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RIAA Not Sharing Settlement Money With Artists
Klatoo55 writes "Various artists are considering lawsuits in order to press for their share of the estimated hundreds of millions of dollars the RIAA has obtained from settlements with services such as Bolt, KaZaA, and Napster. According to TorrentFreak's report on the potential action, there may not even be much left to pay out after monstrous legal fees are taken care of. The comments from the labels all claim that the money is on its way, and is simply taking longer due to difficulties dividing it all up."
With these crooks.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
The RIAA does not exist to serve the artists. It's mission now is to suck all the money it can out of a dying business model.
Don't mind the extra X. Alex
They have all the data on how many times each song was infringed, so I'm sure this ought to be easy.
I dont quite understand the strategy of the RIAA, is this even a profitable strategy. You first need to collect evidence, then you need to file the lawsuit, and finally the defendant has to pay, that is if he or she is found in guilt. So now you to pay for the collection of evidence, then the lawyers, and then you have to hope the defendant has money to pay you to recoup the loss.
So I guess they have internal lawyers but as the cases grow in numbers you need to hire out law firms which is not cheap. I don't know who they pay to collect the evidence, or to tell if someone is infringing but they have to monitor the P2P networks and I guess the torrents.
So by the end of the case lets say the defendant is given a infringement cost of $10,000 or something. They still have to pay it up.
What person in their right mind thought this was a good plan. Theres so many parties to deal with, so much time that needs to paid for. In the end all I see happening is a loss plus tarnishing the name of the RIAA. Hell, if the defendant wins then the RIAA might have to pay them. This seems like a strategy proposed from old-school business into a new-business world.
A few things:
1. I remember reading somewhere that the money all went back into more lawsuits, so I don't think that is boding well for money going to anyone who thinks they actually "earned" it
2. Do the artists get the "real" damages (i.e., paid for the one or two songs mediasentry supposedly caught them downloading), or the higher damages? As I don't think the artist owns the copyright in this case, how much are they really entitled to?
3. For the settlement letters, is there again a set amount per song that they listed as being due the artist? Or is it again only the royalties they would get from selling one song on a cd or itunes for example? If so, please expect about $.05 per settlement - not what they want (or think they deserve, but as a recent article on slashdot pointed out, the RIAA wants to reduced royalties while they are at it).
If I was the artist, I wouldn't go buying a car with the expectation that the check was in the mail... not even a matchbox car.
I believe it works this way. The record companies pay artists royalties and they pay the RIAA as well. I don't think the artists pay the RIAA. It seems to me that IF the RIAA is going to pay anyone it is going to be the record companies. If that happens will the record companies kick any money back to the artists? I doubt it.
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
I find this all incredibly amusing. Here you have these pricks like Gene Simmons and Metallica out there fighting the good fight for the record companies, and now, suddenly, they all wake up and realize "Waitta minute! Those fuckers in the boardrooms are still crooks!"
Here's a bit of a friendly nod to all those artists who were retarded enough to believe the record industry was somehow looking out for them:
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
And that's why other countries don't have punitive damages. Somehow civil matters got all mixed up in the USA. I guess greed does that.
How we know is more important than what we know.
No, it's all done electronically now and we all know that the internet isn't like a dump truck...
It's a series of tubes!
...the trick is to get that point across to the "artists in support of the RIAA"
The problem is the RIAA wants and is getting their cake and eating it too. They want your music purchase to be treated as a product with no liabilities of a license (like discounted upgrades), but they want to restrict what you do with your purchase like a license. They want copyright infringement and its punishments to be considered a crime, but they want the standard of guilt used in civil cases. They want fines and settlements to be thought of as compensatory ("$billions in lost sales justify what we do"), but bring up the idea of sharing those compensatory awards with artists and suddenly it's punitive. Pick one, or the other. Don't flip flop whenever it's convenient to do so.
Record companies benefit when you buy.
Musicians benefit when you listen.
So....what happens when you listen to what you buy?
Who modded parent insightful?
