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RIAA Dumps Unsold Inventory to Settle Anti-Trust Case
theodp writes "A music windfall promised to WA public schools and libraries from last year's $143M anti-trust settlement with the recording industry wasn't all it was cracked up to be. While WA got 115,241 music CDs out of the deal, folks aren't quite sure what to do with the odd collection, which includes 387 CDs containing explicit lyrics by Big Pun, 310 copies of Will Smith's Willenium and 48 copies of Spooky Scary Sounds for Halloween from Martha Stewart."
This is surprising how? Not only can the RIAA pay their settlements, but they can also take a tax write-off on unsold product. It's a win-win for the RIAA, and a dubious victory for the lawsuit winners.
Is that this was one huge tax write off for the RIAA. They get to declare full retail price on these CD's on taxes, AND they clear out inventory
The RIAA has to be seeing these CDs and thinking, "If people aren't buying Willenium, what are we doing wrong?"
They try to spin this component of the settlement as a heroic act, giving back to the community. Now they won't be able to do even that.
I had to look at the calendar to make sure it was not April 1. What on earth are schools going to do with Big Pun, and Will Smith cds? Besides use them for coasters in Chemistry class? Even when the RIAA loses, they still win. They are like a cat that always lands on it's feet. So they have to "pay" by clearing out warehouse space and writing off the "losses", ouch.
I hate sigs.
Considering they have several Billboard charts this is very subjective. I'm guessing that they sent CDs based upon the Billboard chart subjective to their music genre. Because I know that Wilson Pickett, "In the Midnight Hour", Yanni, "In the Mirror", "Chicken Soup for Little Souls", or Martha Stewart's Halloween sounds haven't made it anywhere close to the Billboards TOP charts. Unless we were looking at a very large Top Billboard chart.
Hmmm.
Is it just me, or does this sound scarily familiar to Microsoft's failed attempts to "settle" by giving free copies of Windows to schools? I hope that no more companies are allowed to "atone" for their sins by giving out freebies to further secure their footholds in the marketplace. Not that Will Smith was going to do much for that anyways, but its the principle of the matter.
Help a college student
Is it just me, or does this remind anyone of the sort of thing that would happen in The Simpsons? I am amazed that the hard working people of America tolerate the kind of crap that RIAA pull. Great story though.
If the world was perfect the RIAA wouldn't exist at all.
The point is, just because the RIAA says these CDs are worth $17.00 doesn't mean they can be used as currency. I mean, isn't that sort of artificial valuation what got them in trouble in the first place?
I've decided that one pound of my crap is worth a couple of thousand dollars. When next month rolls around, I think I'll give a pile to my landlady and tell her to keep the change.
The CB App. What's your 20?
While I didn't RTFA in true /. style I have got to guess that the RIAA valued each one of these CD's at full markup price rather than what they actually cost to make.
So in addition to the fact that they get to clean out their warehouses to make room for new crap they are distorting the economics by valueing each of these CDs higher than what anyone would have paid for them.
In reality these things would have sat around until it became cheaper to sell them off for next to nothing. Instead they are getting full value, granted for a lost court case, for something that never had that much value to begin with. They win again...
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
So if the RIAA is giving away CDs instead of a cash payment, shouldn't the artists receive the royalties on those CDs as if they were sold at the stated value?
Of course, if they're excess inventory, the point is probably moot as the royalties wouldn't have covered the recording and promotional expenses yet, so it's not real money yet.
> 2. Are you arguing for censorship?
No. I think that there should be age limits for certain types of media. If a company willingly gives explicit content to children, they are at fault, just as they would be at fault for providing smokes to minors or booze to minors.
My point is that the RIAA pushes the fervent agenda that children should be responsible, and not download or upload copyright protected material, but in the same course, they offer free explicit music to the school system because they are too cheap to pay a fine. My thoughts are that what's good for the goose is good for the gander, and the RIAA should be charged for corruption of innocents, or attempted corruption of innocents. (IANAL)
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
No, that is not exactly what RIAA had in mind. The school districts do not *have* to expose children to these CDs. The RIAA intended no such thing; they were just grudgingly complying with a court settlement. What use could the district have for those CDs? Well, they could sell them on eBay and then use the profits for books, couldn't they?
