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."

Comments

Is anyone surprised by this?

[Alexx K]

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.

Why would they?

[Monoman]

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.

Re:share? why?

[MightyMartian]

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!!!!!!

Re:Oh come on now

[QuantumG]

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.

Re:Oh come on now

[Solandri]

I'm no fan of RIAA, but the RIAA lawsuits aren't about recouping money for the artists. That would be a ludicrous business model (one where you let people steal your product and then sue them to recover you loses on a routine basis). The RIAA lawsuits are about raising the risk/reward ratio to make people decide not to steal music.

If you're correct and the copyright infringement penalties are meant to be punitive instead of compensatory, then they are enormously disproportionate. Punitive damages are meant to simply discourage the defendant (and others) from engaging in that behavior, not consign them to a bankruptcy. Being able to file a lawsuit for several dozen times a person's net worth isn't punitive, it's overkill. Would our legal system be considered sane if the potential punitive damages for Microsoft's monopoly case had been $2 trillion?

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.

Re:Oh come on now

[jgarra23]

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.

Re:T'was Ever Thus

[budgenator]

The RIAA represents the record companies and it function is to spend as much money as fast as it can and any left over goes back to their clients the record company. The record company represents the artists and it's function is to spend as much money as fast as it can and any left over goes to their clients the artists. Wash rinse repeat, lawyers that can't get hired into the record companies settle for probate law. Do you know what the difference between a vampire and a probate lawyer is? The vampire quits sucking your blood when your dead!