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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.'"
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.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
They make 30 cents a song? Ill do it for 5 cents a song. Where do I sign up?
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.
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
^ works for Verizon...
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.
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!
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
RIAA's name should be changed to MAFIAA. MAFIAA: Music and Film Industry Association of America
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
You misunderstand. The article said, ".25 per song" -- not per dollar, not per copy.
Just 25 cents total, once and for all.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
What does 50 cent think of this knowledge? Maybe he'll sue for the back-owed 20 cent difference? ... sorry, I had to.
You talk better than you fool!
One CD for the rootkit...