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Record Labels To Pay For Copyright Infringement
innocent_white_lamb writes "Sony Music Entertainment Canada Inc., EMI Music Canada Inc., Universal Music Canada Inc. and Warner Music Canada Co. have agreed to pay songwriters and music publishers $47.5 million in damages for copyright infringement and overdue royalties to settle a class action lawsuit. 'The 2008 class action alleges that the record companies "exploited" music owners by reproducing and selling in excess of 300,000 song titles without securing licenses from the copyright owners and/or without paying the associated royalty payments. The record companies knowingly did so and kept a so-called "pending list" of unlicensed reproductions, setting aside $50 million for the issue, if it ever arose, court filings suggest.'"
So when the RIAA sues someone, it's $80k per title for infringement, but when they are infringing, they set aside $167 per title?
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
..do as we say, not as we do ourselves.
And its not only infringement of copyright. They also profited commercially from the selling of music they were not allowed to sell. I am against "filesharing" (i.e. stealing music or movies) if its a person doing it for free. Somebody profiting from illegal activities should be punished much harder.
From this I understand that I can now download as many mp3s as I want as long as I put aside 69c per mp3 downloaded in case I am ever asked to pay the full price.
Excellent! Kudos to the music companies for setting us straight on this issue.
That settlement is WAY too low. I would expect a settlement in the BILLIONS given the creative accounting used in the industry.
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
The worlds smallest violin plays for the labels.
They did something they knew was wrong, and set aside the monies they would need to pay just in case they got called on it? How is it this kind of corporate behavior is allowed? I look forward to the day when these labels are less relevant in what becomes popular. It is coming, with success stories such as pamplemoose, we should start seeing more music acts starting up without needing labels in the first place.
When you infringe copyright, do it for profit. It's cheaper that way.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Those that make the rules do not have to follow the rules.
Those that write the laws do not have to follow the law.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
yup.
Karma's a bitch.
Too bad they didn't go for the same % amount as when the industry sues the other way.
But then again, the industry would just have declared bankruptcy and reformed a little differently again.
Worry not, their spindoctors will make this out to be a positive thing, and something in no way copyrights related.
Also, watch out for "music price regulations" in CN soon.
~men are from earth. women are from earth. deal with it.~
Obviously, they paid 2.5M for the lawyers. If this was budgeted from the start it explains why the figure "randomly" ended up being exactly 5% of the total set aside. This means the plaintiff's lawyers simply accepted the 47.5M the labels had set aside.
Im not sure how they operate in Canada, but I always hear about US artists being signed to labels for x number of albums. Any of the work done for those albums belongs to the label, and artists must fulfill their obligations before anything is their own again.
1) Sign up musicians to your label and don't pay them for their work.
2) Sell their music anyway.
3) Find some IPs and threaten to sue the people behind them.
4) Wait for the musicians from step 1 to get pissed and then use some of the money from step 3 to pay them off.
Excuse me. I [b]must[/b] be missing something here!
They set-aside $50 Million to "cover this". This implies they [b]knew[/b] they were doing something wrong!
They were fines $47.5 Million.
If I'm not mistaken, they just made a @2.5 Million [i]profit[/i] from the deal!
The artists involved should sue to leave the record labels, under breach of contract. Then only might the record labels break a sweat and start thinking what they did wrong.
Can this be used in future courts as a precedent? I mean, they were not only sharing files illegally, they were actually selling them too and thus profiteering from it, they were sharing them with not only thousands but tens of thousands, yet they only had to pay a bit over $100 per song. Thus, a person at home sharing a music file, not profiteering from it, and perhaps only sharing it with tens or at max hundreds shouldn't have to pay nearly as much per song.
I am actually interested in knowing cos if this can be used as a precedent then MAFIAA just got shot hard in the foot.
YEAH! I bet that justice system BURNS don't it guys? Oh that justice system burnnns!
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
I honestly think, that after all the crap that the RIAA has pulled, that they would at least get charged like they did to everyone else. But instead, they just get a little slap on the wrist and call it a day. WTF has happened to our legal system when you can basically get away with this. Isnt this horribly illegal and wrong? Why wont anyone actually stand up and DO something? Oh wait, that's right, you cant. Derp, I forgot.
And especially dead artists!
