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RIAA Settlement: Possible Consumer Payback
KoopaTroopa writes "Over on Ars Technica they are running a story about the RIAA handing out consumer payments as a settlement to a price-fixing class action. If you bought a recording at retail between Jan. 1, 1995, and Dec. 22, 2000, claim your money." As usual, the lawyers win a lot more than you will, but the process is pretty painless if you'd like to collect part of the settlement money; you may recall this earlier story about the settlement.
The cash paid by the Defendants, after the payment of attorneys' fees, litigation and Settlement administration costs, shall be distributed to consumers who purchased Music Products. The number of claims filed will determine the actual amount of the individual refund but will not exceed $20.00 per claimant. If the number of claims filed would result in refunds of less than $5.00 per claimant, there will be no cash distribution to individual consumers. Rather, the cash portion of the Settlement shall be distributed to not-for-profit, charitable, governmental or public entities to be used for music-related purposes or programs for the benefit of consumers who purchased Music Products.
This kind of settlement won't benefit consumers directly. Even if you could locate six year old receipts, the odds are pretty good you won't get a direct settlement out of this.
i thought the same thing but then i realized you can get all that stuff pretty easily already. you may as well get 5 bucks
get 5.00 back in the laswsuit
buy 100 CDs get 5.00 back in the lawsuit...
that means I got overcharged 2 cents for each of my CDs...
how about they lower the prices instead?
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
"As usual, the lawyers win a lot more than you will, but the ..."
This may come as a huge surprise, but the lawyers actually earned that money. All you had to do was fill out a form on the web.
I would assume they settled out of course instead of paying this as part of a judgement. If they had gone the whole distance in court they would have had to pay refunds AND stop price fixing. I haven't seen any drop in CD prices, so it's obvious they haven't changed their practices one bit.
No doubt the RIAA attornies realized they would lose the case and be forced to sell music at reasonable prices. They can't have that! So settle for a few measly millions, instead.
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It was ours to begin with. Record companies were found to be overcharging customers and the courts took action to give it back to consumers. So the lawyers did some work so they should be compensated for their work, I agree, but implying that I should have to earn my money back is rediculous!
What does getting a check for a few cents in the mail have to do with resolving the CD pricing issue? The RIAA was fixing prices then, and they have only pushed them higher since.
Part of their guilt came from their prohibition against any store advertising CDs below a certain price. Strangely, I haven't seen much of a change.
In any case, CDs are priced WAY too high. Now whether it's ok to copy based on that is another story.
Also, don't you find it strange that each time you back up your data to a CD, you have just paid a tax to the RIAA?
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If you sign this you also agree in whole to the agreement, with what apears to be no future recourse.
I say *noone* sign and we fight for whats really far.
A free cd ? bah thats not fair settlement.
---- Booth was a patriot ----