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One Man's Check From The RIAA
c0rk writes "I received my $13.86 check today. This was my claim in the Compact Disk Minimum Advertised Price Antitrust Litigation. I wrote in detail about the letter/check I received here in my blog and posted a readable image of said documentation (not the check though...sorry). Score 1 for the consumer!"
LABELS: Capitol Records, Inc d/b/a EMI Music Distribution, Virgin Records America, Inc, and Priority Records LLC; Time Warner, Inc, Warner-Elektra-Atlantic Corp, WEA, Inc, Warner Music Group, Inc, Warner Bros Records, Inc, Atlantic Recording Corporation, Elektra Entertainment Group, Inc, and Rhino Entertainment Company; Universal Music & Video Distribution Corporation, Universal Music Group, Inc, and UMG Recordings, Inc; Bertelsmann Music Group, Inc and BMG Music; and, Sony Music Entertainment Inc.
RETAILERS: MTS, Inc d/b/a Tower Records, Musicland Stores Corp, and Trans World Entertainment Corp.
when you take all of those together, and divide 70 million or so between them, it's not as hard as a blow as we thought it was... (score +1, interesting)
on a side note, did this really need a second story (score -1, troll)
Runnin' On Empty
While P2P and HTTP may be excellent ways of file sharing, for better or for worse, the RIAA _will_ stop them. Right now they have attacked legally, which is leading P2P developers to make some advancements in the way of encryption, anonymity, etc. The RIAA seems to realize, now, that there really is no way to stop technology. We have already won.
Now they are taking the overused advice of "adopt a new business model", which seems to be services such as Apple's iTunes Music Store, BuyMusic.com , Rhapsody, and soon Roxio Napster 2.0.
The new RIAA attack plan is to offer B2P services. The problem? DRM. If I buy a CD from iTMS, for example, it may be $9.99. I would buy the same CD in store for $14.99. No, I'm NOT paying five bucks for the album art, professionally burned CD, etc. I'm paying for the right to do with it what I want. There's something about having "SOMETHING" in your hands. They can't take that away from you, like they can with digital music.
P2P for me is a way of sampling music before buying the CD. This will never be replaced by a $0.99 deal, since I like to download it, and listen to the song throughout the day. At work I listen to different music than at home. At night, different music from the day. Walking music is different from sittin' or driving music. Rhapsody fails here, so does iTMS... you can only sample certain portions, while in front of your computer. It's not the same.
Why P2P is better than HTTP? It's easier. More people use it, than HTTP was used for MP3 trading. Does it matter? No, B2P will overtake them both. There IS a large number of people who ONLY want digital music, that's why they turn to P2P. These people will turn to B2P once it becomes "mainstream."
For the most part the RIAA doesn't have to do legal battles any more (though it is a nice source of income), they can attack it by offering new online services, just as EVERYONE has been saying for years. Me, I'll stick to brick and mortar, and P2P though.
I don't know about you, but I JUST want the right to download the song, no service from anyone. I was considering this before when I saw tapes in a record store. If the tape costs $10, and the CD costs $15, am I legally in the right to buy the tape, then download the tracks of the CD, and burn them to CD? Presumably some of the money spent on the tape goes to the actual production of the tape, so how much does it cost for just the right to listen?
This new 'legitimate' downloading helps answer this, kind of. I'll use iTunes as an example.
It costs $0.99 per song to download from a 'legitimate' music service.
$0.33 go to Apple for their storing and serving the song. $0.66 go to the record label.
My question is: Will they ever sell "licenses" to download songs at $0.66/song, and let you obtain the song however you please? (p2p)
I agree, ideally, we should be compensated an appopriate amount for the amount of money we spent. I own a collection of about 500 CDs, and MOST were bought during the early to mid 90's.
I *SHOULD* be compensated a LOT more than $14. But I don't really have any proof when I bought the CDs. I don't agree that somebody, like my Mother, who has bought a grand total of about 10 CDs in her life should receive a $3000 settlement however.
How do you manage that discrepancy? I just don't know.
Anyway, I stopped buying CDs a long time ago. I didn't stop buying them because of MP3s, I stopped buying them because of their cost, and the fact that most of them suck. I stopped buying LONG before MP3s became mainstream.
Hell, I've bought more CDs in the last few years from bands who I discoverred because of MP3s than I did in the few years before MP3s. The best part: most of the bands are NOT on mainstream labels.
