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RIAA Loses Bid To Keep Revenues Secret
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA's motion to keep secret the record companies' 1999-to-date revenues for the copyrighted song files at the heart of the case has been denied, in the Boston case scheduled for trial July 27th, SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum. The Judge had previously ordered the plaintiff record companies to produce a summary of the 1999-to-date revenues for the recordings, broken down into physical and digital sales. On the day the summary was due to be produced, instead of producing it, they produced a 'protective order motion' asking the Judge to rule that the information would have to be kept secret. The Judge rejected that motion: 'the Court does not comprehend how disclosure would impair the Plaintiffs' competitive business prospects when three of the four biggest record labels in the world — Warner Bros. Records, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, and UMG Recording, Inc. — are participating jointly in this lawsuit and, presumably, would have joint access to this information.'"
I wonder if they told the artists one set of numbers and need more time to make sure what they give to the court matches that set.
Panic now, beat the rush!
because music copyright usually results in a monopoly situation there is not competition - no one else is publishing the same track in competition to them, so the information is not commercially sensitive
They'd have to show what they actually gain from "honest" business and have that compared to their extortion schemes. It could even show that the "claimed losses" exceed what one person could possibly cause in damages.
And that in turn could mean that their insane claims (and the verdicts that ensued) could be up for review, they could end up with far more sane sentences and that in turn would make the whole "shock and awe" deterrent a joke.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
haha! well, maybe now their hollywood accounting will come back to bite them in the ass as they struggle to show that the songs are now worth massive damages, when they were worth nothing or less as they computed royalties for the artists they were screwing.
Exactly, I wonder what their advertising says for new artists compared to what they say when they pull the "ZOMG OUR KIDS ARE GOING TO STARVE IF WE DON"T SUE YOU FOR $3.6 million per song!!!111!1!1".
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Now the artists will find out exactly how much the record companies are skimming off of them and force the record companies to pay up!
Why bother
The only issue could be that they are not consistent with regards to their demands.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
MAFIAA: You have to take into account everyone that downloaded them.
JUDGE: Ok so lets say 10 people downloaded each one, that's about so that's about $4800 right?
By definition, the average participant in a peer sharing network uploads one copy. There's no way around that. If the actual number of uploads is unknown, the only remotely reasonable assumption for damage calculations is 1.0000000000000000000000000.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
MAFIAA: You have to take into account everyone that downloaded them.
JUDGE: Ok so lets say 10 people downloaded each one, that's about so that's about $4800 right?
By definition, the average participant in a peer sharing network uploads one copy. There's no way around that. If the actual number of uploads is unknown, the only remotely reasonable assumption for damage calculations is 1.0000000000000000000000000.
I know the defendant in this case wasn't using bittorrent, but is there actually any way to prove a person has uploaded one entire, complete, copy to anyone? I expect it's more like 30% to that person, 40% to another, 30% to a third, but since people are connected to multiple uploaders, how can you tell?
If it were you or I, we would likely be held in contempt. After all, we are a single person with no real power of any kind... a huge set of officers grab us and throw us in a cell. Now think about this in the context of 3 out of 4 of the music producing companies in the world... who do you throw in jail? Who was the one that actually made the decision to try and play the courts? You could argue that the lawyer is at fault... if they knew it was questionably legal, they should simply refuse, right? I don't believe it as cut and dry as that. Someone on the plaintiffs side who pays the check of said lawyer could fire him for doing so. We have no idea how this would affect said lawyer. Maybe he is on the hook for $2M in medical bills because his 6 year old daughter is dying of leukemia, therefore he can't afford to lose his job, even when he knows what the right actions would be.
Not that I'm saying that someone shouldn't be tarred, feathered, then gang raped in a max security prison, but who to throw in there isn't so clear.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
I'm an asshole. It says so on my character sheet.
Yeah, but they do a lot of things that are hard for me to imagine until they do them.
Today, if you are one of the folks "in the know" about downloading music, you can grab whatever you want for free. There isn't anything that is going to stop this, really. I believe there is a dividing line between the folks that went to school during a time when such sharing (even floppy trading) was going on and older people. The older people as a general rule do not know about downloading and aren't getting their music for free.
As this demographic changes, fewer and fewer people are going to be paying for music. It is a fact that disturbs the music companies to no end, because their time is limited. In China they have already faced up to this and sales of music is nonexistent. No matter what, the time remaining for there to be a revenue stream associated with recorded music is limited.
As far as copyright is concerned, who cares how much money the record companies are receiving? Even if all the downloading that is going on didn't change their revenue in the slightest, this is still irrelevent to copyright protection and the penalties associated with it. A jury might find, with a symathetic defendent that the statutory penalties are too stiff when compared with the volume of sharing (copyright violation) that is going on in the world today. But still, I don't see this having anything to do with record company revenue. Unless you want to make the argument that the record companies are receiving an adequate amount of compensation and further compensation is undeserved.
Hasn't that been their MO all along?
RIAA: "We're suing for ONE MILLION DOLLARS (pinky-to-mouth)"
Defense: [Some action that could cause the RIAA embarrassment]
RIAA: "We're dropping the suit without prejudice".
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Er, you do read right?
I'm just asking, because the whole point of the motion was to prevent the records from becoming public. If they are presented in court as evidence they are, be default, public.
You do know that court records are public, right? They may not be exactly easy to just look up, but you can go see the court clerk for what ever court a case is held at and get a transcript of the records, most likely you'll have to pay a processing fee, but it would be minimal.
It takes a court order to seal records in a court case, which is what the RIAA tried to get. The judge said no.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
This probably has to do with statutory vs actual damages. This is a provision in current copyright law. Often times damages are awarded not on statutory damages, but actual damages. Viewing the income statement for this artist will help put this into perspective.
Libertas in infinitum
The RIAA does not wish to reveal that the hand they are playing is a busted flush
Actually, what they don't want to reveal is that the hand they bet with (share to the artists) is not the hand they put down when it is called (share to themselves).
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org