I have absolutely no respect for companies like Sony that have in their libraries huge quantities of pd music performed by great artists like Wilhelm Kempf, Karl Bohm, Lenard Bernstein, George Szell etc, etc...and on and on. Here they are not making it available to willing buyers and just sitting on it like a bunch of trolls at a bridge stopping travelers through the world of classical music.
This is why it is almost impossible for new classical artists to break through anymore. There is no way for plebs to experience great classical music as there was during the heydays of the 1960-70s when you could by classical lps just about anywhere..including low end stores like K-Mart, or Sears!
This greedy amoral cartel has absolutely no respect for the legacy of great music that is part of our heritage and deserve to be taken apart and given a financial drubbing for their behaviour!
I speak as a grieving Old_Flatulent classical musician that hopes eventually the corrupt entertainment industry system that stops great artists from blooming will eventually die.
So they're waging a war against people who download media for personal use, but they're okay with cheating the very artists/owners they claim they're trying to protect?
A user who wouldn't have listened to the music or seen a movie if they couldn't get it for free (by downloading) still gets charged as if they caused monetary damages. In reality, they did absolutely no harm, of any sort, to anybody. The mediawhore organizations act as though each downloader is destroying their 'industry' entirely, and yet they are causing genuine monetary damages and illegally profiting from music they do not have rights to.
The American public needs to muster up the balls to tell politicians to put the RIAA and MPAA in their place. They are businesses who have gotten away with price-fixing (CD albums at 15-17 bucks each while only containing one or two good songs and a bunch of filler trash?), cheating artists, damaging/compromising customers' computers with rootkits (Sony), and bombarding youth with harmful messages which ultimately harm society as a whole. The RIAA and MPAA are bad for America, and bad for the world.
So a song is worth when Sony didn't play license:
47500000$/300000 = 158$
Say that one CD Album contains 20 songs (yeah right)..
300000/20 = 15000 Albums
Compare to the Pirate Bay trial:
21 music files (and 9 movies, 4 games)
Total worth: 5Milion dollar and prison.
Music worth (if I calculated correctly, number from wikipedia) ~740000$
So song in the trial was worth:
740000$ / 21 = 35238$
35238/158 = 223 times more expensive to give the songs away then to sell them without paying the artist.
Interesting indeed.
Now that's cool.
So, whenever I download a few songs or movies, I'll simply put aside their regular price, in case the issue ever comes up. Then I'll point to this precedent and offer the collection as settlement.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
A judge still has to rule on this. Will s/he be having a look at the big picture ie. the seemingly intentional breaking of the law and the discrepancy between the perceived value of licensing depending on whether the music industry is payed or paying for it? IANAL and so wonder if the indignation and disbelief expressed here will also be felt by someone with legal power.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
When you are no longer here, your music should be freely open to the public. Copyright should ONLY last a lifetime... not 50 years after!
pirate bay FTW!!!
If they put aside $50M, then the real value to them was at least $150M. So, they made at least $100M on the settlement.
Not bad business, not a crime, not ethical..., but it is good business for many of the big-bro-companies.
RIAA protects the wealthy from the artist. Patents protects the wealthy from scientist, engineers, inventors.... Copyright protects the wealthy from all the other crap. Congress protects the wealthy from US.
This is what corporate welfare and protectionism is all about for US, EU... Global Domination by Fiat.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
Notice at least one thing: the money they ended up paying out was *set aside beforehand*. To the exact amount, minus some obviously very wealthy lawyers' fees. The entire thing -- which amounts to paying the artists for their work and some lawyers for theirs -- was spun to make it sound as if the record companies had done something rogueish. Why would they want to do that? Because they are the same record companies known for trying to give people criminal records for doing exactly that, taking music without asking for it. It has been debated for over a decade and by now the philosophy of it has been debated down to a point that the distributors are the modern day analogue of the church fighting against the translation of the Bible into a more popular language or the mass production of the Bible printing press. They've had to infringe on free speech on numerous occasions and through it all they insisted that their opinion was the future, just like before with cassette tape, and people have stopped listening, and despite all their work the online sharing and purchase model has maintained its hold and has not waned.
