RIAA Admits 70 Cent Price is 'In the Range'

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In its professed battle to protect the 'confidentiality' of its 70-cents-per-download wholesale price, the RIAA has now publicly filed papers in UMG v. Lindor in which it admits that the 70-cents-per-download price claimed by the defendant is 'in the range'.(pdf) From the article: 'The pricing data really may not be all that secret. Late in 2005, former New York Attorney General (and current Governor) Eliot Spitzer launched an investigation into price fixing by the record labels, alleging collusion between the major labels in their dealings with the online music industry. Gabriel believes that making the pricing information public would 'implicate [sic] very real antitrust concerns' as the labels are not supposed to share contract information with one another ... Beckerman argues in a letter to the judge that the only reason the labels want to keep this information confidential is to 'serve their strategic objectives for other cases,' which he says does not rise to the legal threshold necessary for a protective order. The proposed order would force the labels to turn over contracts with their 12 largest customers. Most details--such as the identities of the parties--would be kept confidential, but pricing information and volume would not.'"

Comments

it's the opposite of trustworthy....

[User 956]

Gabriel believes that making the pricing information public would 'implicate [sic] very real antitrust concerns'

Well, if there's one thing record labels have an abundancy of, it's anti-trust.

Re:it's the opposite of trustworthy....

[Anonymous Coward]

Same story again...
2c. iF U Cee Kate tell her I wont be there.

ps.Slashbot give us a brake pleeease..............

Pricing Comparison

[Ided]

If you take a step back and put this into perspective you are able to really get a clear picture of how much money this companies are making on a per track basis. If they are charging .70 to music retailers then consider the following: .99 = iTunes (cheaper if CD is purchased) .93 = CD of 15 songs priced at $16 I recently came across an article suggesting that artists on average get paid around .25 per song. This computes into an estimated profit of roughly .45 per song. Of course compute that into a couple of million songs sold for one major artist and you're looking at $900,000 in profit for the record company. Not to shabby for one major artist. The point being I still see plenty of reports of artists selling this many records on a regular basis. I would find it difficult to do much complaining about profit loss when I am bringing in something like that from one person. All the smaller artists you have can cover costs.

Re:Pricing Comparison

[x3rc3s]

No matter how many more songs there are on a disc, an album is nearly always defined as containing 10 songs in a recording contract. And payment is based on that figure to the artist, which means the labels do a good deal better on CD sales than online downloads, though that doesn't account for materials costs I suspose.

Re:Pricing Comparison

[DJCacophony]

.93 = CD of 15 songs priced at $16

Oops, I think you meant CD of 16 songs priced at $15. And even then it's $0.94, not $0.93. A CD of 15 songs priced at $16 is $1.07.

Re:Pricing Comparison

[hawg2k]

$0.45 per song sounds high, but if you think about all that they take care of (advertising, risk of producing your album (which if it's your first could be a total loser bringing in no money), etc.), it doesn't sound too rediculous.

I can't recall where I got this from (TV show, news article?), so it could be wrong, but I think if you're a new "up and commer" artist, your cut is ~ $0.02 - $0.03. And I can't remember if that was per song or per CD! Again these numbers may not be exact, but it puts the RIAA cut back into what I'd call the ridiculous %.

Britney Spears may be getting $0.45 per song, but she probably didn't get near that much on her first couple of albums. Most artists make their money on tour.

Re:Pricing Comparison

[SydShamino]

$0.45 per song sounds high, but if you think about all that they take care of (advertising, risk of producing your album (which if it's your first could be a total loser bringing in no money), etc.), it doesn't sound too rediculous.

As I understand it, the production and advertising costs are usually recouped from the artists before they get a cut. In other words, those costs come out of the artists' $0.25, not out of the label's $0.45.

Re:Pricing Comparison

[PopeRatzo]

The article you "came across" was dead wrong. From every dollar, the most an artist will get is 20 cents and that's only the top few percent of recording artists.

Do you know how much money MOST recording artists will make from every dollar in record sales? Less than 8 cents, and that's only after all the expenses of the recording, distribution and marketing are paid for. In fact, nearly 1/3 of all recording artists who make records that sell more than 1000 copies (to get past the cases where only family members buy the records), will make exactly NOTHING from record sales. You can't just accept the very highest percentage that the top-paid artists will receive as representative, but look at what the recording industry does as a whole. After all, it's not only the top percent of artists that bring in the greatest portion of the entertainment industry's profits.

And the back-catalog, that enormous cash-cow of the big record companies, generally pay nearly nothing to the original artists. The composer might make a few cents on the dollar, but only if they didn't relinquish their publishing, which is much more common for new bands than you would think.

There are better ways for artists to make a living, and for their work to be distributed to consumers. Many have already found them, thank you very much.

Re:Pricing Comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

And even then it's $0.94, not $0.93

I'm an elephant, you insensitive clod!

Re:Pricing Comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, those costs come out of the artists' $0.25, not out of the label's $0.45.

Before anyone starts thinking this is inherently unfair, consider that the costs involved were already incurred by the record label, before they made any money on the record at all.

Re:Pricing Comparison

[Atzanteol]

but if you think about all that they take care of (advertising, risk of producing your album (which if it's your first could be a total loser bringing in no money), etc.), it doesn't sound too rediculous.

Until you find out that all those expenses are effectively taken from the artist's cut. They have to pay it back...

Re:Pricing Comparison

[aneurysm36]

good time to link this again-

The Problem With Music
by Steve Albini
http://negativland.com/albini.html

Re:Pricing Comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, bribing all those politicians to get your laws passed isn't cheap.

Re:Pricing Comparison

[nolife]

But how much of this "cost" is self induced by the record industry itself?
Payola, ticket master, law suits, lobbying, Harry Fox? (or who knows how many other licensing and reproductions agencies) and I'm sure there are many more.

The RIAA wants to only have to promote (or make successful) several different people per genre of music per year. That way they can concentrate the spending on those select few and get a better return on investment. There will always be a few new young good looking female pop singers to fill the void but there will NEVER be more then just a few regardless of the current talent pool. Music and entertainment in general thrives off of the bandwagon effect, not who is actually talented or not. Use Carrie Underwood as an example. She would not be making music right now if it was not for the in your face recognition she got from American Idol. There are 100's just like her that will never make it and it has nothing to do with lack of talent. The entire entertainment industry revolves around this concept. I blame this on human nature and the industry inner working itself. I view a politians rise to higher positions in a similar manner.

If you want variety, you will have to seek it out yourself in or out of the traditional RIAA sanctioned methods and not have it handed to you by the radio and television stations.

Re:Pricing Comparison

[tkrotchko]

I'm not quite sure how it works, but the composer always makes money on airplay, I think it's called "Mechanical Royalties". There's an article here: http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/music-royal ties6.htm

but I have no idea if it's accurate.

Re:Pricing Comparison

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I recently came across an article suggesting that artists on average get paid around .25 per song.

The article you "came across" was dead wrong. From every dollar, the most an artist will get is 20 cents and that's only the top few percent of recording artists.

You misunderstand. The article said, ".25 per song" -- not per dollar, not per copy.
Just 25 cents total, once and for all.

Re:Pricing Comparison

[Spritzer]

Their profit is NOT $0.45 per song. That is their revenue. Factor in the enormous overhead of these labels and you probably end up with per-song profit in the $0.20 range or lower.

Re:Pricing Comparison

[trentblase]

This baffles me. I got a "double-album" which was 18 tracks on 2 CDs. Why it was on 2 CDs I'll never know, since the total track time was 61 minutes.

*The album was "Get Away From Me" by Nellie McKay, who reportedly fought long and hard with Sony to put out a "double-album". Apparently her insistence on a double-album for her second album ended her relationship w/ Sony.

Re:Pricing Comparison

[trentblase]

Not that I support the way labels do business, but of course those expenses are taken from the artist's cut. Do you propose that the record labels promote/produce/etc. for free? Any fee they do charge comes out of the "artist's cut". And if the label spends all that money promoting/producing/etc. and it makes no money, those costs are NOT taken from the artist's cut (because they have no cut, the revenue being 0). It's not like the artist is then expected to get a day job and pay back the initial costs (well, maybe some seedy labels work this way, but they are more on the level of "agents" who convince you to buy expensive headshots).

Re:Pricing Comparison

[ZachPruckowski]

I spend a lot of time in the music industry. Half of those costs are pretty much obsolete now. I mean, I can't remember the last time I saw a commercial for a band that wasn't paid for by a concert promoter (Mix CDs with a theme don't count). And in radio, there's "no payola". And recording costs are falling pretty quickly. You're not at the point where anyone can record in their garage, but costs are rather down. Almost any group of college kids can record a decent demo nowadays (yeah, I'm stuck listening to about a dozen this week) that every year sounds more and more professional. When we book bands, we deal with their agents, or our agents deal with their agents.

Most of what the RIAA groups do could be replaced by VCs who specialize in music, and with managers/agents. If the RIAA wasn't being a monopolizing, price-fixing force, it might have happened already.

Re:Pricing Comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

One CD for the rootkit...

Re:Pricing Comparison

[shark72]

"If you take a step back and put this into perspective you are able to really get a clear picture of how much money this companies are making on a per track basis. If they are charging .70 to music retailers then consider the following: .99 = iTunes (cheaper if CD is purchased) .93 = CD of 15 songs priced at $16 I recently came across an article suggesting that artists on average get paid around .25 per song. This computes into an estimated profit of roughly .45 per song."

It's misleading to use the term "profit" here, as readers might confuse it with the money that the record company actually gets to keep. THe correct term for that $0.45 is "gross profit" or "gross margin."

Record companies are a lot like Apple, Microsoft, your local grocery store, Toyota, and other "real" companies: they take that gross margin and slice it up and give it to lots of employers, contractors, and suppliers. Some they do keep, but not much.

"I would find it difficult to do much complaining about profit loss when I am bringing in something like that from one person. All the smaller artists you have can cover costs."

It tends to be the other way around (the smaller releases lose money; and the knock-em-out-of-the-mark double platinum example you give pays for the rest), but when in doubt, look at the numbers. Warner Music made a gross profit of $1.69B last year -- about 40% of their gross sales -- but only managed a profit margin of 1.71%. If you'd like to think of it in terms of track sales, for each track they sold in at $0.70, they only ended up with about one cent at the end of the year. By comparison, Apple and Logitech got to keep about ten cents of each dollar's worth of product they sold last year, and Microsoft about $0.30. A 1.71% profit margin at the end of the year is actually pretty shitty as profitability goes when you look at all industries.

If anybody's boggled by this, just keep in mind that record companies do pay people other than musicians, and it's often the royalty payments that are one of the cheapest things involved in selling a CD.

Re:Pricing Comparison

[shark72]

"Not that I support the way labels do business, but of course those expenses are taken from the artist's cut. Do you propose that the record labels promote/produce/etc. for free? Any fee they do charge comes out of the "artist's cut". And if the label spends all that money promoting/producing/etc. and it makes no money, those costs are NOT taken from the artist's cut (because they have no cut, the revenue being 0). It's not like the artist is then expected to get a day job and pay back the initial costs (well, maybe some seedy labels work this way, but they are more on the level of "agents" who convince you to buy expensive headshots)."

Well put. The record industry is hugely speculative, and the record company takes all of the risk. There's a lot of appeal to foregoing a record contract and getting a bank loan to finance your own production (so that at least you'll own the masters) but if your project isn't profitable, you still owe the bank the money. If the record company loses money on you, they just drop you.

Magnatune pays much higher royalties than traditional record companies and doesn't deduct anything from royalties for expenses -- but that's because Magnatune makes no investment in the artist. The artist must provide their own masters.

If some enterprising Slashdotter can come up with a way to start a record company that (a) completely funds the production of the CD and (b ) pays royalties regardless of whether the record makes money, then great -- they'll crack the industry wide open and put both Magnatune and the traditional labels out of business.

Re:Pricing Comparison

[Anonymous McCartneyf]

Maybe she had a three-album contract with Sony. Double albums count as two.
There are many artists who signed with Columbia and Sony. Far fewer signed with them twice.
(FYI: Columbia was the original label. It turned into Sony Music when Sony bought it.)

Re:Pricing Comparison

[trentblase]

Interesting, although I'm not entirely sure what you are saying. Is it that they didn't put all tracks on one CD because Nellie may have wanted two CDs in order to fulfill her contract faster? Would Sony want 1 CD with 18 tracks or 2 separate albums with 9 tracks each? My best guess had always been that the 2 CD thing was a marketing gimmick to trick consumers into thinking two 9-track CDs were better than one 18-track CD.

Re:Pricing Comparison

[squiggleslash]

Some of them are, but remember, the artist gets an advance which is, in part, supposed to help the artist with those costs.

The advance is a source of controversy. It's frequently too small, because the artists are unaware of how much responsibility they have, and it's also often described as a "loan" because the artist will not receive any further royalties until enough have been collected to cover the advance.

On the other hand, it is a large sum of money paid by the publisher. And if not enough CDs are sold to cover the advance, then not only does the publisher take a hit on the production costs they are responsible for, but the publisher also doesn't get the entire advance paid back. It's not a loan in the sense of "The artist pays it back if there aren't enough royalties", the gap between royalties and the advance is soemthing the publisher eats.

Whatever way you look at it, the publisher does invest a lot in each album, and does end up paying the bulk of the costs, directly and indirectly. Like most businesses, they do what they can to minimize their exposure, often leaving the people who produce the music they found their businesses upon with far less than they deserve.

Re:Pricing Comparison

[87C751]

And in radio, there's "no payola".

O RLY?

Re:Pricing Comparison

[multipartmixed]

Only if they haven't signed over the song to the record company in the first place.. Which is happening more and more.

As a crazy example, did you know that Michael Jackson gets mechanical royalties for the Beatles' back catalogue?

Sir Paul is (rightly) pissed about that one, since he doesn't get a dime.

Re:Pricing Comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

So let me make sure I understand this... I pay $0.99 to download a song (regardless of length)

$0.29 goes to iTunes. I tunes has to pay for:
  - Bandwidth
  - Administration
  - Servers
  - Web Design
  - Content Setup (Encoding, Database, etc.)
  - Billing and Customer Care

$0.25 goes to the Artist. The artist has to pay for:
  - Equipment
  - Recording Time
  - Publishing
  - Music Videos and Promotion
  - Their own Lawyers and Staff

That takes care of ALL the expenses, and leaves the lions share of $0.45 (almost half) going to the publisher. The publisher pays for:
  - Counting all that money?

This can't be right. It just can't be. Someone tell me I'm missing something. Like, that publishing costs are paid to iTunes, or that the recording company has any part in this larger than signing the contract and leaning back to be covered in money?

Re:Pricing Comparison

[grimwell]

Is it that they didn't put all tracks on one CD because Nellie may have wanted two CDs in order to fulfill her contract faster?

Yes

Would Sony want 1 CD with 18 tracks or 2 separate albums with 9 tracks each?

Sony wants 1 CD(album) because then Nellie still owes them another album

If the artist(e.g. nellie) has a contract with the distributor(e.g. sony) to produce two albums, the artist can only get out of the contract by producing two albums or having someone make the distributor an offer they can't refuse ala The Godfather.

The grey area is how many songs make an album. By saying those 18 songs are two albums, she has fulfilled her contract obligations and can now distribute her new albums herself or sign with another distributor.

When musicians sign with a label, their work is generally "work for hire" meaning they don't retain the copyrights to the work they produced for the label. The label(e.g. sony) get the copyright. If the artist signed a poor contract(e.g. they're paid shit) and become popular, they'll want to get out of their contract.

Re:Pricing Comparison

[Gr8Apes]

Think about what was said in G..P posts - 10 songs = 1 CD, so if Nelly puts 18 songs on CD, that's 8 free songs. Putting 9 songs each on 2 CDs, that "gyps" the record company out of 2 songs, as well as letting Nelly out of the contract 1 cycle sooner. That's provided all the above information is truly correct, and this being /.....

Re:Pricing Comparison

[Gr8Apes]

And in radio, there's "no payola". wink wink. Right.

How else do you explain the incredible tripe playing on the radio these days, not to mention that there are several ongoing investigations into this very allegation. Yeah, it's an "allegation", but until they stop playing the same tired 42 songs of the month, promoted by either ClearChannel or Infinity, with a couple of "oldies" thrown in for "variety", you're going to have a mountain the size of Olympus Mons to scale to convince anyone otherwise.

Re:Pricing Comparison

[the_lesser_gatsby]

Perhaps she did it to avoid cognitive dissonance with the vinyl version?

Re:Pricing Comparison

[Zaatxe]

You misunderstand. The article said, ".25 per song" -- not per dollar, not per copy.
Just 25 cents total, once and for all.

Then the rapper 50 Cent must be twice as successful as most artists!

Re:Pricing Comparison

[MrNiceguy_KS]

Do you propose that the record labels promote/produce/etc. for free? Any fee they do charge comes out of the "artist's cut".

Wait a minute, let me get this straight. If those fees don't come out of the "artist's cut" then the labels are promoting/producing/etc... for free? The big name artists are getting $0.20 on the dollar. What the hell is the label doing with their $0.80?

(I know, I know... Cocaine and hookers.)

Re:Pricing Comparison

[bblboy54]

The worst part about this entire process is that, while it may make sense for a new artist to get substantially less money, in the long run it has nothing to do with how good or well liked the artist is in the general public. The RIAA decides who will make it and who will not. If they want someone to do well, then it is them who get the good $7 promotions at Target, the good advertising spots, and the most airtime on radio stations. OTOH, if they dont want to have an artist do well, that artist is still left to fend for themselves AND pay the RIAA on the off chance that they do make it big.

Re:Pricing Comparison

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Then the rapper 50 Cent must be twice as successful as most artists!

He's just a two hit wonder.

Re:Pricing Comparison

[ZachPruckowski]

I was making the point that the RIAA's only contributions to an artist are straight monetary loans or illegal assistance, with payola being obviously illegal. Not that payola doesn't exist (although I personally have never seen it). Hence the quotes.

Re:Pricing Comparison

[shark72]

"Wait a minute, let me get this straight. If those fees don't come out of the "artist's cut" then the labels are promoting/producing/etc... for free? The big name artists are getting $0.20 on the dollar. What the hell is the label doing with their $0.80?"

I see the confusion here. The record company does not solely use the artist's royalty to pay for the album. The label pays whatever it costs, and the artist starts making money when the record starts making money. If the production costs ultimately net out to 0.40 or 0.60 or 0.80 per track, that's what the label pays. Most records lose money.

"(I know, I know... Cocaine and hookers.)"

I've often wondered about this: do Slashdotters really believe this, or is it just a way to justify piracy? Of the short list of people I've met who were fond of the "cocaine and hooker" lifestyle, most of them were in the computer industry. The only record executive I've ever met ran a 10-person indie label. He paid himself $25,000 a year, and when Napster came on the scene and his sales dropped, he had to lay off his friends. I understand that this isn't the image you want to have in mind while you're Torrenting music.

Re:Pricing Comparison

[spun]

No, we slashdotters, and most other right minded folks think of record company executives as absolute subhuman scum and the phrase "cocaine and hookers" is just a kind of shorthand for "the worst sort of con-man, a person with the morals of a starving weasel, someone who would kill his own grandmother for a dime, the kind of person that makes your average personal injury lawyer look like a saint."

It really isn't about cocain, or hookers. It's about the perception that the music industry, and those who lead it, are completely morally bankrupt. Perhaps that isn't true, but that is the perception, and it isn't completely unfounded. If the industry doesn't want to be perceived in that light, it should shape up.

None of this applies to your friend or anyone involved with a ten person indie label, except that your poor friend has been tarred with the same brush, in the public's eyes at least. But I'd also be willing to bet that no one pirates your friend's music, as they would have had to have heard about it in order to want to pirate it.

Re:Pricing Comparison

[ChimaeraX]

As opposed to a two bit wonder...

Re:Pricing Comparison

[DrSkwid]

There is no WE in /.

Re:Pricing Comparison

[Anonymous McCartneyf]

That could be a factor. I severely doubt it's the main reason, though: even customers get annoyed when material that could fit on one CD gets spread to two. I know that's how Beatlefans felt about the CD vs. of The Beatles:1962-1966--an album that really was issued in two CDs to prevent cognitive dissonance from the vinyl edition.

Re:Pricing Comparison

[thesameguy]

Interesting point... we're already starting to see this type of activity with straight-to-DVD movies. If you've got $1m and wanna double it quickly, film a crappy movie and send it to Blockbuster... Music isn't nearly as profitable as video, and there isn't the option of rental (low-risk purchases for consumers) but I could definitely see someone with a few bucks producing an album and throwing it on iTunes etc...

Re:Pricing Comparison

[Pusene]

One CD to rule them all, One CD to find them, One CD to bring them all and in the darkness bind them In the Land of RIAA where the Shadows lie.