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
I think the gist of the parent was that the current administration is approaching social issues with a very fundamentalist-christian leaning; our attorney general has covered up the statue of Justice because you can see a boob, for example, or how the FCC just raised the fine for broadcast vulgarity by an order of magnitude to send a specific message to Howard Stern and his soundalikes in local markets. It's not so much about the poster being a nutjob who wants the gov't to raise children by legislation so much as it is a weary citizen attempting to make a giant corporate entity as prone to litigation as the little guy seems to be these days, to turn a corrupt government against it's corrupt corporate allies for a change. At least that's how I read it... but then I'm an AC so you can ignore me.
The courts are run by idiots. Taking a pay pay off in the form of products being pushed by a paticular industry is just dumb. You know Microsoft is just going to donate 5 year old computers, and you know the RIAA is going to hand off the CDs they couldn't sell at their yard sale. Maybe the courts shoud *gasp* take a settlement in the form of cash money. With original thinking like this, I'll shall never be elected to public office.
In the US children are raised by TV, though the internet is slowly replacing that parent. "Parenting" is suing whoever you can blame for corrupting your children. /Glad that I was raised in an area with poor TV reception ;)
This should be viewed as a precedent. The next time RIAA sues file-swappers, they should be paid in any old junk those folks happen to have around. Dead car on blocks? Value: $10,000. Couple of old 486's lying around? Value: $2,000 each. Spoiled potato salad in the back of the fridge? You get the idea...
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I can't speak for the parent poster, but I was wondering the same thing. I am pretty sure that the comment was tongue-in-cheek, considering all the hoo-ha that went on over Janet Jacksons b--b. (sorry, don't want to fucking offend anyone). So the government can force radio hosts off of radio stations for using "obscene" language and references while the "beloved" Oprah is not held to the same standards. Yet the RIAA, the champions of good taste, are able to donate very questionable material to youth as part of a class-action settlement against them. It is all a ridiculous farce.
Some of us in the USA are quite aware of the idiocy that is going on in our society. I am personally embarassed that as a "free" society, we are so very far from it.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
+10. That is the #1 problem in this country. Parents are not bringing up their children. They let public school and television do all the work. Instead of doing it themselves they just complain when pop culture and schools do a poor job.
Home schooling is no better either. What you get there are socially inept children who are coddled and shielded from the real world.
With college retention rates in the terrible state they are, it is obvious. Kids in the US are not being raised in a fashion which allows them to get by in the real world.
I think the #1 factor in this is that many families have both parents working, so nobody is home to raise the children. I'm no anti-woman type. It doesn't matter if the mom or the dad stays home, but it has to be one of the two. The other problem is of course, divorce. Divorce is happening because people who were raised poorly are getting married.
So, what prevents one parent from staying home? Money, duh. They need more money. The income of one person cannot support the family of 4 unless you have a really good job. The problem though, is not inflation or unemployment or anything, although those factors contribute. The problem is consumerism. People buy things for the sake of buying things. They buy things they don't need. *cough* SUVs *cough*. In general people are trying to live at a higher standard of living than they can afford.
Why don't they stop doing that and be more frugal/intelligent and raise their children properly? Corporations. Advertising. Consumerism. Big corporations are the root of all the trouble. This CD episode is simply a direct example of the larger problem. You can see it plain as day. Corporations trying to turn children into consumers. Consumers who will live above their means. Consumers who will allow their children to be raised the same way.
Google is the shining example of real Adam Smith capitalism at work. These megacorps need to change or leave in order to save our society.
Do you agree, or do you think I'm taking it too far? I actually think I may have... oh well. I'll submit anyway, no point in putting all that typing to waste.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
The lawsuit in question involved suing a number of specific labels, as well as a few retailers. Scroll down for a list of defendants If you want to get riled up about this, do so by all means, but target the correct group. You don't like it when the RIAA accuses all file-swappers of being criminals, so make yourselves look better than them by not doing the same thing.
/. groupthink, not everything you don't like in the recording industry comes from the RIAA.