So they want to be part of the "in" crowd again, so they steal music. Only they actually *do* have the money to pay for it and actually do pay up at a later date. But look at it, it's only two years later. Not a huge length of time for the artists, for the lawyers sitting around waiting for "the day", not for the bankers holding the cash in what amounts apparently to escrow, none of it. But subconciously people will see the music distributors as "the same as us". "The hypocrites get some of what they've been dishing out to all of us." It's the sort of harebrained and underhanded move I would expect the MTV/EMI world to make.
You might wonder what would be gained by all of that, but it's so obvious:
1. They're in the public light again and this time they aren't the enemy of the people, rather,
2. This time they're doing what the people have been doing all along, sooo...
3. People MIGHT be more willing to use the distributors as their source of e-music instead of whatever they've become accustomed to while the plastic-case distributors have been sitting around on their hands pouting about "the new computer shit that's ruining our business". (Because they're the fellow thief, now.)
For the meager cost of 2.5 mil, it costs about the same as an ad campaign that would have taken a team of teen psychologists and new-artists to come up with the perfect subliminal punch, and which nobody would have paid attention to anyway, especially not in a down economy. Now instead of some fake or plastic ad that obviates "trying too hard", they can stage this huge play in which they appear in the role of pariah-by-sympathetic-proxy and which legitimizes itself as "real life" through the magic of scary court.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
They knew this was wrong you guys. According to this post they had the money set a side a head of time. They don't care. All they want to do is to make examples of the middle class. They know you cannot afford their crappy music. So they ruin your life. Its ok. You are only the middle class. They do not care for you. They want you homeless. They will laugh historically at you while they drive by in there million dollar car while you are dumpster diving. All this means is that rich are getting richer and poor people are getting poorer. Want to be rich. Win the lottery. Thats how it is.
It's more or less the actual amount owed to the artists for licencing. They claimed they couldn't pay it out because they couldn't identify the artists on the pending list, but of course they didn't try very hard. The class action suit merely convinced them that it was simpler to just turn over the owed money as a settlement (presumably keeping the interest) to the plaintiffs, rather than identifying and paying the individual artists.
They're cleared of all liability and they've agreed to try a little harder next time, but there are no damages, statutory or otherwise. They're paying out only the owed royalties, just delayed for a few years (would've been indefinitely, but they got called on it).
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
The infringement was the breech of duty. Just like "not uploading to a network service" is against the duty implied by my purchase of a Music CD, or that I need to pay to use the time-locked software after the test period and that using that software after that date is COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT.
Each song they sold without giving the money to the artist(s) involved was in breech of the contract that gave them license to create that copy and sell it.
Just because I can't find the owner of a copyrighted work (abandoned works), doesn't mean I get to make copies (see Google Book project).
"It may be that proving infringement in court would be difficult due to the existing agreement. "
In no way. It is not hard to prove infringement if I use a trial software outside the dates I have trial access for, even though that agreement exists.
The actual press release and individual settlement details (apologies for the karma whoring). Yet to be ratified by the stakeholders.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Guessing here, but I don't think they can hold out long trying to say a song is "worth" a different amount in Canada vs. the US. I still think it counts as an informational precedent to point to for the next case that comes up in the US.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I thought the fee was $1000 per song or whatever the RIAA argued in that US case. It seems they are getting of rather lightly. Especially since they did this knowingly and in direct violation of signed agreements.
I would say any casual user could use this to set a low limit on the fee per song. They paid a little more than $100 per song title. And I expect each song title was reproduced several thousand times if not more.
Also what about seizing the physical devices that the RIAA used to make copies? If the RIAA did not lose their hardware then nobody should lose their computer.
$50m earning interest will still be a loss once paid. Unless they found a ridiculously awesome interest rate, or left it sitting for long enough to more than double. I don't see evidence of either, so overall it would be a loss.
Perfect setup!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ETENrv8cnU
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
They are guilty of commercial infringment.
I wonder if this can be referenced in any file sharing cases to set a lower fee if the defendant loses.
