RIAA member Sonolux had in the american market over 20 cds with songs whose copyright we own, all unlicensed.

When we detected this massive copyright infringement by a respectably sized record label in the world wide hispanic market, it was many years after this compnay had introduced the records into the market. Many millions of records had been sold in over 25 years.

We detected the massive scam on on about 1997 and finally got to sue Sonolux in 2001. Sonolux defaulted by not answering the lawsuit. In default we obtained a 1.6 million dollar sentence, only to have Sonolux show up in court to request a reduction in the sentence. which the court readily gave Sonolux got a reduction to 300,000 dollars, less than half the royalties they saved by never paying any royalties.

Then they disappeared without paying any of the sentence money but they continue to do business in the USA. In the USA, the record company was run by the son of the record company owner, the wealthiest man in Colombia, a friend of the president of Colombia.

These Sonolux people, the Ardila Lülle family, come and go into the USA and are not even detained or questioned about the non payment of a judgement or their continuing infringements…. yes, the records are still being sold online by american distributors. Their television production named Uggly Betty was recently a big hit on Amereican Television.

Is it that the wealthy is favored? As I said the violator is the wealthiest man in Colombia. Is it that Griffiths os not wealthy?

BTW, Antonio Ardila said in court, to justify the non appearance, that he thought some else had had answered the lawsuit for Sonolux. The court told him that that was unbeliebable but did nothing more about it, other than favoring Sonolux in the requested reduction.

So, whatever hapenned to equal treatment under the law?

Really, Iam at a loss of how american justice work crime, or is it doesnt work?

Rafael Venegas
gvenegas.com