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CD Price-Fixing Suit Ruling
Jay Langhurst writes "As the AP reported Friday, if you filed a claim before March 3, 2003 online or otherwise you'll be getting a gift in the mail from those monopolistic music companies in the form of a check for about $13!"
I'm still waiting for my check from Bill Gates... I must've forwarded that email to a billion people! :-) Huxley
Now I can go and buy another CD!
$13.00? I'd probably get more for recycling my stash of AOL CDs.
Doh! Now I wish I had bought all my music instead of debo-ing it from napster. Just think what I could do with $13.
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
do they lower the prices?
"All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power." - Ashleigh Brilliant
What they forgot to mention was that the RIAA will claim that the $13 should actually be $0.13 due to the extreme value of a dollar.
Now that it's been decided they're guilty, can we expect a roll-back of prices? I wouldn't pay $19.99 list for God's Own Words® let alone Madonna's.
.nosig
to send a donation to xiph.org or towards the purchase of software that uses Ogg Vorbis. That will really screw their plans if enough of us do it.
Un-news
We've got the recording industry in a vulnerable spot. It's time to withhold cash from them and go in for the kill.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
Yeah yeah... 13$ is about the price of a CD... so whatever you don't feed it right back into the machine that is the RIAA... instead go donate it to a good cause like the couple below (no affiliation)
boycott-riaa.com
digital-consumer.org
do something useful and fight this idiotic RIAA crap!
It clearly says it's a settlement.
Now, you would have had to read a whole 6 words to figgure that out, so posting a question was so much easier.
Just to clear things up a bit more, since you won't read the article, here is a quote:
" The defendants â" Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Music Distribution, Warner-Elektra-Atlantic Corp., Universal Music Group and Bertelsmann Music Group, and retailers Tower Records, Musicland Stores and Transworld Entertainment â" deny any wrongdoing. Attorneys representing the companies declined to testify in court. "
That $13.00 will go towards the monthly fee for my DSL, so that I may continue to use Kazaa.
The coolest voice ever.
I own about 500 CDs. $13.00 works out to about two and a half cents per CD. Is that all they were gouging me for?
It's actually $45.5 million out of RIAA pockets in total. Sure, not that much considering the size of RIAA. But at least they'll feel the pinch.
Now that we have precedence, maybe there should be waves upon waves of this class action. If there is relentless waves of such cases, hopefully the RIAA will get the point, and look at other distribution models more carefully...
Not that I'm holding my breath anyway.
Welley Corporation - SLM Scammers
Umm, only $13? Good thing 'we' 3.5 million people settled this case.
The real winners here, of course, are the lawyers. A large portion of the remaining $23.3 million goes to them.
Just a hunch, but I imagine it comes out to a tad more than $13 for each for them.
IANAL, but right now I wish I was.
bug.gd: error search engine. Humanity working together to solve all errors.
Not quite. A large part of the single song price is convenience-- it increases apple's costs significantly to offer single songs. If you want to buy an album through the iTMS, you'll pay (for almost all albums) approx. $10.
For to end yet again.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
$75.7 million/5.6 million CDs = $13.52 per CD. But isn't that the 'fixed' price for CDs? Wasn't this suit about how they should be priced much lower?
This strikes me much like the proposed settlement in the Microsoft case that had them distributing several hundred milliion dollars worth of software and operating systems to schools. In that case, it was a little bit more blatant, since it was obviously an attempt to use the settlement to undercut Apple's education market without fear of repercussions. In both, though, the settlement is for an inflated dollar value that doesn't really reflect the cost of the product they're distributing.
-T
That's ok, keep your money and I'll settle my claim via kazaa.
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
Just a heads-up, I'm biased as I work at a record store...
The Eagles just released a single and instead of selling it through everybody, they only are selling it through one retailer! So even though the "price fixing" lawsuit finished, by selling through only one retailer, the music consumer ends up paying a higher price because the retailer doesn't have to compete for business. Using this Eagles single and the new Metallica as an example:
The new Metallica: loads of competition. Best Buy price for first week: 9.99. Wholesale price to record stores (and Best Buy): 11 bucks and change. Net Margin? Negative!
The Eagles DVD single. no competition. Best Buy price: 6.99. Wholesale price to record stores (and Best Buy): 4-5 bucks. Net Margin? 28-40%
Also, compare the price of that DVD single with others --- a lot of DVD singles have run only a couple of bucks (heck, the last McCartney DVD single was actually FREE to encourage people to buy the full length) --- so in this case the manufacturer actually raised their price also because there would be no competition on it.
The frustrating thing about this is that the Eagles are directly responsible - they made this big deal about leaving all the major record companies - but when they did, they made even worse decisions than the major record companies did - independent record stores like mine are locked out from selling the record, while the one major company makes big bucks on it. Considering all the BS Don Henley gives about fighting corporations and such, he's just a washed up hypocrite.
This lawsuit and subesquent settlement has nothing to do with losing money due to P2P trading, so please don't try to associate the two. The RIAA has been ordered to pay damages that were caused when they conspired to raise prices of a commodity without the knowlege of the general public. Once again, that's CONSIPIRACY, which is ILLEGAL .
You're right about the way people steal music (to a point), but it's not hurting the RIAA as much as they want the public to believe. Hell, I'm a musician, and I think sharing .mp3 files is GREAT!.
As far as people creating their own music, some can, some can't. For example, I have a pretty good sense of rhythm and meter; my Dad is so devoid of rhythm that many a family member has joked about my being the "mailman's child." I love him, but I can only imagine what horrors he'd unleash if he were left to his own design for musical entertainment.
And since I'm already here anyway, please tell me what you meant here:
The creators can music do not have to give the rights that they do not want to give.
Mom says my
In the ultimate move of spite, take the $13 the RIAA is settling with and give it back to Jesse Jordan, the student who's life savings was taken by the RIAA in a "symbolic move." It's his money, we're just giving it back to him.
It's not stupid. It's advanced.
You misunderstood the point of the original poster.
The article said that the RIAA was paying out $12.63 to more than 3.5 million consumers, so it's paying at least 44.2 million dollars.
The parent of the original poster was commenting that sending the $13 back to the kid whose life savings was taken away was just returning his own money; however, that $12000 only comprises 0.0000271% of the total settlement, so I highly doubt they're somehow covering it all with it.
Schlock Mercenary
And i never signed the form, does that mean i can still sue?
I have over 500 LEGAL cds in my collection. I am owed more then a tiny 13 dollars.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
For only 70 cents a day, you can make sure that a needy child refers to Linux as GNU/Linux.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
As was mentioned on Chewplastic's site, we might want to consider also doanting to Daniel Peng, another student who was hit by the RIAA at the same time. He seems to be having a harder time getting donations since he hasn't had as much media attention as Jesse Jordan did. Plus Jesse seems like he's not that far from getting his money back and I know the RIAA is sending out a WHOLE LOTTA CHECKS.
On a brief sidenote, this makes me very proud in the redeming qualities of the Internet and the overwhelming spirit of helping the Davids of the world fight thier Goliaths.
It's not stupid. It's advanced.