Do as I say not as I do because
The shit's so deep you can't run away
I beg to differ on the contrary
I agree with every word that you say
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My wallet's fat and so is my head
Hit and run and then I'll hit you again
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Standards set and broken all the time
Control the chaos behind a gun
Call it as I see it even if
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Losers winning big on the lottery
Rehab rejects still sniffing glue
Constant refutation with myself
I'm a victim of a catch 22
I have no belief
But I believe
I'm a walking contradiction
And I ain't got no right
Do as I say not as I do because
The shit's so deep you can't run away
I beg to differ on the contrary
I agree with every word that you say
Talk is cheap and lies are expensive
My wallet's fat and so is my head
Hit and run and then I'll hit you again
I'm a smart ass but I'm playing dumb
I have no belief
But I believe
I'm a walking contradiction
And I ain't got no right
I have no belief
But I believe
I'm a walking contradiction
And I ain't got no right
- Green Day
I hope that criminal charges are pressed by the federal Crown (government) prosecutor, such massive scale for-profit (criminal) infringement cannot be tolerated. (Section 42 of the Copyright Act)
Is certainly starting out to be a good year ^.^
So shouldn't this be 240,000,000?
Or alternatively, we can accept that fair value of infringed songs is apparently $156.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I suppose his point was that 50 million was given a chance to create interest that it otherwise would not have created. The 50 million, ends up paid either way, but in one way generates a substantial amount of interest. Who is to say, however, that this interest was greater than the legal fees of the trial. That is another question.
insight through the mind
But this was expected to be a loss from the start- they were purchasing the copyrighted materials with this money but essentially withholding payment. So, as far as it goes, the money was "spent". However, they made interest on this money while waiting to finally pay the bill- making it a gain.
I think I see what you are saying.. but as they'd set it aside specifically in case this issue arose, I don't think I'd call it a loss unless the fees went over what they'd set aside (which it didn't).
On another note, I wonder how much they'd have paid had they just licensed it normally, if that amount would have exceeded $50m, and if so by how much.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
$50m earning interest will still be a loss once paid. Unless they found a ridiculously awesome interest rate, or left it sitting for long enough to more than double. I don't see evidence of either, so overall it would be a loss.
Not really - they had already set aside that $50 million, "just in case". (And it turns out that they overbudgeted by 2.5 mil, so someone's getting a bonus for being under budget this year!). The difference is that rather than actually *pay* that money, they stuck it in the bank and collected interest. All that interest is profit for them (i.e. money they otherwise wouldn't have earned).
What bothers me about it is that there appears to be no punitive damages at all. It's like not putting payments down on your house but stashing the money aside, and when they finally come track you down, handing over the stash and saying "no harm no foul, right?"
Well very few people or companies can pay out 50 million without calling it a loss no matter what they were doing with it. I mean, even if you have it to lose, you DON'T have it to lose, know what I mean?
However, the point stands, that 50 million has been set aside for a few years as I understand it (I could be wrong, but wasn't it set aside well before the class action started?). Even at a conservative rate of interest, that's a lot of cabbage annually.
They lose that "income" and that capital...but for the years they had it sitting there and NOT paying what they owed, they did benefit largely from their illegal conduct and as such should face much more inflated fines than they have thus far.
"I'm not a procrastinator, I'm temporally challenged"
I doubt they'd ever, ever, ever let anyone know. That's bad for business.
What about them? When my dad dies, I have to have my own job.
Above this post in the timeline is a post whose signature reads:
There are less illiterates than people who can't read.
Almost correct. I'd put that as can't read with anything remotely resembling comprehension. Some of you write code. God help your users, and multiple gods help your co-workers.
First line of the summary and appearing four times is the word Canada . As in where this happened. Canada - you should grab something to steady yourselves - IS NOT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
So all those pithy, insightful posts about the RIAA (The Recording Industry Association of America), US statutes and so forth are a complete waste.
Yeah, yeah, I know: This is slashdot. Even so, this thread (so far) sets a new low.
I'm not very knowledgeable in the legal system but seems to me cases against individuals where record companies are fining upwards on $80,000 a song should be able cite this where the record companies itself only had to pay ~$167 per song for the same damn thing, only they were doing it on a much grander scale and making a profit on it, opposed to P2P "free" downloads.
Which corporation would do that? The one that did would risk criminal prosecution for premeditated murder, not cost free even for corporations, meanwhile EVERY SINGLE OTHER CORPORATION gets the easing of copyrights (the copyrights don't get transferred to the murderer you know) without the risk.
So, please. Tell me which corporation would murder artists to get access to the works?
Assuming this is the same thing legally speaking, the record companies cheated artists and basically dared them to sue. If they got caught, they usually settled for less than the actual amount. So, it was a "heads I win, tails you lose" situation for artists.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Using their own valuations presented in other court cases, they'd be looking at a settlement in the billions of dollars.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
The interest on 50 mil would be enough to keep a party going until everybody needed shots, or to be shot, from doing all the shots.
