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Teen Accuses Record Companies of Collusion
evilned1 writes "A 16-year-old boy being sued by five record companies accusing him of online music piracy, accused the recording industry on Tuesday of violating antitrust laws, conspiring to defraud the courts and making extortionate threats."
I've just been playing a fiddle tune. Although it is more than 200 years old I had no problem finding either sheet music or recordings of it, because anyone is free to publish and/or record without a license.
Cream rises to the top without a demon to drive it there.
Oh, the name of the tune? "The Rights of Man." I commemorates a little book of the same name. You might want to read it.
KFG
"The papers allege that the companies, "ostensibly competitors in the recording industry, are a cartel acting collusively in violation of the antitrust laws and public policy" by bringing the piracy cases jointly and using the same agency "to make extortionate threats ... to force defendants to pay."
0 -cd-settlement_x.htm
The labels were actually found guilty of this once before:
States settle CD price-fixing case
By David Lieberman, USA TODAY
NEW YORK -- The five largest music companies and three of the USA's largest music retailers agreed Monday to pay $67.4 million and distribute $75.7 million in CDs to public and non-profit groups to settle a lawsuit led by New York and Florida over alleged price-fixing in the late 1990s...
Former FTC chairman Robert Pitofsky said at the time that consumers had been overcharged by $480 million since 1997 and that CD prices would soon drop by as much as $5 a CD as a result.
In settling the lawsuit, Universal BMG and Warner said they simply wanted to avoid court costs and defended the practice.
"We believe our policies were pro-competitive and geared toward keeping more retailers, large and small, in business," Universal said in a statement."
http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2002-09-3
Maybe some of those jobs being lost should never have been there to start with
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unclean_hands
"Unclean hands, sometimes clean hands doctrine, is an equitable defense in which the defendant argues that the plaintiff is not entitled to obtain an equitable remedy on account of the fact that the plaintiff is acting unethically or has acted in bad faith with respect to the subject of the complaint--that is with 'unclean hands'. The defendant has the burden of proof to show the plaintiff is not acting in good faith. The doctrine is often stated as "those seeking equity must do equity"."
Obviously the kid didn't think this up himself.
Fresh from Pacer
14 - Defendant's Answer [PDF]14 Exhibit A [PDF]
14 Exhibit B [PDF]