And that's why other countries don't have punitive damages. Somehow civil matters got all mixed up in the USA. I guess
greed does that.
That is not why. Most countries that do not have punitive damage allowances in their laws are usually run by tyrants anyways. The idea of of punitive damages is to punish an entity enough so they think twice before they do it again, it's a civil punishment for a civil case where a criminal punishment should be enacted but cannot be for whatever reason.
You know what happens when tort reform runs rampant and punitive damages are out the window? Companies like Exxon can get away with murder by polluting an entire coastline and having only to pay 2 weeks worth of profit as a fine. This is not greed, this is not tort reform, this is justice gone wrong. Thanks to the tort reform in America Exxon has a punishment that does virtually nothing to a company which committed a criminal act. The amount they have to pay is a drop in the bucket compared to how much the citizens of Alaska have paid with their well-being. So perhaps it is the lack of a real punitive damage which is greedy!
Now I see what you mean when for instance, people who KNEW cigarettes would kill them continue to smoke and now tobacco companies are having to pay out the a** because of some jerk who took a KNOWN risk and then whined about it later but this is a law that needs refining, not a blanket statement that all punitive damages are greedy.
"That is not why. Most countries that do not have punitive damage allowances in their laws are usually run by tyrants anyways. The idea of of punitive damages is to punish an entity enough so they think twice before they do it again, it's a civil punishment for a civil case where a criminal punishment should be enacted but cannot be for whatever reason."
Well, if that is the case, the punitive part of the award should not go to the plaintiff.
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
Mods, wake up!! The parent post is "interesting" but it's magnitudes more "funny".
0x09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
I'm shocked, shocked to find out that the RIAA is stiffing the artists on piracy settlements, especially after the labels stiffed them on their original contracts.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Copyright infringement is not "illegal".
sure it is, there are laws and everything. In fact, that's just a stupid statement.
Of course, it is generally held by the course the copyright infringement is about the distribution of material, and the receiving of material.
There's a good reason for this.
now you can say it's not immoral, but that is different.
Only the lawyers win.
Me lost me cookie at the disco.
Why are artists held to such a level, that they should be willing to play for free so long as someone enjoys their music? Anyone familiar with history knows that the most famous artworks were commissioned by aristocracy and wealthy individuals. Why in the 21st century should we suddenly expect art to be free?
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
What's sad is that it's possibly more insightful than we think.
Hey, you're beautiful
Don't ever change
You know what I mean
My girl will call your girl
We'll talk, we'll do lunch
Or leave a message on my machine
So baby, won't you sign
On the dotted line
I'm gonna make your dreams come true
The check's in the mail
Would I lie to you
Can't decide.... interesting? or insightful? ..uh, funny? Ow... my head! Must decide... Ow!
Oh hell. Now I've posted and can't mod anyway.
I'll admit that I've bought a few CDs over the past 5 years, but not many. (Mostly for my wife and kids and probably less than 10.) Then again, I was never a big music purchaser so they can't blame my personal "poor buying habits" on the emergence of P2P networks. Unfortunately, the RIAA doesn't look at declining CD sales and think "Gee, we have an high priced product with diminishing quality in an economic downturn and while the consumer has less money to spend on our goods, they have more choices (DVDs, games, etc) on what to spend those limited dollars on." Instead they think "@&$^! Internet Pirates! We must legislate that all Americans buy at least one CD per month or get shipped off to GitMo where they will be forced to listen to Brittney Spears tracks until their ears bleed!"
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
It may not be "immoral", but it's illegal wherever there's laws prohibiting it.
(That's the definition of "illegal")
The artists don't make any money from RIAA-mediated CD sales* so I have a hard time feeling bad over pirate CDs.
[*] Technically they do get royalties, but the artists have to pay for all production, promotion, videos, etc. and the RIAA gets to set the price of those, not the artist. In practice the marketing and video production companies are all in the RIAA "family" and artist's paycheck always seems to end up at almost exactly zero.
Coincidence? I think not....
No sig today...