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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
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.
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.
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!
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.