Damages

[HappySqurriel]

If they only make $0.70 wouldn't that imply that for the damages of 1.5 trillion from AllOfMP3.com would only be justified if AllOfMP3.com had uploaded over 2 trillion copies of songs to their users?

Personally, I suspect that is the reason they wouldn't want their prices known; it destroys the RIAA's ability to sue for massive damages.

Re:Damages

[Sciros]

Well, nothing can really justify the claim that AllOfMP3.com is responsible for $1.65 trillion in damages. But I do agree that in general by making their profits more public they will have a tougher time making outrageous claims of losses to piracy.

Re:Damages

[jfengel]

Not that I'd expect allOfMP3.com to cough up $.70 per download, either. It would put them out of business just as fast.

Re:Damages

[kfg]

I suspect that is the reason they wouldn't want their prices known; it destroys the RIAA's ability to sue for massive damages.

The damages requested are quite reasonable. Yeah, it's only about a quarter million in actual losses, but the adminstrative expenses run to a trillion and half, especially given that the administrative offices are located in the Cayman Islands.

KFG

Re:Damages

[HappySqurriel]

No doubt ...

If they calculated the damages at $0.70 per download AllOfMP3.com would (likely) be facing damages of $100,000,000 or more which would probably put the company out of buisness. A smart (and well connected) company might consider buying the bankrupt company and attempt to get the legal right to sell the music; a valid argument to make to the RIAA is in places like Russia and China no one is willing to spend more than AllOfMP3.com was already charging for music and AllOfMP3.com would attempt to prevent Americans from buying music from them.

Another thing to consider is how much could the RIAA claim as damages from individuals who were downloading music? Would people just download music under the assumption that it would kill the RIAA to try to sue them for damages? (The ammount of work $7,000 buys you from lawyers would easily be surpassed in any of these lawsuits unless the RIAA decided to start collecting Mexican-Educated Lawyers.

Re:Damages

[qrwe]

AllOfMp3:s greatest strength is (in my own opinion) a solution for everyone to choose whatever the music they want in whatever format they want. (Yes, I've tried it..) For example: As I choose Vorbis when ripping my own CD:s and there's poorly of those iTunes-like stores out there offering this format, some people choose allofmp3 just for the opportunity. Plus, you pay only for how many kbps you want the track in. Conclusion: how possibly can anyone claim 0.70 USD for a lossy formatted track where you can't even choose exactly how you want it?

Re:Damages

[CODiNE]

It'll also tell Apple exactly how much everybody else is paying. Since they're the #1 online music seller, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be to happy to find out they're paying more than the rest. This information would give Apple HUGE leverage if it turns out the music industry has been trying to fight Apple by selling the same music cheaper to the competition.

Re:Damages

[flyonthewall]

Out of curiosity, how is AllOfMP3 responsible? They operated within the laws of their country and paid the appropriate fees.

If the RIAA want their pound of flesh, would they not be better off going after the Russian licensing agency?

Re:Damages

[wwillia99]

If they only make $0.70 wouldn't that imply that for the damages of 1.5 trillion from AllOfMP3.com would only be justified if AllOfMP3.com had uploaded over 2 trillion copies of songs to their users?

That would mean if there are 6 billion people in the would that everyone would have had to of downloaded 333 songs. This is not about actual damages and all about putting allofmp3 out of business.

Re:Damages

[GodInHell]

If they only make $0.70 wouldn't that imply that for the damages of 1.5 trillion from AllOfMP3.com would only be justified if AllOfMP3.com had uploaded over 2 trillion copies of songs to their users? That would mean if there are 6 billion people in the would that everyone would have had to of downloaded 333 songs. This is not about actual damages and all about putting allofmp3 out of business. $150,000 per song is just the maximum amount defined under statute. I suspect requesting the maximum from AllofMP3 has alot more to do with getting into newspapers (and thus reminding us all that the RIAA is watching you) then getting the money. The reward is likely to be less.. if they win.. which they may very well do.

Slashdot posturing aside, there's plenty of "common sense" (aka nonsense - but judges and jurries do consider how things look to them) in favor of the argument that AllOfMp3 was pretty blatantly using Russian law as a shield and attempting to circumvent U.S. Law by creating host drives (thus, not sending files directly into the U.S.). At the end of the day, they drove business toward the U.S., offered their prices in U.S. dollars, and registered a U.S. domain root. (.com) Standing up for these guys is a little hard.. when they're basically just telling the U.S. companies that paid to produce this music that they have no say in the pricing, or distribution of their material.

-GiH

Re:Damages

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Conclusion: how possibly can anyone claim 0.70 USD for a lossy formatted track where you can't even choose exactly how you want it?

Let's be honest here, the only people that truly cares about these particular details are the nerd-types, and while we are at it, let's be honest enough to say that we are a minority. I would bet that if you approached ten people that you normally wouldn't associate with (or they wouldn't normally associate with you) and ask them what a "lossless" or "lossy" format is, nine or ten of them will say "huh?". In short, most people don't really care about that.

Re:Damages

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering most of those sheep^H^H^H^H^Hpeople like to listen to the Idol Band-of-the-month shlock fed to them by ClearChannel, they have questionable taste to begin with.

Re:Damages

[Anonymous Coward]

"blatantly using the law" -- that's a funny way to say "doing it legally", more so if one considers that RIAA and the likes are blatantly using their bribing power to pay for laws that extend their monopoly on culture and try to introduce it in other, unrelated areas - like player technology, P2P technology, etc. etc.

Re:Damages

[meta-monkey]

Well, yeah. Do you know what a latte costs in the Caymans?! $1.5 Trillion's a little on the light side, I'd say!

Re:Damages

[GodInHell]

"blatantly using the law" -- that's a funny way to say "doing it legally" I'll assume you're not so stupid as to miss the vital importance of the changes you made to my words in you "quote" (if my assumption is wrong, my appologies to your caretaker), and are therefore fudding, or just stroking the old ego stick. Blatantly using Russian Law (as opposed to say, U.S. law, which.. you know.. usually applies to deals made in the U.S.) isn't hiding behind legitimate authority, it's just trying to confuse and muddle an issue so sad saps like you can feel like it was wrong to shut them down.

-GiH

Re:Damages

[kfg]

Do you know what a latte costs in the Caymans?!

Yeah, I understand it's pretty expensive there. I had a record company executive try to explain it to me once, but he used a lot of financial jargon, like "exchange rate" and "hooker," so I really didn't catch it all.

Then he walked away singing Titties and beer, titties and beer, titties and beer. . ."

And all this time I've been laboring under the impression that record company executives weren't particularly fond of Zappa.

KFG

Re:Damages

[Anonymous Coward]

So, are you saying that Russian businesses and citizens should be subject to US law?

Interesting.

I live in the USA and I would never support that line of thinking, since it basically removes ALL checks and balances globally, and eliminates the possibility of fleeing tyranny by crossing borders.

Re:Damages

[GodInHell]

So, are you saying that Russian businesses and citizens should be subject to US law? When they conduct business in the U.S.? Absolutely.

I live in the USA and I would never support that line of thinking, since it basically removes ALL checks and balances globally, and eliminates the possibility of fleeing tyranny by crossing borders. I'm sorry to inform you that your knowledge of business law is lacking.

-GiH

Re:Damages

[Fweeky]

Most people don't know what lossy or lossless formats are, but most will understand the implications if they're explained in a context that might matter to them.

"Future portable players will support formats which allow you to fit 2 or 3 times as much music on them without noticable loss in quality. Do you want to buy a future-proof lossless format which can take advantage of such an advancement in future but will take a bit more space on your PC, or a lossy format which might result in noticable quality loss if you ever want to use a different format?"

If the option were offered, the price difference was reasonable, and the differences explained simply, I'm sure a significant proportion of users would opt for the "better" option.

Re:Damages

[Anonymous Coward]

By that argument, the only music that people really care about is Irreplaceable, Fergalicious, and Say It Right. That stuff by Beethoven and Mozart are only for those long hair types and not something that people really care about.

Except...

That it isn't true. People do care about fidelity... otherwise, we'd all have AM radios in our car because it's good enough. I guess it's not. Right now, people don't care about anything > 128kb AAC on their iPod because they don't know enough to realize those ear buds are killing the sound.

Just yesterday, a good friend (classical music lover) bought an iPod. Confused as heck, but excited. So he loads it up with CD's he purchased and ripped. And he said "I want new earphones. I don't like the feel of these ear buds". And so I pointed him to a classic pair of relatively inexpensive Koss headphones (they really do sound great this side of $500 earphones) and he was shocked. He thought the sound coming out of those ear buds was the only thing possible in a small player. He didn't realize there was actually some fidelity there. So now he's re-ripping all his CD's in 192kb/s instead of 128 because he can hear the difference when he had decent cans to listen to.

Re:Damages

[repvik]

Out of curiosity, how is AllOfMP3 responsible? They operated within the laws of their country and paid the appropriate fees.

They aren't

If the RIAA want their pound of flesh, would they not be better off going after the Russian licensing agency?

Yes. But since the RIAA is in the US of A, suing a "innocent" company in another country (with different laws) for ridiculous amounts just might work.

Re:Damages

[ben there...]

Let's be honest here, the only people that truly cares about these particular details are the nerd-types, and while we are at it, let's be honest enough to say that we are a minority. I would bet that if you approached ten people that you normally wouldn't associate with (or they wouldn't normally associate with you) and ask them what a "lossless" or "lossy" format is, nine or ten of them will say "huh?". In short, most people don't really care about that.

It might be more appropriate to say "They care, they just don't know it." All the people who have iPods and huge iTMS libraries likely just continue buying iPods. Other players are no longer an option to them, unless they want to burn-rerip. 5-10 years down the road when there is more competition in the portable "digital audio" player market (or even home stereo "digital audio" player market), they will be more likely to care. Whether they'll realize that they had an option not to buy compressed DRM'd music at that point is unknown though.

Keep in mind that my parents' generation still owns many of their records from over 30 years ago.

Re:Damages

[davester666]

So, are you saying that Russian businesses and citizens should be subject to US law?

When they conduct business in the U.S.? Absolutely.

Except where exactly is the transaction taking place? Is it in the purchaser's home, or where AllOfMP3's server's are located? This sounds like something that needs to be defined by international treaties, and not US law [but of course US judges would never think of that].

From the sounds of it, it would be legal to purchase from AllOfMP3 if you are physically located within Russia. Maybe it break's some internation agreement or some US law for someone physically located within the US to download from AllOfMP3, so maybe the RIAA needs to go after all the downloaders... Or maybe that's just too expensive for them..

