State helps Tate clients
The AG’s office is allowing Tate Publishing clients to retrieve their works.
At least some authors and musicians who are former customers of Mustangbased Tate Publishing & Enterprises will have a chance to retrieve their work, Attorney General Mike Hunter’s office announced Tuesday. A release issued by Hunter’s office said his staff has worked with Oklahoma’s Office of Management and Enterprise Services to set up a secure website where about 1,100 former customers will be able to access to recover their files. But a letter Hunter’s office is sending to those customers also cautions recipients they might not be able to download usable materials, given that some files the state retrieved from the former business were incomplete or corrupt. Former Tate executives have said they are incapable of returning all authors’ and artists’ files, as some were stored in the company’s short-lived satellite facility in the Philippines and were
not recovered, according to the attorney general’s statement.
Still, Hunter said getting this far is a positive development.
“My team and I hope releasing the artists’ work will give them some peace of mind and a clear indication that we are continuing to do all we can to make them whole again,” he said. “I appreciate their patience and hope they are able to begin to move on, past this unfortunate chapter in their careers.”
Hunter commended the efforts of the agents and attorneys in his office’s consumer protection unit who have been working on complaints involving the company for more than a year, and he thanked Oklahoma’s Office of Management and Enterprise Services for sharing its technology resources to set up the secure site.
Officials said materials on the site were returned as part of proceedings involving numerous felony criminal charges filed against Tate Publishing founder Richard Tate, 71, and his son Ryan Tate, 40,
the firm’s former CEO.
Hunter’s office filed the charges in May 2017 after the Tates had attempted to restart the business following its closure, months before.
At the time, the attorney general was acting on complaints that had been made by just a few of hundreds of consumers who had told authorities they hadn’t received published books, compact discs of their music or other related marketing and distribution services they had paid the company to receive.
Complaints against the business have continued to be made since then. Through Tuesday, officials said the attorney general’s office had received close to 2,200 complaints from around the world.
Officials said Hunter’s staff began working to retrieve artists’ work after charges against the men were filed. A total of 1,560 book and music files belonging to 1,130 authors and musicians were obtained from the attorneys representing the Tates, they said.
Terri Watkins, communications director for Hunter’s office, said Tuesday the office also is
notifying all of the company’s customers who have filed complaints that Tate Publishing has informed authorities the business has terminated all contractual arrangements involving its customers and that it no longer claims any interest in, or rights to, any of the book and music projects it was handling.
While Watkins stressed Hunter isn’t representing the artists and can’t offer them legal advice, she did say the notification “should give them enough that they would feel comfortable publishing works that previously were with the Tate.”
Author Heather Nelson, a former Tate customer, said Tuesday she hadn’t been contacted by the attorney general’s office yet, adding she isn’t sure if any of her lost content was returned or will be recoverable.
But Nelson said she welcomes the letter’s language that states the Tates have relinquished interests in the projects they failed to deliver upon.
“That could potentially open a door who those of us who still have property sold by Amazon ... where royalties aren’t coming to us,” she said.
“Maybe this letter would allow the site’s legal department to put some of that to a close, or to redirect those royalties to the authors. Maybe that will bring some closure to some of the authors.”
Nelson said she had resurrected one book she had been working on with the Tates by rewriting it, giving it a new title, “Hail Mary for Peanut,” a new Library of Congress listing and copyright. It was published earlier this year.
She also published another, “Just Stop — 10 Things Everyone Should Stop Saying,” about relationships that also is doing well, and is working on a third.
Nelson said a trial against the Tates would help.
Each man faces four felony embezzlement charges, a misdemeanor embezzlement charge, and three felony attempted extortion by threat charges. Each also faces a felony racketeering charge.
Preliminary hearing conferences on the case have been held periodically, with another scheduled for Dec. 12. If convicted on all the charges, each man could end up in prison for as long as 35 years.