I'm happy. I have a good collection of music, I paid for most of it legitimately, and I'm not supporting the RIAA. Too bad everybody else can't be in the same position.
I hate hearing about that damned settlement. CDs are luxury items, and as such they're worth whatever people are willing to pay for them. Obviously however much you've been paying for CDs is all right for you, otherwise you wouldn't be buying the CDs. That's why I haven't bought as much music since prices have been going up; they're generally not worth it to me. If you feel like you've been taken advantage of, then think about who was willing to pay the damned price. You were. The RIAA does a lot of despicable things, but charging what consumers are willing to pay for entertainment certainly isn't one of them. I'd be ashamed to get one of those rebate checks.
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
This is the same trick as MS does.
Be legal if possible, but if not, then be illegal as hell. Make a ton of money and try not to be caught. If you are caught, then hold it off for as long as possible. The interest alone more than covered all of this. Sad, but true.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
not just on the bandwidth either. the obviousness of the riaa legal ploy is really quite brutal. jack prices in collusion with others, pay next to nothing for manufacturing, lure in first time artists with explosive first albums and force them to sign a crappy contract, then do this for 20 years. then get taken to court and make everyone who want's a check worth less than the cost of a new cd in the store run the red tape to get it (no sir i have never downloaded music). any thoughts as to how much money was made, in profit, from the scam? sounds like piracy to me.
Guess they are stealing that business plan from the Microsoft playbook.
I think, therefore I thought.
Your sarcasm is only partially correct. Though the settlement constitutes a fraction of their resources, you are wrong to haphazardly label this award as insinificant. If you read page 20 of the settlement, you will find the amount awarded to over 3.5 million people is $143,075,000. That is not trivial and sets a useful legal precedent. You do damage to the cause against the RIAA by belittling this victory.
Join Tor today!
I took my settlement a long time ago.
....
The RIAA can shove their check up their
Who will guard the guards?
As an ex-member of BMG Music Club and Columbia House, I can tell you that those $13 mean squat when compared to the amount of money these thieves, extortionist, ect have taken from people that purchase CD's like myself. I only purchase from independent and none riaa affiliates now. And that nice little check is going straight to the eff along with my other support. There is a hell of a lot better music out there that doesnt make KC's top 40, real artist, none of this over played hollywood bull shit.
If you read page 20 of the settlement, you will find the amount awarded to over 3.5 million people is $143,075,000.
So, for each of the 8 parent companies named as respondents, that's $17,884,375.00.
Sony Corp. earned $875 million in the last quarter of 2003. Universal Music recorded $510 million *profit* in 2002. EMI made (profitted) about $64.5 million in the first half of 2003, before swallowing Warner music. And I'm guessing the companies involved are not going to split the burden equally, either.
Although the total amount is non-trivial, by the time it's parceled out, it becomes a slap on the wrist for the respondents. It doesn't do damage to the cause against the RIAA to point out that these companies still wield a huge advantage, regardless of this victory. It *definitely* doesn't hurt the cause to point out that the settlement hasn't particularly injured them; many companies go for the beleaguered "oh, no, now we'll not be as economically *viable* after these evil anti-capitalists have taken advantage of us through the courts!" tactic after something like this.
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
Businesses have customers upon which the businesses depend. Businesses have no inherent right to people's money, they have to earn it.
The word "consumer" makes it appear that the customer is actually dependent on the business, which is absolutely not the case. Car engines consume gasoline because they have to, a person buys a Toyota because they want to.
It's the principle of free will in a free market.
Vote in November. You won't regret it.
You agreed to pay the price. Nobody held a gun to your head and forced you to buy those CDs.
Ok compare to right now. There is still massive price fixing, and the alternative (downloading the music) results in what? Being sued. Wait, someone remind me what it's called when you put someone in a position where someone's best choice is breaking a law? Oh yeah!
extortion n.
2. Illegal use of one's official position or powers to obtain property, funds, or patronage.
3. An excessive or exorbitant charge.
Wait wait I think I can find more!
racketeer n.
A person who commits crimes such as extortion, loansharking, bribery, and obstruction of justice in furtherance of illegal business activities.
OOh I can squeeze another one out!
entrap v.
2) b. To lure into performing a previously or otherwise uncontemplated illegal act.
Whew I'm glad we got THAT out of the way!