BUSINESS WRITING

The case of the mixed-up mogul.

You have just started your own music business as artist, editor, and publisher with your parents’ backing because you needed your parents’ credit (their house is collateral) and acquiescence in order to set up a studio in their garage.  You know you will have to pay for whatever you buy because you don’t want your parents to lose their home through your defaulting on the loans for your studio equipment.  You use the $10,000 loan to buy a cheap startup mixer and recorders with microphones, soundproofing for the garage, and chairs and stools enough for bands and entourage.  You also buy a box full of sheet music at a close-out sale of a local music store (the elderly proprietor had passed away) because it is cheap.

While looking through the box, you find handwritten lyrics without any music. As you read the lyrics, a tune enters your head and you think you have the beat and melody for a good song based on the lyrics.  You’ve never heard this song before and wonder who wrote it.  When you turn over the paper, you find this handwritten notation: “2Pac 9/11/86.”  You are positive the song could be a hit, but now you have a dilemma: should you credit Tupac Shakur—the notation is not necessarily proof that he wrote the song.

After your equipment is delivered the next week, you take it out of the boxes and set it up, but as you are doing so, you realize something is wrong.  You check the invoice that you have signed for receiving the equipment and the invoice lists exactly what you ordered.  However, what you see before you is the most expensive Bose mixer and recorder, luxury stools and chairs, plus stands and microphones.  Somehow your order got mixed up with someone else’s.  You could keep it and start a very classy studio, but the invoice that you ordered was for $2,120.  The equipment you received is worth at least $7,000, maybe $10,000.

You are a believer in divine command theory, and it seems as if God wants you to succeed.  You ponder whether these events are a sign from God that you should move forward to success.  You remember a proverb: “God helps those who help themselves.”

What should you do?

• 1.       Report the mix-up to the music company, so they can pick up the top-quality stuff and replace it with what you really ordered.
• 2.       Use the equipment until the company sends you what you ordered.
• 3.       Don’t tell anyone, including your parents, about the delivery mix-up.  Your parents don’t know anything about music and won’t notice the error.
• 4.       Consult an attorney about what to do with the equipment and the song you found.
• 5.       Ask your parents for more credit because now that you have the better equipment, you want to keep it.
• 6.       Consult a music expert to see if the handwritten note is Tupac’s handwriting.
• 7.       Put the page of handwritten song for sale on EBay to see if it could fetch enough money to cover the high-end equipment.
• 8.       Ignore all the complications:  start your studio, write the music for the found lyrics, practice the song and record it and claim it as yours.  It’s all finders, keepers; losers, weepers.
• 9.       One of the “Ten Commandments” is “Thou shalt not steal.”  But you wonder whether taking advantage of others’ carelessness is really stealing.  This seems more like finding a sack full of money.
• 10.   Find Tupac’s heirs and offer to sell the lyrics to them.

In a brief essay, explain your choices and why you made them.