What about 'regular' criminal law? You live in State A, which outlaws perfoming or possessing the depiction of some specific sexual act. You order a DVD containing said depiction from Company B located in State C, which does NOT outlaw said depiction. Which party is committing the criminal act, you, Company B, or the shipping company? As a non-lawyer, assuming the police legally 'find' you with it, I would imagine you would be the one charged with the crime. Now, instead of ordering the physical DVD, you download the video over the internet.

Re:Damages

[shark72]

"Except where exactly is the transaction taking place? Is it in the purchaser's home, or where AllOfMP3's server's are located? This sounds like something that needs to be defined by international treaties, and not US law [but of course US judges would never think of that]."

The transaction is taking place between a US citizen and the Russian outfit -- that's what counts. When this goes to trial, a key point will be whether allofmp3 is actively soliciting business from the US. Allofmp3 will say they aren't; the record companies will point to the stuff that the GP mentioned (listing prices in US dollars, putting American flags on the site, etc.) and claim that they are. It'll be interesting!

"What about 'regular' criminal law? You live in State A, which outlaws perfoming or possessing the depiction of some specific sexual act. You order a DVD containing said depiction from Company B located in State C, which does NOT outlaw said depiction. Which party is committing the criminal act, you, Company B, or the shipping company?"

These types of questions are typically difficult to answer in the abstract. In fact, that's exactly why we have courts. You and I can have our own opinions of whether the fictional Company B or the very real allofmp3 are liable, but ultimately what matters is what the court decides.

Re:Damages

[mpe]

Except where exactly is the transaction taking place? Is it in the purchaser's home, or where AllOfMP3's server's are located?

Or some other location...

Re:Damages

[Anonymous Coward]

Except where exactly is the transaction taking place? Is it in the purchaser's home, or where AllOfMP3's server's are located? The obvious answer is that the transaction happens in both places simultaneously. It's not an either/or situation.

Re:Damages

[GodInHell]

The obvious answer is that the transaction happens in both places simultaneously. It's not an either/or situation. I think that's approx. what we've gotten out of the courts so far.

-GiH

Now waiting...

[Anonymous Coward]

...for the iTunes Store price cut.

I don't see how people can...

[PurifyYourMind]

...afford a per-song cost in that range. I think I got spoiled by eMusic recently by getting songs for 22 cents/song. And there was no whole album penalty for anything. I even got long tracks-as-album (60 minute songs) for the same price. Only downsides to eMusic are: 1) only independent artists, so I still miss my Autechre, Boards of Canada, etc., 2) No official/maintained Linux client, just an old one they used to support.

Re:I don't see how people can...

[Anonymous Coward]

2) No official/maintained Linux client, just an old one they used to support.

I use emusicj, it's at least been updated recently. Also, I understand you can use Songbird to download from emusic, but I haven't tried it.

Re:I don't see how people can...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.kallisti.net.nz/EMusicJ/HomePage

It's not official as per your condition, but it works great on Linux for me.

Re:I don't see how people can...

[Anonymous Coward]

How about excersing your fair use right and go to piratebay.org vs. paying .22 cents. Riaa claims .70cents is in the range and the more ppl use p2p, the more riaa will become likely to claim .20 cents is in the range. Competition is nice and that's what p2p does. It provides a method for IPHolders to become competetive and not rake over it's customers. I just looked at my local cable tv offerings and it's getting better, but it's still not there yet. For 40$/mo ppl should get ondemand everything and pay per view nothing! If musicians banded together and ditched riaa, i suspect their offering would be about .15 cents per song and if they cut out riaa and the labels, they would probably get 100X more than they do now even at .15Cents per song.

Re:I don't see how people can...

[JebusIsLord]

Uhm, you might want to read up on what "fair use" means. It doesn't mean stealing.

Re:I don't see how people can...

[kfg]

you might want to read up on what "fair use" means.

You are absolutely correct; and I came here with the intent to say that.

It doesn't mean stealing.

However, you might want to read up on what "copying" means.

KFG

Re:I don't see how people can...

[jrockway]

> Uhm, you might want to read up on what "fair use" means. It doesn't mean stealing.

And "piracy" means violently taking over a ship at sea. What's your point?

Re:I don't see how people can...

[Anonymous Coward]

The end result is that people pay pretty much the same amount of money (actually slightly less) for digital music that they do for CDs. So if you could afford x number of CDs before digital music was widely available, the odds are you can afford x number of digital albums worth of music. Whether it is worth that is irrelevant; people will either pay what they think it is worth, get it through some other means (second-hand, torrents, whatever else), or go without it.

Re:I don't see how people can...

[badboy_tw2002]

I think you mean GNU\Copying.

Re:I don't see how people can...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no it doesn't

That has been one of its uses, but it has never been the sole use.

Re:I don't see how people can...

[SeaFox]

2) No official/maintained Linux client, just an old one they used to support.

I think the fact a client is not required to use the service is one of its strengths. You can download new tracks for yourself anywhere you can get internet access and the ability to save them to a local disc. They allow two songs to download simultaneously at a time so it should be possible to configure any download manager to work under these restrictions.

Re:I don't see how people can...

[Anonymous Coward]

And given that Media Barons who use the abuses of copyright to take advantage of our culture, are violating our inner child in the vile way...
Child raper means Asshole Media Baron.

Re:I don't see how people can...

[shark72]

"And "piracy" means violently taking over a ship at sea. What's your point?"

Type "dict piracy" into your Firefox URL bar. You might be surprised!

This is what's known as a "homonym," or a "homophone." Other examples are "bark" and "desert."

Re:I don't see how people can...

[pedestrian crossing]

They allow two songs to download simultaneously at a time so it should be possible to configure any download manager to work under these restrictions.

Actually, they don't restrict the number of simultaneous downloads at all, AFAICT. In moz, you just have to up the number of "persistant connections" and Bob's your uncle. I have mine set to 6 and I can do 6 downloads at once.

The things I really like about emusic:

• $0.22 per track. The fact that the RIAA is talking $0.70 wholesale really highlights the fact that they are greedy criminals.
• You bought it, you own it. Straight-up q=3 VBR mp3.
• As long as you are a subscriber, you can re-download any track you have already purchased at no additional cost.
• One free track (of their choice) per day.
• Multiple good recommendation systems (emusic dozen, featured album, neighbors, others who liked foo also liked bar, etc.) on their web site.
• The feeling that they trust you to do the right thing.
• Millions of tracks to choose from.

I know I sound like a shill, but really I'm just a very satisfied customer...

Re:I don't see how people can...

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought I was the only fan of boards of canada, go figure.

Re:I don't see how people can...

[TheRaven64]

$0.22 per track. The fact that the RIAA is talking $0.70 wholesale really highlights the fact that they are greedy criminals.

I think you've done some incorrect currency conversion there. eMusic tracks are $0.33 in the USA and £0.22 in the UK (at the current exchange rate, $0.33 is £0.17, by the way). iTMS, for reference, is $0.99 in the USA and £0.79 in the UK. This makes iTMS 3 times the price in the USA and 3.6 times the price in UK.

Re:I don't see how people can...

[spungebob]

GP's $0.22USD per track is correct, given that eMusic's charge per song ultimately depends on your subscription level. It also depends on whether you are a relatively new subscriber or not.

The $0.33USD you are quoting is based on a current 65 downloads/month subscription - this rate went into effect sometime last November. The GP's cost is based on the 90 downloads/month rate which was in effect prior to last November. My own cost is even less than $0.22USD per download as I am on an Annual subscription rate.

What is interesting about this difference in rates is that if you were an older (pre-November) subscriber you get to keep your old rate for as long as you keep your subscription current... the new rate only applies to new subscribers. There's not too many services of any kind that are willing to do that. How would you like to be a charter subscriber to Time magazine and still be paying the 1923 price of fifteen cents per issue?

It should be noted that although eMusic may charge $0.22USD per download, they actually pay more to the label/distributor/artist per download than what they charge the subscribers. The key is that it's a subscription service and they bank on the fact that not all subscribers will use up all of their monthly allotted downloads. Think "gym membership" as a suitable analogy - you pay each month, whether you exercise or not.

Also, with eMusic you can effectively take the RIAA's "cut" out of the equation - as the number one download site for independent music (and number two download site overall, behind iTunes) they don't deal with the majors at all or subsidize their litiginous behaviour.

Re:I don't see how people can...

[Anonymous Coward]

My favorite site for music is http://magnatune.com/ because they support ogg, mp3, and flac... but best of all, at least for the artist, they pay 50 percent of the price directly to the artist. The customer chooses the price within a range for the album. I don't think they sell per song. But you can download each song in its entirety at the lowest quality for free. I have purchased four or five albums from them. They do a great job of being selective as to the quality of music (according to the site owner's subjective judgement anyways) allowed on the site. I just think they are an excellent example of combining low-cost to both the customer and the artist and fairly paying the artists for their creative products. ...Cheers, Charles Witt

Re:I don't see how people can...

[TheRaven64]

Interesting, and this probably makes them guilty of misleading advertising. I had looked at their site a few times recently and had been considering signing up. Nothing I read lead me to believe that they were a subscription-only service; everything indicated that they simply sold songs iTMS-style for '$0.33 or less.' Thanks for pointing this out; I can now safely move them to the 'ignore' category in my brain.

I was suspicious of the fact that, until you give them your personal details, there is absolutely no definitive statement of how much things cost to be had on their site.

Re:I don't see how people can...

[spungebob]

I would prefer to say that they are guilty of very confusing advertising...

Just to be clear on what is meant by "subscription only", they are NOT like Rhapsody, et al, where you are only renting the songs for as long as you subscribe. What you get are unadulterated and DRM-free mp3 files which are yours to keep forever. In fact, you can download them again and again - as long as you are a current subscriber and the songs are still in eMusic's catalog.

The biggest complaint with eMusic's FAQ pages is that they are not easy to get to, especially for the new user who comes to the site cold or via a promotional ad link. They're not impossible to get to, but they sure don't make it easy and it requires a bit of browsing.

You can find eMusic's own Help pages here which include answers about subscriptions, including price. Also, there is a very good eMusic FAQ here which is maintained by an avid eMusic fan.

YANAL

[FallLine]

Slashdot:

You Are Not A Laywer. So please stop being the tool for this lawyer and his celebrity seeking habits (what is this, the 2nd article published this week from this guy?).

The issue du jour is about antitrust concerns for the plaintiff: if they communicate specific pricing to each other in any way they might be accused of price fixing. It may or may not be valid (and I'm sure it's a complicated legal matter). Seeing as how almost no one here has studied law and can offer intelligent commentary on this latest development, why don't you leave it up for the judge to decide? I also don't think the ~70 cents estimate is new knowledge here. In short, there's no news for slashdot here.

