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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."
This is pretty great, but weren't the checks supposed to be a bit larger, closer to 20 (US) dollars?
:-P *
Not that I'm complaining, since it's great we finally get to stick it to those thieving bastards. My brothers and sisters all should be getting checks too, as well as my father. I for one am going to put the money towards a new hard drive to store all the music I download.
* Females against Microsoft *
Give our HUGE check to the woman fighting the RIAA, that would be good :)
**It runs through my veins like radioactive rubber pants! Do not deny my veins!**
Talk about a poke in the eye to the RIAA.
Oh yay! With that $25 tax refund, I'll be stylin'!
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
the defendants in the suit are also giving 5.6 million CD's to educational programs.
I bet these will be the first CDs to sport the New & Improved FBI Anti-Piracy Seal
Jokes aside, the story doesn't quote the exact number of people getting cheques ("More than three millions") so I'll err to averages that 3.5 millions people will get $13.86. That's $48,510,000. Who gets the other $18,490,000? The lawyers.
Another nit to pick is that they'll be giving out 5.6 million CDs. big deal, they can write that off in the accounting office. What they'll donate are discs that are sitting in warehouses because of poor sales. After all, a write off is better than dumping them in a landfill.
The recording industry isn't taking a bit hit on this by any stretch, the only ones to profit are the lawyers.
Trolling is a art,
In addition to the cash settlement, the defendants in the suit are also giving 5.6 million CD's to educational programs."
Why not sell those 5.6 million cds and give the profit to educational programs instead?
Not everything is analogous to cars. Car analogies rarely work.
5.6 million CD's to music-education programs? Did the government specify what counted as educational? They could have just used this as an opportunity to send more "Don't be an evil pirate, YAAAR!" propaganda to the schools.
Creator of the popular web game Proximity
Well, at least it's nice to know that as punishment for their sins, record industry executives will have to settle for regular leather instead of the Corinthian leather on their next Lexus purchase.
Because we're not the only ones who know their product is worthless.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
... sue teenagers and grand parents for using Kazaa and/or exchanging music MP3s on P2P.
Then they are condemned for price fixing. Ain't life grand? The inmates are running the asylum, the foxes are guarding the hen house, and so on and so forth.
(Yes, I know that the RIAA is probably not involved in this settlement, but the RIAA bosses... er... members are the one who are condemned in this case)
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
You may be able to afford the new Britney Spears albumn.
Buy CD-R's
The plural of CD needs no apostrophe.
My inside sources say that those CDs are just a bunch of Soul Asylum and Living Colour records.
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
I'd love to see what those albums are, and what their educational value truly is. Unless they're delivering symphony recordings and classical masterpieces for a music class, I can't see how that's an advantage for consumer me.
At least when MS donated OS licenses and things, one could argue that Windows machines can actually facilitate learning in all sorts of areas (let the MS flaming begin). This sounds like a cop out to me. Blah.
Chicks dig my good /. karma.
These CDs? Yeah, they're each worth $5,000 USD.
I hate the way people can get away with giving away "content" at inflated prices. If they gave away $5.6M in MEDIA costs of CDs to educational entities, I'd feel like they were punished. This is like MS giving away a bunch of software.
I've written this many times before, but it's not a punishment/loss of revenue if there was never any money in the first place. If the CD's cost $.10 each for them to make (made that number up, but it seems reasonable), then it really cost them $560K. A large number, but not nearly as large s 5.6M. If they had to REFUND $5.6M back to educational groups that had purchased CDs, that would be the way to really punish them.
This is just like MS offering to give a bunch of money's worth of software to schools. It doesn't cost 'em anything to give stuff to a place that would have never bought it in the first place, since initial R&D is the cost, and that's constant. Distribution is a trivial cost at the end.
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.
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.
Instead these idiots get off by shelling out $67 million plus free CDs to educational institutions so that they can have kids listen to their music? I hope that these CDs aren't ones they own... I want them to be TRULY taxed when they have to give away that money.