The "industry" kept 50 mil in case they were caught selling other people's IP.
Never mind the "making available" crap.
They've been caught with their pants down around their ankles, in "Flagrante elicto", with the victim bludgeoned unconscious on the bloody floor.
Throw out ALL of the attempts to extort since they obviously think there are two sets of laws, only one of which applies to them. Let THAT one be the the one where they can collect.
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So when the RIAA sues someone, it's $80k per title for infringement on a small number of titles [cnet.com] when the offender possibly does not even know what they are doing is infringement, but when the RIAA is infringing on a massive scale, having pre-planned for being caught by setting aside money in the case that they were made to pay, which clearly shows that they knew the legalities of what they were doing, they only needed to allocate $167 per title and they were allowed to pay almost exactly what they decided to pay?
Note to all file sharers: The reason the RIAA can sue you for $80k per file is that YOU didn't set the price in the first place. Set aside $167 for every title you share. Or set aside less. Problem solved.
if a record company infringes copyright and no one is around to see it, did it really happen? pot, meet kettle. sooo... if they infringed upon someone/some companys copyright on a song that they are suing some random person for downloading... can they really assert copyright if they never truthfully had full copyright? (chicken and the egg)
OK, so if I shoplift something worth $5, get caught, and am forced to pay $5 for it, that's a loss.
Thanks. That helps with my accounting.
1. they are getting away 'scott-free'! they set aside $50 million in case it went to court.
2. they are settling out of court (no precedent for future file-sharing cases) for $47.5 million.
3. PROFIT
Neither is the Jammie case. That wasn't damages (since they could not prove damage).
$50m earning interest will still be a loss once paid. Unless they found a ridiculously awesome interest rate, or left it sitting for long enough to more than double. I don't see evidence of either, so overall it would be a loss.
How long does it take to double, 10 years with reasonable interest? That's entirely possible, even with the market crash; I know my own account has recovered from it. And I wouldn't be surprised if the RIAA put that $50m aside about 10 years ago.
Sure they can do that. Though the US wants everyone to use their version of copyright law, they tend not to care what rulings are in different jurisdictions, so it'll never get within shouting distance of a court in the US.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
The settlement has nothing to do with the RIAA or any of the American based entertainment industry lapdogs. It concerns the system for royalty payments to actual artists just in Canada and how the record companies tried for years to screw artists by saying they had no idea how to actually pay them for their work!
In the United States and other countries the record companies deal with organizations like BMI for royalty payments to artists. However most industry sponsored organizations have "artist management" that is pushed on up and coming artists. And this is how most artists are paid.
This is why bands like Pearl Jam and others have independent management and hate the record companies and especially hate companies like "TicketMonsters" that control concert revenues.
It is an historic fact that artist management has been fundamentally corrupt in the United States and Canada and the mafia has had a hand in this problem for years especially in places like Vegas.
I would not at all be surprised if a similar situation exists in the United States between the record companies and corrupt "management" organizations.
But I highly doubt any artist or group of artists down there have the guts to stand up to the corrupt entertainment industry cartel considering how much pull they have on capitol hill and elsewhere.
Jammie case location: US
TFA location: Canada
Laws !=
Precedant inapplicable
My oblig. reference to point out the Big4 companies, which thankfully are named in TFA instead of just RIAA/CRIA:
Warner Music Canada
EMI Music Canada
Sony Music Canada
Universal Music Canada
As I had said, together they form the acronym WESU, as in "We sue! Yes, we do!"
To which Roesti cleverly replied: "That's for the US, though. This is the Canadian affiliate, WESUC."
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
I'm not quite sure how, unless you're saying that it will be worth less after inflation, which still doesn't make sense, because I've never heard of a court inflation adjusting an award, even on legal proceedings that have gone on for a decade. Also, if you're thinking about the lousy, below average inflation interest rates you get in a savings account, then I think you may not realize that, if you're not a peon, you can earn a lot more interest than that.
I guess I'm just missing whatever accounting logic you're using. You're basically saying that, for it to be profitable to keep the money for a time, rather than pay it out, it has to at least double, is that right? Why? Sure there will be some accounting costs. Aside from that, what overhead am I missing?