We here at Pop ‘Stache love independent, eclectic music, and we also love law that protects consumers. And today, both of these worlds collide in a great big jam session of protecting musicians like you.
Juxtaposition of musical genres aside, how do these two worlds mesh? Good question. For an answer, we look no further than Iowa’s lemon law, which provides remedies for people who buy defective units of consumer products, like cars, or…music instruments? Here, with a relatively brief analysis of this seemingly-arcane law, we’ll show you entry one of many avenues of recourse for frustrated musicians, after which we’ll weigh in on why musicians everywhere should sharpen their tongues at the sharp edge of the law.
Applying Lemonade
All right, first the disclaimer: We imagine that it isn’t your standard career path to be an attorney that specializes in lemon law suits, nor are we experts in Iowa’s lemon law. We’re attorneys, sure, but we’re not here to give you legal representation for your company while you’re on tour. But we have some background in this stuff, so we’ll give you a broad-strokes perspective on what protection Iowa provides musicians like you who drop the dollar on a new instrument in the service of more sweet music.
First, you can bring a claim against a dealer if you bought your musical instrument through a dealer. Iowa assumes that if you purchased it through a dealer for resale in the business of selling instruments, it would have material (substantial) defects.
Recall, also, that you can bring a claim for those flaws under Iowa’s lemon law if substantial flaws in materials render the system unfit for a period of thirty days or more.
Also, if you have to go through your warranty resolution process-and we suspect that you do-then you must notify the dealer or manufacturer in writing that you are exercising your rights and responsibilities under the warranty, and you can make this with a “verifiable record,” meaning a toll-free hotline or e-mail service.
Faulty instruments, be they guitars, flutes, trumpets or even DJ equipment, may be repaired, replaced, or the amount you paid for the instrument refunded.
Even Now, All That Annoys You
Now, Pop ‘stache has never been on tour with a band. But we’ve seen enough of such stories floating around on the Internet-tales of broken strings, bent trumpets, faulty turntables-to understand that you’re unlucky when you’re on the road. Why? Because you’re betting a good chunk of your cash on a hefty piece of material, musically worthy equipment that, while new, wasn’t built or tested properly. You are always crossing your fingers and hoping that it isn’t the heart of your set that goes haywire on stage, or the strings that go slack.
Turns out, if you pick the bad apple-and Iowa doesn’t just throw around the phrase “deceptive act or practice” without warrant-you can bet that you have legal recourse that allows you to replace or recover the cost of that defect. It’s designed to protect you from going in and out of a store repeating the same annoying dialogue: “Yes, this is the third time I’ve brought it in since I bought it.” “Yes, I know I have to follow the warranty process and get you records of my warranty experience, but why should we have to keep doing this?” That is music to nobody’s ears, folks. You might as well play “Wonderwall” all evening to this dealer while you wait for something to happen.
But we have a few more notes to hit, as one involves the reason we engaged the legal jargon of lemon law legalese in the first place. Pop ‘stache loves irreverent commentary, so we’ll delve for a moment into why you need to know how the law protects you, lest the dealer attempt to make you run laps under the orange tree while they toss you oranges off of the offending unit.
When Life Gives You Lemons
We live in a world where breakage occurs. You’ve had to pick up the pieces of your band’s equipment and just keep playing when somethings goes wrong. On the road, you probably have a few stories that aren’t even that bad. But for every bad story out there, there are exponentially more good stories of people getting fat bounties off of a lemon lawsuit.
That’s right. When life gives you lemons, oh yes, yes it does. Leverage what you can use. When you drive away from the lot without that warranty that means your pieces have an implied warranty for merchantability under Iowa law, for example, you’re being duped. That’s farcical enough to make a few cents back on your lawsuit.
The moral of the story is this: if you encounter the defective musical instrument or any badly functioning piece of gear that renders a tour inoperable, you have recourse to a remedy. You might just make bank on an unwitting dealer that sold you lemons, and in the process, you might just prevent that dealer from handing more lemons to another unsuspecting band on the corner.
And that, dear friends, is music to everyone’s ears, from every corner of the stage.