Wow, a whole 13.86. Feels like Christmas all over again.
Maybe I'll spend it on a CD! I might even have enough money left over to tip the cashier a few nickels.
Creator of the popular web game Proximity
$100,000.00
- $13.86
-----------
$99986.14
Yipee!
Oh, wait, but if they actuallly had something resembling a worthwhile product, they probably never would have felt the need to engage in price-fixing. Silly me.
Maybe I'm wrong. But has any major label released anything halfway decent in the last ten years?
I want a check from the RIAA for the pain and suffering caused every time I've been within earshot of a Top 40 radio broadcast.
Demand Justice!
To understand recursion, you must first understand recursion.
Personally, I plan to take my $13.86 check and give the money to the EFF.
[Insert pithy quote here]
and with this money i am going to go buy myself that new britteny album!!!!
Personally, a check that small is a slap in the face. They did nothing to account for the number of CDs purchased during the time in question. I checked. I added well over 200 CDs to my collection during that time. Yet I get the same amount back as someone who bought just a few.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
But will it do anything about the fixed prices (ie, make them lower)??
amazingly enough CDs still are quite expensive and I don't see any true ramifications from this ruling (like forcing the CDs to cost what they should).
So we didn't 0wn0rz anyone.
Why not sell those 5.6 million cds and give the profit to educational programs instead?
For the same reason that Microsoft gives $xM worth of free software whenever possible to settle their lawsuits:
It's not a "real" penalty, it just looks like one to the rubes who don't realize that each physical software package/music CD costs practically nothing to produce, but is counted at its full retail value when given away.
Giving away profits as penalty for corporate wrongdoing? In George W. Bush's America? Ha!
~Philly
So I guess this would explain the state of school systems and education in general.
"OK kids, for next week you need to write a 2 page report on the latest 'Britney' CD."
Pointless.
You know, $67M would go a long way towards a nice trust or law fund to help people fight these law suits. Not that they would not continue to sue to get "their" money back, but at least to put up a good fight.
A bunch of small donations to EFF maybe?
In a related story, SCO has been forced to send checks for $699 each to every single Linux user.
Oops. it is not April 1. Sorry, "DarlDay" has not yet happened.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
So I have 13.86 coming in the mail. I wonder what I could do with that. I could buy a cd, but that's just like giving it back. I could see a movie, but that just gives the money back to the parent company of the RIAA agencies. I could buy a book I suppose, but even that lets the money trickle back into the regime.
I guess I will just donate it to the EFF, and hope that everyone does. It would be great if they made a few million straight from the record company - would really make the settlement sting more.
When you add in shipping, $13.86 US isn't even enough to buy the new #1 CD by Norah Jones
I know any money is helpful, but consider that the overwhelming majority of musicians are not signed and have no hope of securing a record deal. And that iTunes (if they can get signed on), only compensates them about 11% or so.
Here's a better idea. Look at all those musicians who let you download music legally and dash them an email, saying I want to give the money to you as a way of saying thanks for being so generous and talented.
To love the music, you must share the music. Sharethemusicday .
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
the only ones who make money in these ridiculous suits are the lawyers.
Track how much the law firms involved keep in legal fees, and then you'll know in whose interest these cases are really brought.
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.
And lawyers! Three cheers for lawyers everyone - specifically, state attorney's in New York and Florida as well as the Federal Trade Commission.
Geeks and Attorneys! Together, we're unstoppable.
Anyone know what kind of cd's these will be? I don't care for 5.6 million Ludicrus cd's with "Sticking up" or "Freaky Thangs" going to my daughter's school, or yours for that matter...
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.
...not to sound like michael moore, but this corporate crime thing really bothers me. this settlement adds up to a drop in the bucket for the recording companies. if corporations are allowed to be treated like individuals, so that no individual within the company is ever held responsible, then we should be able to punish corporations like individuals. legally control their business practises... freeze wages, firing, and take a percentage of their profits.
