No #Royalties for #Pink's Producer

Newsflash from your Hollywood Attorney:

The singer and Sony Music prevail in a legal dispute over an administration error.

Most everyone is familiar with the classic excuse, "It got lost in the mail."

For Harold Frasier's Specialists Entertainment, the excuse triggered a lawsuit against pop superstar Pink and Sony Music over royalties owed more than a decade ago. This week, Specialists struck out in its attempt to recover the money.

Specialists did work on two of the singer's songs, "Hiccup" and "Can't Take Me Home" from Pink's 2000 debut album Can't Take Me Home. There was another company, Thunderstone Productions, that also contributed to the songs. The royalties for the production work was supposed to be split equally between the two producers.

But Sony Music, responsible for administering the royalty payments, made a clerical error when attempting to update Specialists' mailing address.

In 2012, Specialists contacted Sony about the owed royalties.

Sony responded by explaining the situation, saying that at one point the royalty share was put on hold because it didn't have a valid address, and then in 2004, Sony had erroneously released 100 percent of royalties to Thunderstone due to an administration error. The music giant attempted to do something about owed royalties after 2004 and correct the situation going forward, but Specialists demanded about $36,000 in royalties from the 2000-2004 time period.

Last September, a New York judge dismissed most of the plaintiff's claims due to the statute of limitations but allowed the plaintiff to amend the lawsuit with a breach of contract claim as a third-party beneficiary of Pink's direction to Sony subsidiaries to pay producer royalties to Specialist and Thunderstone. The judge also pointed to Sony's communications with Specialists in 2012 as having acknowledged the debt and responsibility for repayment.

Unfortunately for Specialists, a New York appeals court on Tuesday reversed the ruling because of what was expressly said in the agreement between Pink (born Alecia Moore) and Sony.

"Plaintiff cannot assert a claim as a third-party beneficiary of a letter agreement between defendants Moore and Sony," wrote the appellate judge. "The agreement, requesting and authorizing Sony to deduct a portion of royalties payable to Moore and to pay them directly to plaintiff, by its express terms, negates any intent to permit enforcement by third-parties."

The ruling is a victory for the Recording Industry Association of America, which submitted an amicus brief in the appeal. For others, it's a reminder to check the mail.

Source....   HR

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Producer of "Scream" Sues ex-Boyfriend for Stalking Her

Marianne Maddalena is detailing the "pain and suffering" she suffered when her ex-boyfriend hacked into her office computer and installed a GPS tracking system on her car.

According to a lawsuit filed Friday in California federal court, the nightmare of being spied upon by someone close is the ultimate terror.

As the complaint puts it, "When our privacy is taken, when our character is sullied by someone acting to be ourselves and when our lives are stolen from us through an internet based hijacking, the core of our very existence is stabbed at its epicenter, and the recovery can take much longer than any serious physical injury."

The target of the complaint is Derrick John Toole, who according to court records was convicted of felonies last year. He was a contractor in the construction business and, according to Maddalena's lawsuit, had "many high-profile clients."

Maddalena says she met Toole in late 2007, and they dated on and off for years. During this time, she says, she "perceived herself to be in a loving, safe and enjoyable relationship" that included romantic gestures, cards, trips and other affectionate moments.

But Maddalena says that in 2009, Toole began using spyware to intercept her e-mails, texts and other electronic communications. That year, she was working on Last House on the Left, a horror film that she co-produced with Craven.

Toole is alleged to have broken into her production offices on Ventura Boulevard, logged onto her work computers and received intercepted communications and reports of all of her keystrokes, passwords typed, messages and more. This activity is said to have given him access to things like her financial records and phone bills. With that information, Toole is described as figuring out whom she interacted with, and by conducting public records searches and allegedly installing a tracking device on her car, he basically knew her every move.

"In or around 2010, Ms. Maddalena thought she was losing her mind as family, friends and co-workers seemed to back off and drop out of her life," says the lawsuit.

Maddalena began seeing a therapist. Says the complaint: "The damages to Plaintiff include not only great emotional distress and paranoid feelings born out of mistrust, but also the sense that Plaintiff is being watched -- always being watched."

What she didn't know, adds the lawsuit, was that her ex-boyfriend was using the information to impersonate her, sending e-mails with damaging messages to people she knew.

That appears to be how Toole was caught.

Read More.... http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/scream-producer-sues-boyfriend-stalking-582246

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