Despite the
I don't know how many times I axed you guys not to nitpick on the grammar tip, but I'm fiend to break my linguistic foot off in your ass if you don't cut it. The syntax of spoken English language is not set in stone, nor is it even agreed upon by the majority of speakers. The rules of usage are set by the users and are in constant flux. Furthermore, the stylistic approach to language taken by groups attempting to assert their identity through language should not be outcried as "how not to speak," as this is insulting and devisive. Remember: the British look down on our use of "elevator" and misspelling of "color" and "civilisation."
Big Pun is not an example of how NOT to speak. It is more an example of how TO speak, if you want to be respected in the future career path of successful emceeing. This is how dialectic speech should be taught -- use "You was wrong" in the rap game, and "you were wrong" in the world of business. In the world of politics, use "you were wrong, and that's why everybody on your side of the argument is a terrorist loving traitor." It's all about the best tool for the job.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Actually, if the world was perfect, the RIAA would exist, and its tireless efforts as a non-profit to guarantee that artists and record producers each get a fair cut of market value CD sales would be a credit to the music loving public.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Microsoft donate hardware, are you nuts? All they would have to do is hand each school district a few cds and a site license for windows and office and call it $2,000,000 in "donations". You're right, cash is it.
"I forgot my mantra."
"Let them eat cake." You know, its one thing to lose a lawsuit, its another thing to say you'll make up for it by helping out the public interest that are normally have hard times finding appropriate funds during recessions or have to consider the logistics of their operation sometimes before inventory, or attaining their desired goals of education. This act could have been a reasonable one, there are a tremendous number of very enlightening recordings such as historical e-books, instructional materials, etc. that would have done well to improve the RIAA's claim recipients (whom, I might add, weren't the lawyers settings the case.) The "poor recording artists" that RIAA claims to protect the interest of who could have benefitted from this are countless. Instead, they've used the educational system as a junkyard, snubbed their noses at the recording artists whom the value of their contribution could have been recognized and appreciated. And because they are being used as a junkyard, the task of sorting through all these inappropriate CDs and disposing of them are left in the hands of people who have enough troubles already. Its like giving beggars video game tokens or something, and they'll probably be snapped at by the RIAA for being ingrates.
OK, I've got some questions, and maybe you've got the answers:
* Why is a public school system involved with a settlement about monopoly pricing? That has nothing to do with consumers!
* Since when is donation at the discretion of the "guilty" party an acceptable remedy for price fixing, even if the donated items were in BillBoard's Top 10?
I really don't get it. I think the RIAA is the head of a cartel, but if the gov't was accepting this as a remedy, then they really deserved to get cow dung as a settlement. Just like with the tobacco company settlements, it was done "in the name of...", but it was mainly about the transfer of wealth to someone other than the [allegedly] represented parties. Well, this time it backfired. This is why it's better to indirectly set up the market to fix the issue instead of trying to do it directly. In other words, if you can't fix it, then get the hell out of the way. The RIAA is powerful because they've got a big, fat revenue stream from people who do buy legal copies of the music. That's the problem, and there isn't a way to fix it as long as people think a $20 CD is a good deal. And since the RIAA is so powerful in the US, they can bury a tax in the cost of CD-Rs. It'd be nice if the tax was listed separately on a CD-R package, like the phone company did with the USF tax.
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
The courts did not think that the RIAA would be this sleezy. Hopefully they will learn from this and give them *NO* slack in the future. Since they never defined what was to be donated, they got all that worthless junk that goes into the cutout bins. I am surprised that they did not send a few John Ashcroft or orin Hatch albums along to increase the pain level. (Or maybe that was too much even for them.)
As for what to do with all these worthless crappy CDs...
Remember the old "Star Trek disc guns" they sold back in the 70s? They need to make a few that shoot CDs hard and fast. Then line up the RIAA lawyers and executives and have a little target practice.
Of course, they were never very accurate. But they provided plenty of ammo.
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
It is a parents job to raise thier kids but I would be really pissed off if the school system I was sending my kids to were playing puff daddy lyrics during lunch time. I also scorn the use of words like bitch/fuck/whore/cunt/racial slurs and various vulgar language used in some modern rap music. I see no conflict between a school system sueing a corporation for "trying to" corrupt children and parents being responsible for how thier children are rasised- that is why a school system would be sued by parents (if a school actually played the music the RIAA sent). It is within parents rights to allow thier kids to say "I am going to pop a cap in your head" but I expect our learning institutions to hold to a higher standard for the many parents that DON'T allow such nonsense.
