Arista pursued by men in tartan

You've got to hand it to Arista - they've been sitting on top of a massive pile of cash - perhaps running into the millions - that the Bay City Rollers say belongs to them. Arista [part of Sony-BMG] doesn't deny that it has only made one payment to the band in 25 years. But - of course - the money was only resting in its account:

The band says in the lawsuit, filed Tuesday, that Arista owes it royalties on millions of dollars. That was money generated by selling albums, compact discs, multimedia licenses and merchandise, along with rights to commercials, movies and even telephone ring tones.

The band says in the lawsuit that Arista has taken the position that it has held royalties from the band members until it receives clear instructions from them as to how the money should be distributed.

This does throw open an interesting new defence if accused of illegal filesharing: "I was going to pay for the files, but I was just waiting clear instructions from the RIAA as to who to make the cheque payable to."

Arista has yet to formally respond to the lawsuit.