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There is one, but the record companies have done some tricky legal maneuvering to stall it. You can see the complaint online.

There is also an article about the case.

A victory anywhere is good news. A judge in Brazil understood that what the labels are doing is wrong, and wrong is still wrong everywhere. Chances are good that courts all around the world will rule the same. The price fixing lawsuit, and a judge's refusal to shut down Morpheus and Grokster suggests that U.S. courts will agree with the Brazilian judge when the ruling comes down in Dickey V. Universal Music Group et. al". The recording industry are a bunch of racketeers who don't deserve our patronage. Don't Buy CDs.

Here's how they put it in their court filing.

• Defendants conspired and agreed among themselves to sell defective audio discs which were rendered unreproducible or unstable for use in many personal computers, Macintosh computers, compact disc players, digital video disc players, car stereos and digital video game consoles. Defendants have affirmatively concealed the fact that their defective audio discs interfere with their customers' legal right to play or transfer music to other playback mediums. Additionally, Defendants have collectively misrepresented these defective audio discs as being standard Compact Discs (``CDs''), which they are not. Defendants undertook the acts alleged herein pursuant to, and in furtherance of, this conspiracy and agreement. Defendants manufactured, disseminated, advertised or sold these defective audio discs in such a way as to collectively conceal from plaintiffs, Class members and the general public the fact that these defective audio discs were of inferior quality and deprived customers of their legal right to backup and transfer their own music to other playback mediums. Such concealment resulted in plaintiffs, Class members and the general public paying more for these defective audio discs in expectation that, inter alia, the music would be playable on all playback devices and would be of equal quality to CDs, which they are not.

That's clear enough.

They ask that if you've found a defective CD, report it to them by clicking here.

Here's how they put it in their court filing.

• Defendants conspired and agreed among themselves to sell defective audio discs which were rendered unreproducible or unstable for use in many personal computers, Macintosh computers, compact disc players, digital video disc players, car stereos and digital video game consoles. Defendants have affirmatively concealed the fact that their defective audio discs interfere with their customers' legal right to play or transfer music to other playback mediums. Additionally, Defendants have collectively misrepresented these defective audio discs as being standard Compact Discs (``CDs''), which they are not. Defendants undertook the acts alleged herein pursuant to, and in furtherance of, this conspiracy and agreement. Defendants manufactured, disseminated, advertised or sold these defective audio discs in such a way as to collectively conceal from plaintiffs, Class members and the general public the fact that these defective audio discs were of inferior quality and deprived customers of their legal right to backup and transfer their own music to other playback mediums. Such concealment resulted in plaintiffs, Class members and the general public paying more for these defective audio discs in expectation that, inter alia, the music would be playable on all playback devices and would be of equal quality to CDs, which they are not.

That's clear enough.

They ask that if you've found a defective CD, report it to them by clicking here.

If you bought any of the "copy protected" discs that won't play in your computer, Follow this link to the Milberg Weiss Law firm, and join Dickey V. Universal Music Group et. al, a class action suit against the manufacturers of these defective discs that frequently use the Compact Disc digital audio logo improperly.

That comes off the links page of a consumer group boycotting the recording industry, for DRM, price gouging, and harassment of file traders. Dontbuycds.org A previous poster gave the link to that organization, but not to the class action suit, so , pay attantion mods, this post is not redundant!

has /. not covered the VA Linux class action lawsuits.

A mind is a terrible thing to taste.

not only are they suing VA they are also suing Coke. I hate these people.

Note the Business Wire logo on that Yahoo page. As far as I can tell, The law firm of Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach LLP simply paid Business Wire to distribute their press release, and Yahoo put it up on their site automatically, as they do many BW press releases.

There's no conspiracy here. Move along, move along.

-- R.

PS. Any info on where I sign up to join the lawsuit? Thanks.

Just click here and click the button at the bottom of the page. Don't forget to tell them how terrible Linux is so they know you're not a spy. Good luck.

Milberg Weiss Rep after reading the reported fraud.
"It says here that they want to sue us for $10,000,000,000 dollars. I know it's probably not best to take this case to accept for ethical reasons (suing oneself) but look at the commission we'll get if we beat ourselves!"

Some lawyers already do make a good living doing exactly this and have been for many years. Look up Milberg Weiss.

As far as the "buy some stock, ask a question, sell the stock the next day", that's going to affect the price of the stock ... ummm ... about as much as a random /. comment will affect the release date of linux kernel 2.4.

Are these guys for real? I assume they are going after *all* these companies. (Check here for the list). What a terribly sad way to earn a living.

It might be fun to join one of their class action suits. Then, when your claim is rejected on the grounds that you had no interest whatsoever in the action you could sue the balls off Milbergs for raising your hopes. That could be funny.

I'm with Shakespeare (Henry IV) - "The first thing we'll do, let's kill all the lawyers."

Milberg Weiss has offices in New York, San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Boca Raton and is active in major litigations pending in federal and state courts throughout the United States. Follow the links on the left for the mailing address and directions to each of our five offices.

But their "Join A Class Action" web application form has to be seen to be believed. They really do have a page with I am interested in participating in an action against the following company:, and a long selection box.

I don't think this is exactly right: If the software vendor had absolutely no obligations whatsoever, the contract between the vendor and customer might be considered "unsupported by consideration" (ah, legal jargon) and therefore unenforceable as a contract.

More common, I think, are limitation of liability clauses which state that the vendor's liability is limited to a refund of the purchase price of the software license. Such limitations are common in many other industries as well, and are regularly enforced by courts.

[You might feel that such limitations are unconscionable, and should therefore be ignored by the courts. The standard reply is while courts can readily tell whether a contract is supported by some valuable consideration on both sides, it's not a court's job to evaluate whether a contract is a good deal -- it's the market's. If you don't like the terms of the software license, you should find another software vendor. That's the argument, anyway.]

Incidentally, contrary to evilpenguin's comment, it is not at all uncommon for businesses to sue their software vendors; in particular, many vendors have been (or anticipate being) sued as a result of the Y2K problem. Read a recent 10-Q or 10-K from any major software vendor for a discussion of this issue. It's relatively rare, I think, for ordinary consumers to sue software vendors, but you can read about one such case at the web site of the Milberg Weiss law firm (search with the keyword Issokson -- it's a Y2K case).