Move along.

Re:YANAL

[emor8t]

I agree. and how is this really news, we already knew it was "in the range".

I guess slashdot is going for the NYT attempt at reprinting articles or topics that are 3 months old.

Re:YANAL

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole point of a comment is to COMMENT. Who made you the decision maker when it comes to /. ? How dare you say that! We say what we want, if you don't like it fcuk off.

Re:YANAL

[emor8t]

Spoken like a true Anonymous Coward.

Re:YANAL

[TheSpoom]

Who cares? Of the stories I've seen from him so far, to me they've been fairly interesting. And personally, I like talking about interesting cases even if I'm not a lawyer.

Re:YANAL

[Jherek Carnelian]

So please stop being the tool for this lawyer and his celebrity seeking habits (what is this, the 2nd article published this week from this guy?).

Yeah, who would ever want to hear from a lawyer who regularly takes the cases of RIAA defendants?

Re:YANAL

[timmarhy]

i don't need to be a lawyer to comment on the news so why don't you just shut the fuck up?

Re:YANAL

[GodInHell]

You Are Not A Laywer. So please stop being the tool for this lawyer and his celebrity seeking habits (what is this, the 2nd article published this week from this guy?). You're going to say that slashdot readers don't LOVE to argue about this case? That it dosen't drive hits and discussions like nobodies buisiness?(If you do, you're wrong, check the past few articles for hit-count and the suprising number of interesting items posted under them.)

Slashdot is edutainment - and these articles deliver.

-GiH
Not a Lawyer, just a Law Student.

Re:YANAL

[kfg]

You Are Not A Laywer. . . Seeing as how almost no one here has studied law and can offer intelligent commentary on this latest development, why don't you leave it up for the judge to decide?

You do not seem to be aware of the difference between a lawyer and legal scholar, so why don't you leave that up the S.J.Ds and L.D/Ph.Ds to decide?

KFG

Re:YANAL

[Anonymous Coward]

How about you get off your high horse (read: self-inflated ego), and go do something that is helpful to society, Mr(s). Smarty-Pants?

Really, do you think yourself so superior to the rest of us (blue collar, or not)? Are you offering any solution here? Do you want to find a reasonable solution to the problem, or, do you choose to use this forum (/.) to boost your ego to face your everyday life?

Either way, come up with a solution that is reasonable, or, state your gripe(s), or STFU!

Re:YANAL

[kfg]

. . .come up with a solution that is reasonable. . .

Free speach.

KFG

Re:YANAL

[kfg]

And remember: Eat a s'peach. Play Little Martha while you're doing it. They're both fun, but music and motorcycles don't always mix well.

KFG

Undercutters

[Swimport]

They make 30 cents a song? Ill do it for 5 cents a song. Where do I sign up?

Different types of Damages

[Harmonious Botch]

There is a difference between actual damages and statutory damages. Actual damages are an attempt to compensate the victim. Statutory damages are an attempt to include punitive damage in statute law.
Whether or not this is wise law-making is debatable. I suspect that it would be better to force the victim to sue directly for punitive damages, thus leaving the matter to a judge to determine of the punishment fits the offense.

Re:Different types of Damages

[Misch]

There is a difference between actual damages and statutory damages. Actual damages are an attempt to compensate the victim. Statutory damages are an attempt to include punitive damage in statute law.

They can also be used in cases where the actual economic damages are difficult to compute.

Re:Different types of Damages

[Jeff DeMaagd]

When I was in a jury selection pool being coached on civil lawsuits, the terms used were compensatory and punitive damages. The first was to compensate for actual losses, the second is just plain punishment. I've never been chosen for actual jury duty so I've never seen the deliberation process.

Re:Different types of Damages

[bitt3n]

There is a difference between actual damages and statutory damages. Actual damages are an attempt to compensate the victim. Statutory damages are an attempt to include punitive damage in statute law. Whether or not this is wise law-making is debatable. I suspect that it would be better to force the victim to sue directly for punitive damages, thus leaving the matter to a judge to determine of the punishment fits the offense.

I've often wondered why punitive damages are given to the plaintiff, rather than, for example, funneled into law-enforcement programs (such as is presumably done with recovered drug money, etc.). The plaintiff is already getting compensatory damages. The purpose of the punitive damages is to punish the defendant. Why should the plaintiff get them? Maybe if he weren't to get them, we wouldn't have ridiculous trillion dollar (or even hundred million dollar) lawsuits.

Re:Different types of Damages

[DragonWriter]

I've often wondered why punitive damages are given to the plaintiff, rather than, for example, funneled into law-enforcement programs (such as is presumably done with recovered drug money, etc.).

Punitive damages are held to serve a public social purpose by deterring, through the harsh example, deliberate wrongdoing—which is where punitive damages are available, generally— they are given to the plaintiff because doing so increases the incentive encourages the plaintiff to file suit where such deliberate wrongdoing occurs, and thus promotes the public purpose that such damages serve.

Maybe if he weren't to get them, we wouldn't have ridiculous trillion dollar (or even hundred million dollar) lawsuits.

Probably not by much; demonstrating the kind of willful conduct necessary to win punitive damages is hard, and punitive damages are limited by the actual damages awarded. Most really large damage awards that make the news are mostly or entirely actual compensatory damages, the few that are mostly punitive damages and are also very large are cases where there were both large actual damages proven and those large actual damages proven were shown to result from willful wrongdoing on the part of the defendant.

Re:Different types of Damages

[jasonhamilton]

If damages were given to the gov't, can you imagine what the laws and rulings we'd end up seeing? It's already bad enough that cops "camp out" on the highways to zap us for going 5 mph over the speed limit in order to generate revenue ...

Re:Different types of Damages

[bitt3n]

If damages were given to the gov't, can you imagine what the laws and rulings we'd end up seeing? It's already bad enough that cops "camp out" on the highways to zap us for going 5 mph over the speed limit in order to generate revenue ...

that's because the tickets go directly to the police department. if they went straight to the federal government, there would be no incentive to over-ticket. same with punitive damages. actually your observation is a good example of why punitive damages should not be awarded to an interested party.

Re:Different types of Damages

[jasonhamilton]

You sure about that? Far as I know, the money goes to the local gov't who then decides how to spread out the cash influx.

Re:Different types of Damages

[Anonymous Coward]

Offtopic, but the "Traffic Fines Go Directly to the PD" thing is definately true where I live. Same thing with sales of confiscated drug property (even if you are not guilty).

Re:Different types of Damages

[bitt3n]

it varies from place to place, but in many areas the local PD certainly has a clear stake in the proceeds generated by ticketing. That's why they troll the section of the highway that goes through their jurisdiction and pull people over for doing 70 in a 55.

Re:Different types of Damages

[maxume]

Yeah, the drug money has worked out great. I saw an awesome episode of cops within the last several weeks where the police were busting people for buying recreational amounts of marijuana. The bust went down with the people in their cars, the cops would pull around the corner and front end the suspects car, which was then confiscated for auction. They were targeting screwed up people, and making their lives that much worse. It was obscene. I guess if you(whomever, the royal one, not you specifically) think weed is 'evil' and not something that screw ups use to forget their problems, you would be cheering, but I didn't really see how it was doing any good, people that were already marginal were having their ability to work hampered, losing a bunch of money, and all they 'learned' was that the system was out to get them. Rich people are generally smart enough to buy their drugs from someone they know. That doesn't make their use morally different.

I see punitive damages going into the 'system' only making the system bigger and bigger.

Re:Different types of Damages

[bitt3n]

I doubt the police department gets significant financial gain out of minor pot busts. Therefore, financial gain is not a motivator for minor pot busts.

Re:Different types of Damages

[trentblase]

The purpose of the punitive damages is to punish the defendant. Why should the plaintiff get them?

Sometimes (ok, rarely) the government does get a cut. But it makes sense to give it to the plaintiff in order to create an incentive to proceed with expensive litigation even when the actual damages are relatively low (which makes it damn hard to get representation). This may be viewed as an unfortunate response to the inefficiency of our regulatory agencies -- in other words, the plaintiff is doing the government's job by pursuing punitive damages against socially irresponsible behavior and is therefore rewarded for the work.

Maybe if he weren't to get them, we wouldn't have ridiculous trillion dollar (or even hundred million dollar) lawsuits.

That's exactly the point. If the plaintiff didn't get the punitive damages, there would be no incentive to pursue the "trillion dollar" lawsuits, so there would be none. But that would mean that the defendant would be getting away with whatever socially unacceptable behavior would have motivated the punitive damages to begin with. The only answer here is to get the government more involved and fine them, go after them criminally, etc. This may end up being more expensive/less effective. At least that's the motivation behind the current practice.

Re:Different types of Damages

[bitt3n]

but can't the plaintiff sue for court costs? Ultimately I think we'd be better off if the argument was over the exact cost of the court costs plus compensation for the inconvenience of taking the case to court (which would be sizeable but not trillions). Those are the real losses for the plaintiff. It seems like punitive damages should be part of the criminal trial, not the civil trial, and treated as a form of community service, rather than as an outlandish windfall for the civil complainant. As for pursuing the cases, federal prosecutors like Spitzer was appear to be reasonably motivated even when not pursuing huge settlements. If the government gets the punitive damages, that could fund extra prosecutors. (But such a system would need safeguards against the kind of quid pro quo that results in speeding-ticket trolls, in the same way that, for example, the IRS is indirectly funded by its own earnings but (one would hope) not therefore motivated to increase revenues for that particular reason.) My basic objection is that if justice is the practice of giving both the victim and the transgressor their just desserts, the current punitive damage system artificially links the desserts of the victim to the desserts of the transgressor, with horrendous results.

Re:Different types of Damages

[Anonymous McCartneyf]

For some reason, I now have a mental image of an FBI vehicle parked by the side of an interstate with radar gun and breathalyser on hand.

Re:Different types of Damages

[Anonymous McCartneyf]

No, that's the DEA's job.
Seriously, when the authorities do pot busts, they confisticate the property the pot was found in, right away. It's never given back, not even if the person busted gets cleared. Drug enforcement can get quite a few cars that way.

Re:Different types of Damages

[foniksonik]

That's funny I always thought they reminded me of Counterstrike.... hmm maybe they should make a game called CopperStrike where all the police go on strike and just start shooting people with sniper rifles instead of radar guns... senseless violence, I suspect it would sell well in the 13 - 21 crowd

Re:Different types of Damages

[bill_mcgonigle]

I've often wondered why punitive damages are given to the plaintiff,

Because their lawyers get a third and lawyers write the laws.

