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.'"

Comments

Is this Legit, or Contempt?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ray--if I was ordered by a judge to produce a detailed breakdown of my accounting (say a trial for tax evasion) practices over the past years by 7/31, and on the 31st I came to court with just a "protective order motion" asking that my accounting practices be kept secret...

Wouldn't I be held in contempt?

I mean...I can see producing the motion *with* the information...or...before it...but... tell me why it is these guys appear to have rights in the legal system that everyone else doesn't... More importantly, what piece of paperwork do I have to file so I can ignore court orders like they do and get off scott free?

What are these other documents?

[yuna49]

Gertner's ruling states that "[the Court] will, however, order the second set of documents, which implicate the business interests of third-party artist-owned companies, shielded from disclosure."

What are these documents, and who are these "third-party artist-owned companies?"

Forcing them to show their hands

[erroneus]

This could be the beginnings of an interesting new strategy against the RIAA. Forcing the RIAA to produce the verifiable truth about various things and to pull their skeletons from their closets and put them on display can likely act as quite a deterrent against RIAA actions.

Still. How is the judge taking their failure to produce the data? Does making a motion instead of producing the data result in an automatic extension somehow? Is this an unwritten part of due process now?

Re:Come on Ray!

[Kabuthunk]

I'm putting my money on "case is dropped, RIAA gets to keep things secret"