How misleading.
You say the prices have been fixed, but the local Sam Goody still has eveything at $14 and up!
*sigh*
There should be no apostrophe in CDs you insensitive clod!
"Yaaarrr.... well, I guess it started innocently enough. I thought I had power over me piracy, yarr I did, downloading a song heeeere, a dirge there. I still bought cd's, but I did so less and less. Eventually, yaaaar, it escalated to movies and the last games for me X-box. But it didn't stop there.
"Pretty soon I had me eyepatch and started swashbuckling. I spent all me bullion on spiced rum and me ship, a fine seafaring vessel she be. Yaarr, I thought I could stop, but now it's gone to far. Now I am stuck in an endless loop of pillage, sack and plunder, yaaarrr."
Remember kids, only pirates wear eyepatches. Don't be a pirate, YAAAR!
So I guess this would explain the state of school systems and education in general.
"OK kids, for next week you need to write a 2 page report on the latest 'Britney' CD."
You do know that the RIAA also sells classical music, audiobooks, educational children's songs, discs that teach you how to learn to speak a foreign language, and all sorts of other material than the latest pop music, right?
Maybe if your education and purchasing habits were broader and deeper, you'd know these things and appreciate that there actually is a wealth of material that the RIAA could donate to schools.
(Of course, I'll bet you that it's still a slap on the wrist because the value of the discs for purposes of the settlement is probably the value they sell them for instead of make them for, but I digress.)
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
List by section: Lawyers/Law Firms $5,948,854
Pull your head out.
There were NO geeks at work here. Just a bunch of lawyers, who got what they came for. 13 dollars is what you got if you bought 5 CDs or 5000. That's winning?
Please, do the minimum amount of research before you post. This is not your blog.
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
Does anyone else find grandparent and parent's procession of .sigs amusing?
Your brain is not a computer.
the prices are still as high and higher than before the court found them guilty of price fixing.
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.
No, I did not sign up for the lawsuit as I correctly assumed it would be a waste of my time and they would probably just sell my personal info for a profit.
Now that they have been convicted, perhaps it would be a simple matter to sue and win in small claims court? Any lawyers out there?
I have over 500 cds and easily 1000 records..
how does the cost of ONE cd make up for what i was screwed out of over the years?
Oh, i wasn't one that signed the petition either... i *never* agreed to that ludicrous of a settlement. ( notice cd prices haven't dropped since then.. )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"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.
Not only didn't this cot the recording industry nearly as much as a real anti-trust suit would have cost, but now that they've managed to delay it for this long, I'd bet many of those checks will be returned to sender, as the people who should have gotten them have moved already. I did, and it's now long past when the post office will foreward mail.
So they skate again, by abusing our legal system. Yeah, I know, it wasn't a huge check, but as Geddy Lee said in "Take off to the Great White North,", "Hey, ten bucks is ten bucks, eh?"
Bah.
Lemon curry?
While you raise good points about what happens in the absence of competition, and that the crime happened before the first copy of the CD was purchased, I think the parent poster had a good point too. The parent poster should not be chided for observing that people could have rejected these CDs in the first place.
People need to be introduced to musicians that don't sign with RIAA-affiliated labels. The public needs to hear about independant distributors that treat the public like partners, not criminals. I host a public affairs show called "Digital Citizen" on community radio (WEFT 90.1 FM) every other Wednesday 8-10p and I talk about issues including copyright matters. If you're near Champaign, Illinois I invite you to tune in. I have interviewed musicians and distributors that work with the public to bring us good music. I also make sure that the talks and music I play on the show can all be recorded and shared verbatim (at the least). I have a huge library of music to draw from at WEFT, but almost all of it cannot be shared in the way I want my show to be shared, so I don't air any of that music on my show.
Just as these RIAA-affiliated corporations make a choice to screw the public, we can choose not to be taken. But it takes a great deal of education to get the ball rolling. It's not impossible, it just requires time and work.
Digital Citizen