I miss the Karma Whores.
... when a class action suit results in a settlement/judgement which is a joke for the plantiffs? The only people who ever get anything worth having out of these things are the lawyers.
When defendants can just clean out their storage locker and use unwanted crap to "pay off" their debts these verdicts aren't even going to serve as a punitive measure and preventative for scofflaw companies.
I can imagine one CEO to another - "Hah, we were going to have to charge off all those crap CDs when we discarded them anyway, all we did was change a description in the budget!"
Bad management trumps ideology - Show the world you want better leadership. http://www.timefornewmanagement.com
Don't forget their tireless efforts to normalize record player output levels and equalization curves. Thanks to these efforts, we don't have to change the settings on our 27 band stereo equalizers for every record we listen to.
The CD audio mastering profession, on the other hand, seems to be perfectly willing to sacrifice dynamic range for loudness, clipping be damned...
How's my programming? Call 1-800-DEV-NULL
Home schooling is no better either. What you get there are socially inept children who are coddled and shielded from the real world.
-1, Doesn't Know Jack About Home Schooling.
Before you run your mouth again, I'd suggest you find a local homeschooling group. Go to one of their meetings and watch the children interact with one another. For kicks, bring along some children of your own - borrow someone else's kids if you don't have any of your own. The point is to introduce strangers into this group of "socially inept children."
Then watch with amazement as the homeschooled children immediately and with no reservations make friends with these strange kids. Socially inept children don't walk up to other kids and say, "Hi, I'm Katie. What's your name? Do you want to go play on the slide with me?"
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
Home schooling is no better either. What you get there are socially inept children who are coddled and shielded from the real world.
And I'm sure you have cites to credible, empirical evidence for this statement, published in an accredited, peer-reviewed journal? No?
Imagine my surprise.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
I don't know how many times I axed you guys not to nitpick on the grammar tip, but I'm fiend to break my linguistic foot off in your ass if you don't cut it. The syntax of spoken English language is not set in stone, nor is it even agreed upon by the majority of speakers. The rules of usage are set by the users and are in constant flux. Furthermore, the stylistic approach to language taken by groups attempting to assert their identity through language should not be outcried as "how not to speak," as this is insulting and devisive. Remember: the British look down on our use of "elevator" and misspelling of "color" and "civilisation."
Knowing how to speak properly and being too fscking lazy to learn how to speak properly are two entirely different topics.
If you're too lazy to learn to speak in an accepted manner, then odds are that you're going to be a troublesome employee when it comes to dress code and professional conduct as well.
It's the old adage... if you're not faithful in little things, why should I trust you with bigger things?
This type of settlement is common place in large class action law suits. Which is fine.
But the parties are bound by the settlement they enter into. And is sounds from the article, that RIAA has breached its obligations under the settlement agreement (especially with the notched/promo CDs).
Somewhere in the settlement agreement there should be a clause specifying what happens if one party or the other does not live up to the terms of the settlement agreement.
It's time to dust off that clause, and head over to see your local friendly judge (preferably one with a child in the school system). With a little legal wrangling, the children of American regain their right to listen to really, really, crappy music.
It's all about the benjamens.
The RIAA is complaining about a loss of income, when one of us downloads a song for free, instead of paying for it.
The crap they handed out to the schools does NOT fall into that catagory. Who the hell would pay for any of that?
As someone else pointed out, getting rid of dead inventory like that was profitable (they no longer have to store it, and they get a tax write off).
So, once more, it's all about the benjamens.
And while we're at it, on the subject of hip-hop...
Listening to hip-hop today (versus the hip-hop of the late 80s), I see a basic set of self-reinforcing memes. In no particular order: Education is acting "white" and is therefore a form of race treason. Race treason is an unpardonable sin; the purity of the race must be preserved. In the absence of education, crime is the only viable career choice. Respect is achieved through violence and intimidation. The purpose of life is to acquire money through force, fraud, or intimidation, and to spend the money purchasing whores. When whores are fucked, it's OK to shoot them. Kill all white people, because they're devils.
When I was a kid, we had a word for people who wanted to keep blacks and whites segregated, and to prevent blacks from succeeding in public school in order to keep them out of college, and to condemn them to lives of poverty, and on a dead-end track to murder or prison.
