Music Studio Recording Payment Dispute

[inflowential]

My question involves business law in the state of: North Carolina

An independent party (investor) approached my band and said he would like to help with recording our album to have his name put on the album as associate producer. The agreement was he would pay up to $5,000 and we would have to pay anything over that. We did not have to repay him the $5,000.

We went into the studio, spent about $3000 and produced not much of anything. We determined the person running the studio was the wrong fit and thought he was just taking our money. We went to look for a new studio.

At this time the investor started going back on the no repayment component of our agreement and in a very unprofessional manner started demanding repayment and threats of suing and court and seeking damages from all our personal assets.

The agreement was completely verbal and the money exchange was between the investor and the studio and never passed through any of the band members hands or bank accounts.

We kind of felt bad for the guy even though we should have probably never talked to him again given the way he acted, and tried to work out an agreement to pay him money over time in an amount equal to what he had invested. We never agreed that this was part of the original deal and we do have email threads to document this part of the conversations.

He again acted out in the extremely unprofessional manner with threats of suing and court when things did not go his way. At this point we have decided we can not work with the guy and if he does in fact decide he has to take us to court that is how we will have to handle the situation.

My question is does he really have a case against us? It feels like he could not possibly build a case against us, but I'd like some lawyer feedback.

- All agreements were verbal except for an email that was sent which loosely backs up us not having to repay the $5Gs.

- All money was passed between the studio and investor and we are ok with giving the work produced during this time to the investor. Not the IP, but the recordings produced can be his.

[Scott67]

If the situation is exactly as you have stated, in my opinion, he has no case against you. If any of the email traffic you mention implies you agreeing that you owe him money, he may be able to build a case on that - the strength of the case depending on the strength of the implication.

Of course, he can still sue, but I would think you would prevail. He would have to show that you had an agreement to repay him - and you have stated there was no such agreement.