Music Download Pricing Lawsuits Pending?

larry bagina writes "New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has subpoenaed Warner Music Group, apparently looking into allegations of price fixing with Sony/BMG, EMI, and Vivendi, and apparently more subpoenas are in the pipeline. 'As part of an industrywide investigation concerning pricing of digital music downloads, we received a subpoena from Atty. Gen. Spitzer's office as disclosed in our public filings. We are cooperating fully with the inquiry.'"

Comments

This holiday season ...

[Catamaran]

remember downhillbattle and EFF. They are fighting for your rights.

Re:The New York AG?

[WCMI92]

"Does he even have jurisdiction for this? Isn't this a federal matter?"

Sure he does. So long as ONE person in his state has been victimized by RIAA price fixing.

Re:The New York AG?

[darkmeridian]

The Sherman Act gives state AGs the power to sue on behalf of its affected citizens as parens patriae. Private parties affected by anticompetitive conduct can also sue, but consumers in general ordinarily do not have a cause of action.

Re:why warner

[darkmeridian]

If I recall correctly, Warner has a significant marketshare and tends to be the "market leader". Also, it tried to fix prices on certain Three Tenors recordings. That might be why they're on a short leash. Surely, if the subpoenas lead to anything, others will also get supoenas.

Re:NYTimes Article With Additional Details

[TubeSteak]

Well... the part you quoted brings no new information to the table.

I'm not sure why both the nytimes and the latimes bring up Apple & iTunes unless they're trying to suggest that the music companies are being investigated for colluding on the (future) wholesale prices of tracks they'd like Apple to sell.

The "industry-wide" investigation likely centers on whether the four major record labels colluded to set the pricing of song downloads on iTunes and other online music stores. Currently, songs are usually priced at a flat 99-cent rate, but the industry has pushed for higher prices.

A Different Article

I wonder if those music studios have industrial strength paper shredders or full fledged burn rooms at their corporate headquarters?

Re:Well, there is price fixing . . .

[Shoten]

I think you don't understand what "price fixing" means, in terms of the Sherman Anti-Trust act. It doesn't mean that a vendor can't set their OWN price for something...how else would they operate? It means that multiple companies in an industry (that are competitors with each other) can't collude to agree on prices. The point is that if all of these companies get together and say, "Yeah, I won't give iTunes access to our music if you don't give them access to your music, and he doesn't either, except if they agree to our pricing model" then the competition between them is reduced to a cartel. As a result, a de facto monopoly results, which is bad for consumers.