Pain And Suffering

[SenorPez]

Even at the $0.70 per song mark, you have to consider damages for the pain and suffering of those poor, poor record executives. I mean, honestly: Think about the hours and hours that they spent in their mansions, lying awake on their double-king canopy beds, surrounded by sleeping hookers... and unable to sleep because of the massive injustice being done to their industry.

Or something like that.

In all honesty, it's a hard thing to nail down. If I work in a donut factory, there is SOMEONE, even if that person isn't me, who knows how much that donut costs to make, including materials, equipment, labor, shipping, and pesticides. When it comes to things like music, art, etc., how DO you quantify the cost of the artists' talents, the labels' marketing efforts, the RIAA's... something... etc. Even the most talented singer in the world is useless without distribution... and marketing and distribution channels can sometimes (Britney?) overcome a shallow pool of talent.

That being said, anything that comes out of the multi-mawed beast known as the RIAA is met with instant skepticism. When you spend years upon years intimidating people who may or may not have committed a crime, and many of those that are nominally guilty are in the "OMG, You ate a peanut out of the grocery store bin!" variety, it's hard to find any foothold of remorse in the market. So $0.70 wholesale price might be in the "ballpark." But I don't give a damn.

Re:Pain And Suffering

[HappySqurriel]

The basic structure of the modern music industry was that Music Labels would promote and distribute and Artist's work in exchange for the lion's share of the physical Album's revinue while the artist would still collect the revinue from merchandise, touring and radio play; this (at the time) was a remarkably fair dead because it was expensive to promote and distribute an Artist's work in the pre-internet era.

The internet has changed everything ...

The cost to distribute music is no longer significant and a (hard-working) individual can promote themself to a reasonably successful level with very little work; you probably won't sell out stadiums, but you can make a decent living for the rest of your life as an Artist which (from all the Artists I have met) is the dream. Now, Labels exploit artists they do not help them.

The "Cost" of an Artist's work is a lifetime of developing a skillset that very few people have; it is priceless. The price of an Artist's work per song with how little it costs to distribute the song should be (roughly) the ammount of money the artist is getting.

Re:Pain And Suffering

[EtherealStrife]

Detective: Look, there's Lars now, sitting by his pool.
Kyle: What's the matter with him?
Detective: This month he was hoping to have a gold plated shark tank bar installed right next to the pool, but thanks to people downloading his music for free he must now wait a few months before he can afford it.
*Lars crying next to his pool*
Detective: Come, there's more. Here's Britney Spears' private jet...notice anything? Britney used to have a Gulfstream 4, now she's had to sell it and get a Gulfstream 3 because people like you chose to download her music for free.
*Britney sighs, depressed*
Detective: The Gulfstream 3 doesn't even have a remote control for its surround sound dvd system. Still think downloading music for free is no big deal?
Kyle: We...didn't realize what we were doing...
Detective: That is the folly of man. Now look in this window. Here you see the loving family of Master P. Next week is his son's birthday and all he's ever wanted is an island in French Polynesia.
Kyle: So he's going to get it, right?
Detective: *closes eyes and puts hands on forehead* I see an island without an owner. If thing's keep going the way they are, the child will not get his tropical paradise.
Stan: We're sorry, we'll never download music for free again!
Detective: Man must learn to think of these horrible outcomes before he acts selfishly, or else...I fear...recording artists will be forever doomed to a life of only semi-luxury.

Re:Pain And Suffering

[Dark_Gravity]

poor record executives...in their mansions, lying awake...surrounded by sleeping hookers

unable to sleep because of the massive injustice being done to their industry.

And here I thought it was all that coke and crystal meth that kept those poor, poor record executives up at night!

Re:Pain And Suffering

[meta-monkey]

Now, Labels exploit artists they do not help them.

This depends on the artist. There are an awful lot of pop-idiots, like Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake, who, without the mass-market power of their record labels and publicists would be improverished and completely unknown, and deservedly so. I hardly think these characters are furious with their labels for turning their pretty faces and marginal talents into millions upon millions of dollars. It's the poor schmucks with talent but no marketing savvy, struggling to get by, who sign themselves over to 5 record deals so they can get some radio play that get exploited by their labels.

Re:Pain And Suffering

[BillX]

In all honesty, it's a hard thing to nail down. If I work in a donut factory, there is SOMEONE, even if that person isn't me, who knows how much that donut costs to make, including materials, equipment, labor, shipping, and pesticides. When it comes to things like music, art, etc., how DO you quantify the cost of the artists' talents, the labels' marketing efforts, the RIAA's... something... etc.

Well, that makes it easy - it's in the artist's contract. The cost of the artist's talents is what the artist agreed to sell them for. No different from making a hamburger; the only important numbers are the buying price (agreed compensation minus cumulative expenses) and the selling price, even if some animal-rights whacko argues that the cow was worth far more than $3/lb, if only someone had trained it as a movie extra instead of taking it to the meat factory...

Re:Pain And Suffering

[noidentity]

Totally off-topic, but I am very curious as to why certain words in your post are capitalized. I've been seeing this more and more in the past few years and am not making sense of it.

Re:Pain And Suffering

[ortholattice]

Most likely the GP was using pseudo legalese, trying to show off his/her ability to sound like a legal document where things like "the party of the first part, Sony Music Exploitation Group Limited Japan, hereinafter referred to as Label,..." are used. Presumably the GP felt this would lend a more authoritative tone to his/her post, when actually it just made him/her look like an idiot.

Re:Pain And Suffering

[multipartmixed]

Yeah.

I've seen her goodies.

Britney couldn't even make it as a *porn star* without her label.

Hell, she wouldn't make much as a hooker, either!

Re:Pain And Suffering

[HappySqurriel]

Actually, it is just a bad habit I have of capatalizing nouns when they represent companies, people or products. I picked up this habit several years ago when I was working for a company and was writing requirements documents and it was the company's policy that 'Client', 'Company', 'User', 'System' (including portions of the system like 'Database') and 'Deliverable' (along with several other terms, typically any noun that acts as an entity/actor within the system we were going to deliver) were supposed to be capatalized and bolded.

Much like colloquialisms, it is very difficult to stop using writing habits that you have developed over years.

Re:Pain And Suffering

[TheRaven64]

You might be seeing a lot of posts by people for whom German is their first language. In German (and, I believe, a few other Germanic languages), all nouns are capitalised. This used to be the case in English, but eventually was reduced to just proper nouns. As a native English speaker, I found it quite easy to forget to capitalise the odd noun when writing German, and I imagine that for people in the converse position it is easy to forget not to capitalise some of them.

Re:Pain And Suffering

[mdielmann]

marketing and distribution channels can sometimes (Britney?) overcome a shallow pool of talent

Come now. We all know that Britney can't be contained in a shallow pool. It's physically impossible! But maybe a shallow grave would do the trick.

Re:Pain And Suffering

[bill_mcgonigle]

My god is an indian who turns into a wolf and he will come for you with his razor.

Just curious - an Indian Indian or an 'American Indian'? I just want to get the mental image straight.

Re:Pain And Suffering

[bill_mcgonigle]

it was expensive to promote and distribute an Artist's work in the pre-internet era.

It's been said by smarter folks than me that the era of vinyl/CD's created a resource that didn't exist before and the market for that resource was controlled by the scarcity limited by the number of albums pressed.

Digital changes everything. Now the companies want to impose an artificial scarcity where none exists.

And I'm not talking about the scarcity of talent with the big labels.

Re:Pain And Suffering

[meta-monkey]

The scalpin' kinda injun.

Re:Pain And Suffering

[badenglishihave]

Humorous because it's true. But I would be careful attacking these people for how much money they make. Regardless of how much money these "artists" make on their labels and how many mansions executive types own, the RIAA has no business claiming enormous grievances for their songs. It's important to remember that what what's the issue here isn't the amount of money, it's the principle of the thing. These guys think they can do whatever they want just because they have their fingers in so many pies.

Meaning that....

[LordFocus]

Artists will now get 0.7 cents per song instead of 0.99 cents per song. Huzzah!

Re:Meaning that....

[Anonymous Coward]

^ works for Verizon...

Re:Meaning that....

[LordFocus]

They wish :P

Confidential?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most details--such as the identities of the parties--would be kept confidential, but pricing information and volume would not.

Pricing or volume information in some cases might be enough to figure out identities when dealing with the 12 largest customers of RIAA affilated labels.

There's that free market stuff again.

[Anonymous Coward]

An unregulated market quickly becomes a cartel. Only regulated markets remain free.

Re:There's that free market stuff again.

[Technician]

An unregulated market quickly becomes a cartel. Only regulated markets remain free.

You have that backwards. The music distribution business is highly regulated by copyright law. That has allowed the RIAA cartel to exist. Without the regulation, Napster would have finished the cartel long ago.

Re:There's that free market stuff again.

[susano_otter]

There's a difference between "regulation" and "over-regulation".

And without regulation, Napster would've replaced one cartel with another long ago. It's not like Napster was the magic bullet that solves human nature.

Re:There's that free market stuff again.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you're smart. I don't say that because I agree with you but because what you said sounds like a well expressed thought. But I still agree with you.

peace,

Re:There's that free market stuff again.

[meta-monkey]

That makes no sense. How does an unregulated market become a cartel? I would say the RIAA, in it's highly-regulated marketplace, is cartel-like.

I make my living as a photographer. Photography, like many artforms, is a completely unregulated market. There are absolutely no government controls over this industry, besides general trade (contract) law and criminal law. No license, besides a local business license, is required to open a photography business. There are no controls over education, equipment or qualifications. Essentially, if you have a point and shoot camera and a phone number, you can be a professional photographer. I don't really know any other service industries like that. You have to have a license to cut hair, and a medallion to drive a cab.

I'm not aware of any photography cartel. There are thousands upon thousands of small, independent operators, at all price and skill levels operating in every state, competing for business from consumers and businesses alike. Without regulation in this industry, it's far more like the wild west than a tightly-run cartel.

Re:There's that free market stuff again.

[Technician]

And without regulation, Napster would've replaced one cartel with another long ago.

Along with Beareshare, Limewire, Kazza, AllofMP3, Yahoo, Google... It would no longer be a monopoly run by a cartel.

Re:There's that free market stuff again.

[qzulla]

As it should be.

qz

Re:There's that free market stuff again.

[meta-monkey]

That's what people say, but I don't think they really believe it. Do you really want anybody with a scalpel to be able to call themselves a doctor? Do you want anybody with a sliderule to be able to hang out a shingle as an engineer?

