If you’re in any kind of creative industry (or any industry at all, I guess), you have probably heard a million times to make sure you read your whole contract.

Things can and do go wrong, and you don’t want to be caught off-guard.

OP works in the music industry – sometimes with people who don’t know how to do math.

I work in music production. i charge $125/hr to edit/mix/master recordings from bands (which is about 1/2 the average rate).

I had a band come to me, i mixed their album, it took me 10 hours. 10×125=$1,250. well, at the end, they said (and i’m not even joking, but this is SOOOOO ridiculous) “well, an hour only has 60 minutes in it, not 100, so your math is wrong and unfair” (i was stunned because how can people in their 30s be THIS uneducated?!?)

I said “it doesn’t matter how many minutes are in an hour, i charge BY THE HOUR, and you agreed to it”(they had signed a contract.)

This band didn’t know how to read, either, because they refused to pay him and didn’t think there was anything he could do.

Well, they left, and refused to pay. this was their ‘debut’ album/EP, and little did they know, because they didn’t read the damn contract, that i saved backups of allllll the work i did, and there was a clause that says my studio retains ownership of 100% of the music that i work on until i am paid and sign the rights back off to the band (again, this is very boilerplate contract stuff in music industry)

They had planned on selling their CD at concerts for $20 each.

He could – and did – give their music away for free.

I released their music free online, every site i could find, and i also knew the venues they were playing at, so i made 1,500 CDs (it cost me like $200, but worth it for spitelol).

And every gig they had, i would set up a booth with their CDs juuuust outside of the property line of the venue, and give their CDs away for free, acting like an agent of the band.

Their slightly off-tune music.

One thing they also never planned on- i made the vocals on the CDs off-pitch with autotune.

The band broke up about 6 months later, after people stopped going to see them.

I love absolutely-legal revenge 🙂

Me and my 2 friends who helped me had a heck of a laugh. like, we were giddy all the time while this was going on. it was great.

Reddit’s probably feeling pretty giddy after reading this, right?

This is another reminder to cya.

Everybody has to pay what they owe, one way or another.

They say it’s delightfully diabolical.

You’ve gotta read those contracts.

I mean, they were greedy and stupid.

These short, sweet and satisfying stories are my favorite.

As bad as it sucks, maybe they learned a lesson.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.