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Canadian Music Industry Copyright Class Action Settled

Posted by Unknown on from the too-big-to-pirate dept.

limber writes "The largest Canadian copyright class action suit has been settled for $50 million. The offenders? The four labels comprising the Canadian Recording Industry Association — EMI, Sony Music, Universal Music, and Warner Music. Ahem." The terms of the settlement are a compromise — anyone with works on the pending list can receive compensation while the music industry is absolved of further liability. The two major Canadian licensing agencies (CMRRA and SODRAC) will be tasked with improving the licensing process to prevent future abuse.

9 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. Good luck with that. by Hatta · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The CRIA has had years to pay these artists. Why would they start now?

    Also notice how this is less than 1% of what the CRIA actually owes its artists. Settlements like this only encourage them to keep stiffing their artists.

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  2. So... by Ecuador · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, for willfully and illegally selling 300,000 works, the recording companies paid just $50 million, or $166 per song. And careful, that is per song, NOT per copy! So they are most likely giving a fraction of their illegally gotten gains - forget about any punitive damages, they probably even get to keep a lot of the stolen money!
    Next time you are sharing a song online, make sure a) you make money of it b) you are a big corp.

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    1. Re:So... by Jason+Levine · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's not so much A as it is B. It would have been interesting had the damages been assessed similar to the Jamie Thomas verdict ($80,000 per song). $80,000 * 300,000 = $24 billion. I'd have loved to have seen them squirm over having to pay a $24 billion judgement against them and see them crying about how unfair it was and how it would bankrupt them. Granted, there wouldn't be any cognitive dissonance to burst. They really do think that infringement by the public should be punished by huge fines (and, I'm sure they'd love to add in, jail terms) while infringement by them should be punished by a vicious finger shaking and a fine not to exceed ten percent of the profits they made off of the infringement.

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  3. Love this ... by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The record companies commit wholesale copyright infringement, and take the stance they should be allowed to do it and will settle the costs later.

    The rest of us download a fucking Brittany Spears song and they want to sue us for eleventy trillion dollars.

    I think it's time to start feeding recording executives to wild dogs -- they want draconian laws to make sure we can't do anything, but they just walk around them and pretend they didn't do anything wrong. Arrogant bastards.

    I've said it before, if they keep extending this "copyright levy" to everything under the sun, I'm going to start pirating on a large scale. I'm already paying for it, I might as well get my money's worth.

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  4. RIPPED OFF by commodore64_love · · Score: 4, Insightful

    50 million is a ripoff compared to the billions owed in backpay. That's equivalent to your boss saying, "I'll pay your $50 an hour," waiting years for your paycheck, and then he hands you a measly $5 an hour and says "Oops sorry." I would not have accepted it.

    Worse - Since there are lawyers involved, the 50 million will probably shrink to 20 million that has to be distributed amongst the ~1 million singers owed money.

    And these nonpaying a-holes in RIAA screw the singers, but they have the nerve to demand WE the customers pay for every single song we make a copy of - $1 if we download it, $1 if we burn it to a CD-R, $1 if we duplicate it across a 2nd PC, and so on.

    GRRRR.

    (I am a little bitter. Can you tell?)

    --
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  5. Re:I hope... by UncleTogie · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yeah, but they gave us Rush, too, so we can forgive 'em for Ms. Dion at least.

    --
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  6. Re:All our base are belong to whom? by smelch · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So I guess the thing to do would be to not sell works when it is unclear how to do so legally. Especially when you're constantly suing people for copyright infringement.

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  7. Re:Orphan works by codegen · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Which is difficult if the artist cannot be contacted.

    Some of the artists on the list included Beyonce and Bruce Springsteen. Not exactly artists that are hard to find, that is if they bothered to try...

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    Atlas stands on the earth and carries the celestial sphere on his shoulders.
  8. Re:The best counter-point by Gnavpot · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Every time the **AAs get up in front of government or the public to claim "support for the artists" this situation and others need to be brought up plainly and clearly.

    The **AA are USA based, this is a story about Canada. Can't you tell the difference?

    From the summary:
    "The offenders? The four labels comprising the Canadian Recording Industry Association â" EMI, Sony Music, Universal Music, and Warner Music."

    Oh, yes. Those labels are certainly local Canadian companys with no connection to the US labels whatsoever.