The "free market" is great for everybody else's job, just not yours.

Re:There's that free market stuff again.

[Anonymous Coward]

Only regulated markets remain free.

Additionally, War is Peace, Ignorance is Strength, and Freedom is Slavery...

Re:There's that free market stuff again.

[susano_otter]

It would've been a happy-go-lucky wild west free-for-all for a couple years, until somebody got the uppper hand and exploited the lack of regulation to form a cartel and destroy or absorb their competition.

Anyway, I think reasonable people can agree that some amount of regulation is part of a healthy economy, and that both over- and under-regulation bring additional problems that are best avoided if at all possible.

Correct me if I'm wrong

[webrunner]

Gabriel believes that making the pricing information public would 'implicate [sic] very real antitrust concerns'

But doesn't this basically mean "if we told everyone the price then people would know it was illegal!"

Actual, Statutory, and Punitive Damages

[DragonWriter]

<blockquote>There is a difference between actual damages and statutory damages. Actual damages are an attempt to compensate the victim. Statutory damages are an attempt to include punitive damage in statute law.
Whether or not this is wise law-making is debatable. I suspect that it would be better to force the victim to sue directly for punitive damages, thus leaving the matter to a judge to determine of the punishment fits the offense.
</blockquote>

This is not quite correct.

Actual damages are damages proven in court, and are intended to compensate the victim.
Punitive (also "Exemplary") damages are damages intended to "punish" or "make an example" of the victim (largely as a general and specific deterrent), beyond what compensates the victim.
Statutory damages are amounts set in statute law in the absence of proven amounts of actual damages (or when the proven amounts are lower); in some cases they are largely compensatory in purpose, and included on the presumption that the kind of harms the statute seeks to provide a remedy for are prohibitively difficult to prove and quantify, and that substituting a default damage amount is a way to provide a reasonable remedy. In other instances, their intent is somewhat punitive in nature, though they are particularly ineffective in that regard as they tend to be superceded by actual damages rather than on top of actual damages.

<blockquote>Whether or not this is wise law-making is debatable. I suspect that it would be better to force the victim to sue directly for punitive damages, thus leaving the matter to a judge to determine of the punishment fits the offense.
</blockquote>

Since the courts have held that punitive damages may only be awarded in a limited proportion to the actual damages proven, this would eliminate the principle role of statutory damages, which is to obviate the need to prove specific actual damages to receive some remedy for certain offenses.

Certainly, there is an argument that substantive due process analysis of the type that constrains <i>punitive</i> damage awards ought also be applied to statutory damage awards beyond what can be reasonably seen as compensatory, and/or that statutory damage amounts in law serving as a rebuttable presumption of actual damages rather than providing an amount that is available in all cases regardless of circumstances.

Re:Actual, Statutory, and Punitive Damages

[Wooster_UK]

And you don't get exemplary damages everywhere. Here in the UK, for instance, we have set down in precedent three situations where they can be applied, and they're really very restrictive. You rarely hear of such damages over here; they really need to be applied only as punishment—and of course, in such cases, there really should be criminal, not civil, proceedings.

Re: Only Lawyers may even think about law!!!

[VidEdit]

Of course, only Lawyers may even think about law. Or at least that seems the logical extension of what you are suggesting by telling Slashdot that it should withhold any judgement on the RIAA until there is a firmly grounded case law on the matter. Well, that isn't going to happen anytime soon, or perhaps ever. Copyright law is nebulous and has been for a long time.

Of course Slashdot is not a lawyer, but it is silly to propose that only lawyers and judges can have a valid interest in, and discussion of, legal matters that affect all citizens. In fact many laws are actually written by people who aren't necessarily lawyers. These people who dare insert themselves in the legal arena without the requirement of having a law degree are called "legislators."

While it is true that the UMG_v_Lindor case gets a lot of mentions in Slashdot, it is also the case that it is one of the **only** cases out of the 20,000 or so RIAA lawsuits that is going to trial and where a tough litigator is trying to force the RIAA to back up its claims with more than just the thread of ruinously expensive legal action. It also doesn't hurt that the "Recording Industry vs. the People" blog site provides a rare blow by blow account of a legal action in progress which makes for an exciting, albeit slow, tale of one litigator standing up to a veritable army of corporate lawyers with nearly unlimited funds. The blog is an important way of trying to balance the playing field against an opponent with deep pockets and who will play every trick in or out of the book, full well knowing that they will probably avoid any accountability for their own actions.

Only Lawyers may even think about law!!! (WOOT)

[GodInHell]

Of course, only Lawyers may even think about law. Personally, as a lawyer-in-training, I fully endorse, support, and approve of this idea!! Can we legislate that? :) WOO HOO I'ma be rich mama! I'ma be rich!!

More seriously:

Of course Slashdot is not a lawyer, but it is silly to propose that only lawyers and judges can have a valid interest in, and discussion of, legal matters that affect all citizens. In fact many laws are actually written by people who aren't necessarily lawyers. These people who dare insert themselves in the legal arena without the requirement of having a law degree are called "legislators." It's also called "public debate," you know that funny thing that the 4th branch of gov't (aka the press) is supposed to engender. But in the modern clutter of divissive politics and the "nobody knows what to do but experts so STFU NEWB" culture that is evolving, we're running for trouble.

A great example of a wonderful U.S. legislator was Benjamin Franklin - He was also the U.S.'s key scientist and one of her great publishers of news and raw data. Technologist should adopt Franklin as their Patron of Thought - because the man delivered for engineering, science, philosophy, theology, and political science. The same brain that can brilliantly explain and master the formation of distributive processing and Wide Area Networks could do a great deal of good for this nation by injecting simple practical knowledge of what the internet, and the future hold in store for law and the U.S.

-GiH

Re:Only Lawyers may even think about law!!! (WOOT)

[kfg]

. . .as a lawyer-in-training. . .

You are not a writer, so STFU.

KFG

Re:Only Lawyers may even think about law!!! (WOOT)

[GodInHell]

You are not a writer, so STFU. Actually, several of my D&D mods have gotten printed here and there, along with some blurb text and rules captions for a few games.. ergo, I am a writer :).

-GiH

Re:Only Lawyers may even think about law!!! (WOOT)

[kfg]

Is this story about D&D? I don't think so.

And who gave you permission to write D&D mods anyway? Are you licensed for that? Do you have a degree, or at least a certificate? At the very least did you write them for a duly licensed and regulated corporation as a work for hire? And did they duly license the right to say "D&D(tm)" from Wizards of the Coast(tm)? Do you have such a license to write it here?

If we let just anyone go around writing D&D mods and writing "D&D" without any regulation or oversight do you know what will happen? Well, I'll tell you what will happen:

Culture! That's what will happen. How can you run an orderly society that has culture?

The factories will come grinding to a halt.

Oh, ummmmmmmmmmm, nevermind. But that would imply an excess of culture, so where is it?

Oh, I see, maybe we have it, it just sucks. I suppose I could talk about that, but I don't have a degree in anthropology, so I have to STFU about it, or so I've been told.

KFG

Re:Only Lawyers may even think about law!!! (WOOT)

[Anonymous Coward]

So, let me guess, KFG = Kentucky Fried Gonads? Seems appropriate; you sound like you've had them in deep fried oil...

Re:Only Lawyers may even think about law!!! (WOOT)

[ZachPruckowski]

Actually, the DnD people have a sort of open source license that applies to what they call the "Standard Resource Document" (the 3 core rulebooks), allowing people to make their own custom rules for the game. I have a few of them. Works pretty well.

Re:Only Lawyers may even think about law!!! (WOOT)

[chefren]

WoTC's Open Gaming License applicable to D&D 3rd edition and later is available here: http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/ogl.html

Re:Only Lawyers may even think about law!!! (WOOT)

[kfg]

WoTC's Open Gaming License applicable to D&D 3rd edition and later. . .

My D&D rule books have staples in 'em. I'm fucked.

KFG

Ehm, I think you're wrong.

[GodInHell]

Gabriel believes that making the pricing information public would 'implicate [sic] very real antitrust concerns' But doesn't this basically mean "if we told everyone the price then people would know it was illegal!" Haven't read the full text through yet (working on it) but.. I think the answer is.. no.

Basically their argument goes "we're not suppose to know what each other's prices are.. so we can't tell you either cuz then we'd all know."

I also could be wrong, flame away.

-GiH

Re:Ehm, I think you're wrong.

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Just because their argument is irrational, don't assume you're missing something.

In fact you are right.

And they are the ones missing something.

Artists pay for everything

[Namarrgon]

Quite true, and many more costs besides. The artists have to bear the entire cost of creating and selling the album, before they get any royalties.

Fair enough, you say? Perhaps - except they don't get to keep it. That album, that they conceived, wrote, performed, recorded, marketed and paid for in full, is no longer theirs. Copyright for the album is owned by the LABEL, and NOT the artist. That really sucks.

Time to link to Steve Vai's words of experience too, on this and the many other nefarious clauses that appear in a standard label contract.

Re:Artists pay for everything

[KoshClassic]

Not only that, but the record companies often cook the books - which means that the artists have to hire outside auditors at their own expense to try and recoupe royalties from the sales that the record company claims never happened, but also from inflated promotional expenses that come out of the artists cut. Then they usually settle with the record companies for pennies on the dollar. That's the record companies for you - they are supposedly looking out for the artists interest whle at the same time engaging in this sort of practice.

The top 5 record companies are all far larger than any of their other competitors. That these companies cooperate in any way - like by forming the RIAA - ought to be a huge anti-trust violation.

Re:Artists pay for everything

[ACMENEWSLLC]

So why don't the artist cut out the middle men, and create contracts directly with iTunes et al when their existing contracts expire?

Offer iTunes $.70 of every $.99 and they'd still be making more.

Ah, I understand why. The record companies are the ones with the huge bank accounts that can afford to sell an artist that can't sing worth a crap yet sell millions of records. The artist themselves could never pull that off.

The record companies do bring a lot to the table. They provide value. Otherwise, try and do it yourself and see how far you get ( http://www.avenued.com/ )

Re:Artists pay for everything

[Namarrgon]

Yes, it's called "Payola".

"70 Cent Price is 'In the Range'"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, well, so is a five dollar blow job...at least that's what the girls tell me. So why are some guys will ing to pay $500?

Packaging, baby.

All of MP3 profit margins

[goombah99]

All of MP3 charges about a dime a song. That's paying there server costs and making them a profit. Let's add on 20 cents for an artist profit.

