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Price-Fixing Settlement Checks in the Mail
toastyman writes "Remember the Music Industry $67m settlement from way back in 2002? Seven months later than planned, your $13.86 check is finally on its way. In addition to the cash settlement, the defendants in the suit are also giving 5.6 million CD's to educational programs."
The plural of CD needs no apostrophe.
As long as you're looking a gift horse in the mouth, don't forget that you have to report the $13.86 check as income on your taxes next April!
No, since the award is compensation for damages you've already suffered, its even and no taxable event occured... Unless you wrote off the "damage" already in a previous tax year. (IANATA - I Am Not A Tax Accountant...)
When you add in shipping, $13.86 US isn't even enough to buy the new #1 CD by Norah Jones
Give our HUGE check to the woman fighting the RIAA, that would be good :)
Why not donate your check to the EFF? Not that individuals can't have noble causes, but your money might be better spent at an NPO or similar organization that fights for your rights as a consumer...
akad0nric0
This sentence no verb.
Donate your check to the EFF and help fight for those freedoms you keep complaining about being taken away. Just forward your check to:
Electronic Frontier Foundation
454 Shotwell
San Francisco, CA 94110
You can also make a donation at their website:
https://secure.eff.org/
Really? What do they own?
So here's a simple guide to some basic grammar, you illiterate morons.
: )
Everything seemed to be going so nice
'till the end of all beings punched right through the ice
Your math is off chief, $13.86/100 = $.1386 or to round up, 14 cents... so you paid 16.86 for 100 of those $17 cds.
There should be no apostrophe in CDs you insensitive clod!
yeah but your point is valid.
imagine...
Judge: you are hereby fined $100million
MS: okay, we've just made a new educational office suite. all the business tools/server parts have been removed. our Sugested Retail Price is 1million, so I guess 100 licenses* will cover that fine.
*only 1 CD, no manual. Do not make illegal copies of the CD.
If you have a change of address after you submitted a claim, you need to provide your new mailing address to the Administrator at the address below. Additionally, it is recommended that you update your mailing address with the U.S. Postal Service.
Compact Disc MAP Litigation Administrator
PO Box 1650
Faribault, MN 55021-1650
better hurry!
harmonious design
Of course, I usually buy new music from iTMS if at all, so I don't spend all that much time comparing CD prices. Anything I want is $.99 per song.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
And, taking inflation into account, that's cheaper than a US$9 LP is 1980 dollars.
In 1989 when I started buying CDs, they were about US$13 to US$18. So, after inflation, they have gotten cheaper.
On top of that, most LPs in the 70s and 80s were 35 to 40 minutes; the average CD I'd reckon on 50 to 70 minutes. So, again, you're getting more music for your money these days.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Universal is also the studio who put copy protection on their discs, and announced that all such discs were returnable.
"I purchased well over 50 CDs in my lifetime. I get back $13? From my quick calculations I feel that I should be getting back about $300 instead."
Only if you bought all fifty at TWE, Tower Records or MusicLand, and you haven't bought any CDs in the past two years. If you've largely bought the CDs elsewhere, the price fixing didn't affect you.
"I figure that CDs should be no more than $6.00/ea (before tax) so I should get back at least 50% of the money I spent."
Do you think it's possible to be profitable selling a CD for $6.00? CDs are sold into distribution at about eight bucks, and even then, record labels end up making 30 points or less net margin. There's a huge difference between the net and the gross in an industry with such a large retail channel.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Don't forget, you'll have to pay taxes on that $13.86, first. So it's going to be more like $9.70.
"I bought about 200 CDs during the time when they were convicted for price fixing and over charging by up to $5 per CD. So, having been robbed of $1,000 in late 1990's dollars, I am offered $13.86 in 2004 dollars. Woo fucking hoo."
There's a lot of misunderstanding of what happened here. A lot of people think this has to do with the margin that the record companies charged channel-wide. Reading the original article does provide some of the details, but it doesn't cover everything. I posted the below as a response to another message but I think it bears repeating. The article covers the basics: also named were Tower Records, TWE and MusicLand. Why just those three?
Set the way-back machine to the early days of the 21st century...
Putting this in black-and-white terms for /. readers, in this case the "bad guys" were the record companies, as well as TWE, Tower Records, and MusicLand, who originally complained to the record companies regarding unfair competition from the big box retailers. The "good guys" are Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and the other large retailers who used CD sales as a little-or-no margin incentive to bring customers into the stores. I am generally not a fan of Wal-Mart and its business practices, but in this case, they've won one for the free market economy.
The price fixing affected what you paid if (a) you bought those 200 CDs Tower Records, MusicLand, etc. who kept their prices high in a (sometimes successful) effort to stay in business. If, like many other people, you shopped around for the lowest price, then it's less of an issue.
By the way, if a manufacturer sells an item into the distribution channel for a fixed price (for CDs, it tends to be around $8), if the retailer marks it up by 10%, 20% or even 100%, it does not affect how much the original manufacturer made when they sold it to the distributor. I'm not privy to the price that record companies sell in to Wal-Mart vs. specialty retailers, but the price difference between stores is often more about the store's profit margin, not the manufacturer. For the record companies, this was less about how much they made per CD, and more about protecting their retailers, so that they could ultimately sell more CDs.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
"Anybody who thought this lawsuit would accomplish anything other than making a few scumwad lawyers rich was a naive fool."
On the contrary, it was extremely successful -- people just don't understand why the suit came about, and what it meant.
Due to the success of the suit, the record companies are no longer allowed to set MAPs, and Wal-Mart and Best Buy are now free again to run ads for CDs at loss-leading prices. It wasn't about what price that stores were able to sell at, but about what prices they could advertise. The record companies set MAPs to protect smaller retailers. It all transpired a couple of years ago and the checks are just now being mailed.
The biggest effect of this action is that Wal-Mart and Best Buy will continue to dominate the retail market for CDs, because they can afford to sell CDs at margins that smaller stores simply cannot support to survive. This action is great news for the Wal-Marts and Best Buys of the world, and great news for consumers, as long as they buy from stores like Wal-Mart and Best Buy. It's not-so-good news for specialty retailers, ranging from the Tower Records chain (who were busted along with the record companies and have recently filed for bankruptcy), to the indie record stores. Wal-Mart can afford to sell a CD for $10.99 or $11.99 because they'll make the money back on the other stuff you'll buy while you're there. Your favorite local indie record store cannot.
Not to sound overly dramatic, but if your favorite local indie record store has gone out of business or is on the ropes, the results of this price-fixing lawsuit may have a lot to do with it. Enoy your $13.86, folks. See you at Wal-Mart.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.