Sheriff’s deputies join FBI in raid on downtown Santa Cruz office
Business owner claims cause a stock-ownership dispute
SANTA CRUZ >> A team of FBI agents and Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office deputies descended on a downtown Santa Cruz office building Friday morning, focusing their search efforts inside the Media Rights Technology office at 55 River St.
It was unclear if any arrests were made during Friday’s search, nor what alleged crimes were under investigation. Several tenants from the building’s other offices gathered outside while law enforcement officers filed in and out of the building. The Sentinel was directed to vacate the building and contact FBI media liaisons for information.
Responding to an inquiry from the Sentinel, the FBI’s San Francisco communications office offered limited insight related to the ongoing case.
“We can confirm that the FBI is there conducting court-authorized law enforcement activity, but we are unable to confirm details,” an FBI official wrote in an email to the Sentinel.
Media Rights Technolgy’s CEO Hank Risan, reached for comment Friday, said the FBI visit
arose from a dispute with the widow of an investor. The widow, Risan said, was unhappy that stocks from the investment were left to a different beneficiary, he said. When Risan rejected the widow’s requests to transfer the stocks to her, she allegedly harassed him and several employees before taking the matter to the next level, he said.
“I guess she’s pursued this thing and they came to look if we were legitimate or not,” Risan said of the FBI visit. “We showed them all the documents, like our copyrights registration, property ownership and I’m sure they’ll be fine with that. It was a, what would I call it, a false attempt to get something from us that she wasn’t entitled to.”
According to a biog
raphy on the company’s website, Risan is the cofounder and chairman of the Museum of Musical Instruments, America’s first virtual musical instrument museum, and is a UC Santa Cruz graduate. Media Rights Technology, founded in 2001, “develops security technologies and intellectual property that enable the effective transmission, protection and monetization of digital content for entertainment, finance, defense, and education in the commercial and personal sectors,” according to mediarightstech.com.
Risan, Media Rights Technology and its subsidiary BlueBeat Inc., a subscription-based online digital radio site, gained national notoriety in 2009 when the record company EMI filed a federal copyright infringement lawsuit naming the three af- ter BlueBeat began selling sound-alike recordings off
the Beatles’ catalog for 25 cents apiece. The case later was concluded with a nofault settlement.
Risan, asked if he expected the investigation to be over, rhetorically asked if he sounded as though he were in a bad mood.
“When you have the documents and the truth on your side, there’s really nothing to worry about,” Risan said. “So, I’m not going to have a sleepless night over this, ever.”
BlueBeat, online at bluebeat.com, is not to be confused with similar-sounding fellow Santa Cruz business Bluebeat Music, run since 1994 by founder Charlie Lange and online at bluebeatmusic.com. Lange said his phone number and site, selling physical copies of blues, R&B and soul music recordings on vinyl and CD, are often mistaken for Risan’s.