That means a profitable bussiness that had no promotional and production costs for the artist could operate at 30 cents a song. Presumably with higher volume then that could be even lower and still make a profit.

Thus there's a 40 cent gap here. Surely the cost of promotion and production when ammortized over all artisits (proficable ones and not profitable ones) could not be that large could it? I reallt don't know but this seems strange to me cause I really don't see the effects of such promotion. If it's there then it must be more bhind the scenes payola for product placement or something.

of course the artists share is grossly inflated. I doubt artists actually recieve 20 cents at all until pay-back for production to the studio has occurred. Maybe brittany gets 20 cents.

So my guess is that something like 20 to 30 cents is really the ammortized cost per song including the cost of electronic distribution and that atill would make a profit.

AllofMp3

[falconwolf]

and registered a U.S. domain root. (.com)

.com is not a US domain root, it is an international root mainly used for commerce. The US domain root is .us That's not to say the root servers aren't in the US, only that .com is international and not country specific.

Falcon

Re:AllofMp3

[GodInHell]

.com is not a US domain root, it is an international root mainly used for commerce. The US domain root is .us That's not to say the root servers aren't in the US, only that .com is international and not country specific. Point.

-GiH

Re:AllofMp3

[Anonymous McCartneyf]

True. Not much help though. How many American commercial entities actually use the .us root? I'd guess only a few more than there are UK sites with the .gb suffix.
Most Russian sites I've seen use the .ru suffix...

Re:AllofMp3

[Wooster_UK]

That'd be because the UK's suffix is (drumroll please) .uk! Stone the crows, it's a cor-blimey miracle guv. You never see .gb because that would be "Great Britain" which is a geographic, not political, designation.

Re:AllofMp3

[multipartmixed]

Hmm..

I seem to recall seeing both .su and .ru domains on the 'net at the same time... :)

Re:AllofMp3

[GodInHell]

That'd be because the UK's suffix is (drumroll please) .uk! Stone the crows, it's a cor-blimey miracle guv. You never see .gb because that would be "Great Britain" which is a geographic, not political, designation. It's a quibbling point, but .gb actually was one of the original country codes for the UK. Wiki:

.gb is a reserved Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the United Kingdom. Introduced at the same time as the UK's other top-level domain (.uk), it was never widely used, and as it is no longer possible to register under this domain, has since fallen into disuse. -GiH

Re:AllofMp3

[Anonymous McCartneyf]

You're right. According to Wikipedia, there are still .su domains out there. In fact, the org. in charge of that country code thinks it can let new sites use that domain! (In Soviet Russia...)
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/.su

Why the [sic]?

[h4x0r-3l337]

Gabriel believes that making the pricing information public would 'implicate [sic] very real antitrust concerns' as the labels are not supposed to share contract information with one another

Why is there a "[sic]" in there? That is in fact how you spell the word, and it is used correctly in that context (having the meaning "imply" or "entail").

Re:Why the [sic]?

[seanadams.com]

Why is there a "[sic]" in there? That is in fact how you spell the word, and it is used correctly in that context (having the meaning "imply" or "entail").

Imply, implicate, and entail are NOT synonyms.

Implicate can mean "to require as a necessary circumstance", i.e, a prerequisite (not a result). Here, the antitrust concerns would arise *as a result of* disclosure of the pricing information. Even "imply" would not be correct here, but "entail" would be OK.

Re:Why the [sic]?

[Savior_on_a_Stick]

The word is not used correctly.

You 'imply' an event, the existence of something etc.

You implicate an entity.

"John Doe was implicated in the theft" is correct.

"The crack found in John Doe's pocket implicates him as a drug user" is correct.

"Gabriel believes that making the pricing information public would implicate the labels as engaged in antitrust activities..." would be correct.

The text as quoted is not correct.

Re:Why the [sic]?

[h4x0r-3l337]

Imply, implicate, and entail are NOT synonyms.

The American Heritage Dictionary says:
1. To involve or connect intimately or incriminatingly: evidence that implicates others in the plot. 2. To have as a consequence or necessary circumstance; imply or entail: His evasiveness implicated complicity. 3. Linguistics To convey, imply, or suggest by implicature. 4. Archaic To interweave or entangle; entwine.

Re:Why the [sic]?

[h4x0r-3l337]

You implicate an entity.

The American Heritage Dictionary says:
1. To involve or connect intimately or incriminatingly: evidence that implicates others in the plot. 2. To have as a consequence or necessary circumstance; imply or entail: His evasiveness implicated complicity. 3. Linguistics To convey, imply, or suggest by implicature. 4. Archaic To interweave or entangle; entwine.

"complicity" is not an entity.

RIAA to MAFIAA

[snowleopard10101]

RIAA's name should be changed to MAFIAA. MAFIAA: Music and Film Industry Association of America

Re:RIAA to MAFIAA

[Anonymous McCartneyf]

Not until the RIAA's merger with the MPAA is complete. Since the RIAA is "elite" and the MPAA accepts all American film companies as members, that could take a while.

Better option

[CaffCoder]

Sigh yet another example of big businesses keeping their treasured consumer's best interests in mind. Next thing you'll find out that Clear Channel plays what the RIAA wants not what the consumer wants... Better music marketing strategies exist and are poised to fill in the gap. http://www.bitmunk.com/ just launched their beta 2 and have almost all of CD Baby's content for sale in a place where demand and the artist dictates the prices of music not the RIAA.

awesome

[Kankraka]

Awesome.. I'll only be sued for around 17.5k well, if i get caught, also if they suddenly can sue canuckers.

I wonder...

[OriginalSpaceMan]

What does 50 cent think of this knowledge? Maybe he'll sue for the back-owed 20 cent difference? ... sorry, I had to.

why pay?

[Treates2]

when you can get it for free.

Re:it's just funny

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry dude, nothing became of it, but I agree, for whatever that is worth...

Only a portion

[MushMouth]

There are two royalties in the $.25 figure, one is the royalty on the recording which is paid to the musicians who played on the track, it needs to recoup. The other is the mechanical which is paid to the songwriter (often times the same as the musicians) which has a regulatory rate of $0.12 a track and is paid for every track sold even before it recoups.

Downloading is a minority action

[Anonymous Coward]

And so nerds, being more technically inclined are more likely to be part of the downloading music group.

Eskimos may be a small minority but when we're talking about artic weather changes, their point of view is quite important...

Re:it's just funny

[gsslay]

Don't you know that the god of slashdot is open source. And because that works for the software industry (which is something slashdotters know about) it therefore must work for the music industry (something slashdotters know nothing about, but won't let that stop them...). Anyone who suggests differently doesn't conform with the slashdot group-think and will be modded appropriately. Don't dare suggest that software and music are very different products and cannot be produced using the same business models.

What's interesting is that, as a product of the great, evil, closed-source empire Microsoft, no-one here would ever admit to pirating Windows. Far more likely to use Linux instead. But they are happy to boast about pirating the products of the great, evil, closed-source empire RIAA. Why aren't they shunning its output the same way? Why aren't they listening to "open source" music? Could it be because the two things simply aren't comparable???

Re:it's just funny

[Travelsonic]

After all these years, Slashdot is STILL worked up about the RIAA... Aren't there bigger fish to fry, or are you just that stuborn about getting your music free? And by "you", i mean all the people that try to minimize the impact their "illegal" downloading has on artists)

Clearly you yourself complain about being stuck in one spot yet your focus is on an outdated reason that takes dominance less and less as the debates and actions spread further. Nobody is arguing the things you are arguing, in fact you look as if you are trying to stir up a fierce argument by putting words and asrguments in people's mouth and adding personal attack.

It doesn't work, take your own advice and get over ti before the inevitable flamewar does it for you.

Re:AllofMP3's "choices" for bitrates

[rockout]

This is only partially true. While you CAN get whatever format you want on allofmp3, and that's a good thing, the bitrate you choose might end up being a rip-off. Many of the higher-bitrate downloads from allofmp3 end up being transcodes from lower-bitrate versions.

Evidence of the transcoding is readily apparent by importing any such mp3 (or any format) into a program that will show you the audio spectrum of the file.

This is not always the case, but true often enough that it makes paying for higher bitrates at best a gamble, and at worst, a waste of time and $$$ on allofmp3. Just thought you should be aware.

all the contracts should be public

[r00t]

These are publicly traded corporations. Their contracts should damn well be public.

For everyone else, a non-public contract should be viewed by the courts as highly suspect. The existance of secret contracts exposes people to fraudulent modification of the contracts. If it's not public, it should be damn difficult to enforce.

70 cent is in the reach

[Przemo-c]

So this means that 50cent is definatly out of reach.

I don't care.

[Xanlexian]

The RIAA has burned all bridges of me ever giving them hope or my $$$ EVER again. I will download everything from now on. I don't give a flying damn what the RIAA has to say anymore. It's all extortion and bullshit. Period.

You are seriously overestimating the common man

[spun]

Oh, Jeebus, this is your idea of how to talk to the common man? Let's dissect this from his point of view:

You: Future portable players
CM: (thinks, like an iPod? is that what he means? I guess so...)
You: Will support formats
CM: (thinks, formats? What's a format? Is that like formatting a disk? Suuport? So I have to call tech support to format the disk, okay, that makes sense. Everytime I call tech support, that's what they tell me. Where's this all going, anyway?)
You: which allows you to fit 2 or 3 times as much music on them
CM: (thinks, So, 2-3 times as much as an iPod, huh? Sounds good, wait, which iPod? 'cause some of them don't hold that much...)
You: without noticable loss in quality.
CM: (thinks, Phew! That's good, 'cause I listen to some pretty lame music anyway. I'd hate to have all my Britney Spears turn into Celine Dion!)
You: Do you want to buy a future-proof lossless format
CM: [eyes glaze over]
You: which can take advantage of such an advancement in future but will take a bit more space on your PC
CM: [small amount of drool escapes from side of mouth]
You: or a lossy format which might result in noticable quality loss if you ever want to use a different format?
CM: (thinks, da bears, da bears, da bears, da bears) Oh, uhm, sorry, what was the middle one again?

so...

[Anonymous Coward]

do they mean .70 dollars or .70 cents?

eMusicJ

[DrDribble]

eMusic also provides clean VBR mp3's and sell to the whole world. Only a very few tracks are limited to northern America, and there is no DRM. Also, I like the fact that I can download the songs I bought as many times as I like, so I don't need to back them up. Also, they treat me like a wanted customer, not some criminal.

I'm using the eMusicJ java client, which is very fast and stable. It runs excellent on my Ubuntu box. It's a lot faster too, as it downloads multiple songs simultaneously. Dr