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RIAA Moves To Keep Revenue Info Secret
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In the Boston, Massachusetts case SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, the Court had ordered the RIAA to produce certain revenue information, which would be relevant to a determination of the 'fair use' defense. The RIAA has now moved for a protective order to keep the information 'confidential.' In the opinion of the undersigned, the fact that the motion is made jointly by four competitors shows that any claim suggesting the information is valuable or 'proprietary' would be unfounded, and the sole purpose for making the motion is to keep the information out of the hands of lawyers for other defendants, thus increasing the defense costs in other cases."
Only publicly traded companies have such an obligation.
I have my own corporation and I don't publish my income and profits to anybody (except the government for tax purposes).
Dumb question here, but why not look up the tax returns they've filed with the IRS?
FTA:
"By July 10, 2009, the Plaintiffs shall provide the Defendant with yearly estimates, beginning in 1999, of the revenues generated by their copyrights in the specific songs for which they intend to prove infringement at trial. They should separate physical and digital music sales and should provide Defendant with a description of the methodology used to arrive at these figures."
Tax returns would not contain revenue information for each individual song.
Make sure their lawyers are disbarred as well.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
One alternative would be downloading music for free.
The RIAAs actions are calculated to force consumers to pay a higher price for retail-boxed music than they would otherwise be willing to.
E.g. the abuse by the RIAA in the form of excessively high prices and forced bundling of multiple songs into "album" packaging drives consumers towards less-expensive alternatives.
The RIAA pursues actions which eliminate those alternatives, or make them more expensive by introducing artificial costs and restrictions, for example, by forcing online music retailers to apply DRM to content placed for sale.
You're talking about the SEC filings available through EDGAR. Companies are required to provide a lot of information, but typically at a higher level than individual revenue streams and contracts.
Take a look at the last annual report for Warner Music Group Corp. Go down to the RESULTS OF OPERATIONS section. Notice how the revenue break down for recorded music is only at the level of "Physical sales," "Digital," and "Licensing"? They're not listing how much revenue they get from songs individually.
So why is it shenaningans when the copyright holder wants to protect their information but legitimate when a file sharer wants to protect his or her information?
The RIAA has thousands of cases going on, from threatening letters and settlement offers to actual court actions. The information in this case would be likely to be relevant to large amounts of those cases. We have already seen them make contradictory claims in different cases. It would serve justice and streamline the legal process for their information to be public.
The info from the hard drives of individual file sharers, however, would only usually be relevant to the case at hand. It would also be egregious privacy violation for that info to be make public and if court enforced, could amount to a 4th amendment violation.
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the judge is telling them to provide financial data on the specific songs that the RIAA has claimed were illegally distributed, to which they have made an outrageous claim of value and loss of revenue. They opened the door to this, not the defendant
Actually the judge isn't up to the "excessiveness" issue yet; she ruled that she will revisit that issue only if and when the RIAA gets a jury verdict for statutory damages. Her ruling ordering production of the revenue information relates strictly to the fair use defense:
However, because the Court has held discovery open on fair use, discovery requests on this subject served prior to June 22, 2009, the deadline set by the Court, are treated as timely. See Revised Scheduling Order at 5 (document # 850). Yet even here the Defendant's late-breaking effort to add the fair use defense, and the imminent trial date reaffirmed today by the parties, necessarily limits the breadth of the available discovery. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(b)(2)(C). Thus, to the extent that Interrogatories 2, 3, and 8 seek information related to the fair use analysis under 17 U.S.C. 107(4) (requiring consideration of "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work") , the Court will permit some investigation. By July 10, 2009, the Plaintiffs shall provide the Defendant with yearly estimates, beginning in 1999, of the revenues generated by their copyrights in the specific songs for which they intend to prove infringement at trial. They should separate physical and digital music sales and should provide Defendant with a description of the methodology used to arrive at these figures. The Court will reconsider the need for discovery on any issues relating to actual damages if and when the Defendant's constitutional challenge becomes ripe -- i.e., should the jury award damages against him." (Gaudet, Jennifer)
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful