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.

Comments

Re:No thanks.

[k3v0]

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

They're still doing it

[rossz]

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.

Uhh, we didn't have to earn the money

[cmoney]

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!

Re:No thanks RIAA

[quintessent]

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?

Re:I just love the bias-free journalism

[quintessent]

This may come as a huge surprise, but the claimants have been cheated out of a lot of money, and are only getting a tiny fraction of it back. Whether the lawyers earned it, I can't say. Often, they don't.

For example, I read that the lawyers involved in the tobacco settlement ended up with about $60000 USD per hour of work. Something tells me they were overpaid, even if I fully supported suing big tobacco. Nobody works hard enough to deserve $60000 per hour.

Signing also says you agree.

[nurb432]

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.