Kazaa Agrees to Pay $100m to the Record Industry

siddesu writes "BBC has the following breaking story: File-sharing site Kazaa will become a legal music download service following a series of high-profile legal battles. The peer-to-peer network has also agreed to pay $100m (£53m) in damages to the record industry. The announcement follows the release of a music industry report that says more than 20 billion music tracks have been downloaded illegally in the last year. Hungry artists across the globe rejoice."

Comments

Re:just how much will each artist make?

[gid13]

I think the ones that are hungry are the ones that WANT people to download their stuff. And I think that labels are a monument to mediocrity and mistreatment. Let's not forget the guy from Creedence Clearwater, who got sued for copyright infringement OF HIS OWN WORK because the record label owned the copyright. Or, much as I may hate them, the Backstreet Boys, who, after several hugely popular albums, testified that they hadn't ever received a royalty cheque. Or DMX, who compared the music business to legalized slavery. Let's not forget that the major labels were convicted of price-fixing, and got the tiniest penalty imaginable. This is a short beginning of a very long list, but I'm not going to type it all. The point is: pretty much anything that results in the major labels getting more money is bad. And this likely will.

None. This just offsets Record Industry costs

[giafly]

does anybody know just how many and just how much of this money will actually go to the artists?

"While the award may seem like a vast pot of money, it will merely offset the millions we have invested - and will continue to invest - in fighting illegal pirate operations around the world" - EMI Music vice chairman David Munns