That word was "Klansman".
Today, that word is "Hip-Hop Recording Artist".
For double irony points, guess the race of the CEOs of the entertainment conglomerates that make the most money out of selling this memeset to blacks.
Big Pun in the public schools? If it weren't for the fact that Klan's too stupid to come up with anything this subtle, I'd call shenanigans.
I heard about a guy who has a monkey. It was a very nice monkey. It wore a little hat. From this, I will now deduce that every man has a monkey, and that all monkeys are nice and wear little hats.
Seriously, anecdotes mean absolutely nothing. The GP said kids who don't go to school have sucky social skills. You said "NUH UH!"
Now, can we actually hear proof either way?
"Do you agree, or do you think I'm taking it too far?"
I agree fully on the Consumerism rant. I know people who need both their incomes to cover their mortgage. But then again that was a choice. I have plenty of friends and relatives who say they have no choice. But if asked they're forced to concede that no, nobody is forcing them at gunpoint to live in a 5-bedroom cul-de-sac lot. Or a 3-bedroom home in coastal California.
The problem is that Americans have a VERY skewed perspective of what is a need vs. what is a luxury. Then the "needed luxuries" lock people into a lifestyle that prevents one of them from being able to stay home and focus on raising their own kids for the first several critical years.
Also those "needed luxuries" lock them into jobs and careers they may hate. What a wasted life.
Great saying: "There are two ways to be rich - Make more, or want less."
And before someone starts pissing and moaning about how "I just don't know what it's like", I recently had to live in a 1-bedroom apartment for a few years with my kids because that's all we could afford. We've since rebounded, and yes that extreme was a challenge for us. But you know what? We're still here and we're a tight family. And we had fun. Parks, trails, community swimming pools, all kinds of essentially free stuff. How about flying a kite? Books from the library? And actually doing those things WITH them?
I also know a couple who job-share, so they both get to have a hand in raising their kids. They don't have a huge house, live in an upscale community, or own a big SUV hauling a rarely-used power boat, yet mysteriously they're very happy. And they have great kids. Go figure.
I still have to say, ?way to go RIAA, you are corrupting our children with crappy music in stores, radio, and now even in the classroom! Thanks!?
I still don't understand why the RIAA has so much political power when so much of the product that they sell is so clearly anti-social. Much rap and death-metal is clearly the results of disturbed individuals and a massively disfunctional culture.
I'm amazed that people who chose the appearance in public of gangster rappers and death-rockers complain that stangers are not inclined to assume that they are civilized human beings. They assume that this is prejudice and racism.
No, it's not. It's the result of a focused and unrelenting advertising campaign to sell rap music by portraying young males in hooded sweatshirts and other gangster fashions as the most violent and unpredictably disfunctional people on the planet.
And it has worked. Be a young male African-American with a backward baseball cap and go anywhere on earth. People will treat you like shit and just assume that you're a monster. It will take decades to reverse this new stereotype of hip-hop culture.
And what did young people of color get from all this negative stereotype casting? Nothing. A few individuals got big enough record contract advances to piss away on weird jewelery and pathetic SUVs. But nearly all the profits went to middle-aged white corporate executives, who would never let hip-hop individuals into their personal lives or social class environment.
Step'n Fetch'it is rolling in his grave.
Actually this is untrue. People are very adept at code-switching, which is using the proper dialect at the proper time. The only time we tend to have problems is when we don't know the code to switch into (or don't quite understand what makes one appropriate over another).
Although, depending on what you mean by "pushed to speak form (the) heart," you might have a very good point. A very famous sociolinguist (whose name escapes me at the moment) would always ask his interview subjects to describe an incident where they almost died. Reliving the stress of that moment would often cause them to revert to their base dialect, which is what he was interested in analyzing. The amount of stress you have to put on someone to reliably get them to go into that dialect is pretty incredible, however.
He decided to just watch the government, and kind of scale it down to size, and run his life that way. --Laurie Anderson
This settlement crap won't end until it is required that the lawyers be paid in kind (CD's, vouchers, weird rebate certificates, tiny discounts on future airline travel, Windows upgrades, etc.) that the winning plaintiffs are paid with.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."