claims route and it worked for me. Surely you are a consumer who purchased a product and a service. What happens beyond that in terms of you making money from it is irrelevant in this instance as it didn't go that far. You still have rights as a consumer.

Court is the very last outcome of a small claims. In the main, you do not deal with a judge at all. The district court acts as a mediator between the two parties. You put forth your claim and the business you are claiming against has 15 days to respond.

My point about small claims is moot though, if 2k is less than what you would be willing to go after.

not a moot point at all dude. I need to do more research clearly and find out my definitive legal situation properly which as I said before I hoping to avoid but was always very possible

SCC would be preferable if

a) I'm eligible
b) I can get advice that tells me I have a decent case, because the SCC could go either way

artvandulet

Well best of luck whatever you do. That's a rough situation to be in. Hope you get your opus out eventually!

KeithTS

Denalihighway wrote: »

what did you mean by "the deal was for everything excl studio"? Confused

I said the deal was for engineering, editing, mixing and mastering. Why is it my responsibility to pay for a product that wasn't delivered?

confused...

Sorry, my bad, I misunderstood where you said you wanted to go to a pro suite for mastering. I thought you meant you wanted to pay for a pro studio to get the whole lot done and have the engineers supplied and paid by this cowboy producer and pay for the studio time yourself.

Why did you pay a cent???
And what was it for if your engineering, editing, mixing and mastering was to be paid for?

drumdrum

Denalihighway wrote: »

Not sure if you read the OP but the verbal contract is not in dispute...I have emails confirming this, and the guy has never denied it.

Its quite normal to forward an advance before the work is completed, and , again, if you read the thread, I VERY much regret paying the complete amount up front (I think that's quite obvious). I've said numerous times we were naive but we are where we are now

Hey man, of course I read the entire thread.....I know how annoying it can be when people jump in at the end and regurgitate points already made!

Savman is right, this "producer" has his rights too.... and not to encourage you to play dirty or anything, but going down the "rat-him-out-to-the-taxman" route could make things get very messy quickly!! Accusations could fly around the place which would do nobodys reputation any good.

You could always double check that the studio has PAID for their plugins though....you'd be surprised at the amount of studios using cracked plugins illegally!! Send a "concerned" email to the plugin makers or something...either way its ammo to use against him should things get more ugly than they seem to be!

Best of luck!

Denalihighway

KeithTS wrote: »

Sorry, my bad, I misunderstood where you said you wanted to go to a pro suite for mastering. I thought you meant you wanted to pay for a pro studio to get the whole lot done and have the engineers supplied and paid by this cowboy producer and pay for the studio time yourself.

Why did you pay a cent???
And what was it for if your engineering, editing, mixing and mastering was to be paid for?

dude...no offense...but will you read the bleedin thread!

just to clarify.

The producer in question was paid the $$ for engineering, editing, mixing and mastering. That was the agreement.

I just mentioned that we decided about half way through that we would go to a mastering suite to get it mastered, but its a moot point really, it would have lessened the load on the producer for the same money.

Denalihighway

drumdrum wrote: »

Hey man, of course I read the entire thread.....I know how annoying it can be when people jump in at the end and regurgitate points already made!

Savman is right, this "producer" has his rights too.... and not to encourage you to play dirty or anything, but going down the "rat-him-out-to-the-taxman" route could make things get very messy quickly!! Accusations could fly around the place which would do nobodys reputation any good.

You could always double check that the studio has PAID for their plugins though....you'd be surprised at the amount of studios using cracked plugins illegally!! Send a "concerned" email to the plugin makers or something...either way its ammo to use against him should things get more ugly than they seem to be!

Best of luck!

No, I wasn't talking about bringing up the tax thing at all - it was just an aside. The other point about the plugins though...

Squall Leonhart

Hey Denali..

I've just read through the entire thread.. interesting situation.

Thus far, what have you actually looked into, outside of this thread? Have you contacted a legal team, or checked the criteria for small claims court?

The Citizens Information office in Wexford Town has a poster up inside, providing free legal aid on the first Thursday of every month, it's not a drop in and talk to someone, as the office generally is, you have to reserve a spot in advance. I'm not sure if it operates around the whole country, but I would assume it does.. so maybe the Citizens Advice Bureau, or Citizens Information Board, or whatever they're calling themselves these days would be worth contacting?

www.citizensinformation.ie

Good luck mate.

Denalihighway

Cheers Paul. Interesting is one word alright...

Yeah I'm looking into everything now, on the right track. Thanks for that though.

Dunno how long this will take but when I get what I deserve (hopefully), I'll be back here resurrecting this thread with the facts. I've given the guy every possible opportunity to do the right thing. Alas...

Caught

God, thats awful! I hope everything turns out for the best for yis lads, and I guess this'll be a lesson that all of us will have learned thanks to yis!

Denalihighway wrote: »

Was greeted with usual lecture down the phone when I eventually asked what the hell was taking so long. “You’re so ungrateful…etc” Insane stuff. We then received some mixes which were just a joke really.

One thing I don't get is how he reply to yis with "You're so ungrateful." You're PAYING him. It's not like he's doing this service free and its a huge huge favor to you, and yet you haven't said thanks to him once? Its his job!

That's like going to the shops, and the person at the till calls you ungrateful for not being thankful enough that they're there to scan in the milk! It's unheard of! And surely enough you'd be onto the manager to complain straight away?

Hope everything works out for the best [well, the best it can be?] for ya mate! Good luck!