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Universal Music Demands Insurer Pay For Infringement Damages
An anonymous reader writes with a new twist in the recently resolved Canadian music label infringement lawsuit. From the article: "Earlier this year, the four primary members of the Canadian Recording
Industry Association (now Music Canada) — Warner Music Canada, Sony BMG
Music Canada, EMI Music Canada, and Universal Music Canada — settled
the largest copyright
class action lawsuit
in Canadian history by agreeing to pay over $50 million to compensate
for hundreds of thousands of infringing uses of sound recordings. While
the record labels did not admit liability, the massive settlement spoke
for itself. While the Canadian case has now settled, Universal Music
has filed
its
own lawsuit, this time against its insurer, who it expects to pay
the
costs of the settlement."
Fucking-Eh!
I say don't drink and drive, you might spill your drink. Before you get behind the wheel just stop and think.
Cant we all do the same thing... And not call it a crime? Their corporate persons did exactly what everyone else does. They made use of someones product; the product, a creative form, is copyable, and as we see here, so beit, to all persons. My band has no serious expectation of profit : we want people to listen and enjoy us.
...that the law to disconnect copyright infringers from the internet would have gone through.
Universal's insurer agreed to indemnify against copyright cases, and this was a copyright case. I suppose Universal should perhaps have checked that they would have been covered before agreeing to settle the case, but other than that the only out clause I can see for the insurer is that they didn't technically "lose" the case - they agreed to a settlement without admission of guilt.
Still, it boils down to media company vs. insurance company vs. lawyers, and I think it's pretty obvious the only winner out of that triumvirate is going to be lawyers. Oh well, I guess two out of three will just have to do.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
These guys can't get enough.
$50 million to compensate for hundreds of thousands of infringing uses of sound recordings.
$50 million is only like 2 or 3 pirated mp3's here in the states.
Required reading for internet skeptics
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The first link (2011 Jan. 11) says it was $47.5 million and that they had set aside $50 million to resolve it in case it ever went to court. (Perhaps that was not reserve funds as we were led to believe but instead the size of the insurance policy?)
The second link (2011 May 31) rounds that up to a $50 million settlement. (Meh, what's another $2.50 million?)
How did it get to be "over $50 million"? Contempt citing/accrued interest/late fees for taking so long to pay out, or just bad reporting not clarifying whether it was in Canadian dollars or the reporter had converted it to US dollars?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Chutzpah and Schadenfreud come to mind.
I didn't realize you could buy insurance against commiting a crime. These companies are essentially being allowed to say: "Oops! I 'accidentally' (and by that I mean intentionally) robbed you. But it's OK, I don't have to pay because my insurer will pay you less than I stole from you." Are there seriously insurers who issue policies covering that?
The courts would not let a flesh-and-blood individual get away with that. Just more proof that Western judicial systems consider corporations to be superhuman -- they have all the rights of a flesh-and-blood individual and then some. Yet they are without any of the effective liabilities -- courts do not inflict incarceration, death, or utter destitution as punishment. In fact, these corporations deserve to make a profit. And if they happen to commit heinous crimes while doing it? Well they're too big to fail -- they employ so many people you can't put them out of business because that would hurt "innocent" people.
Talk about fucked in the head!
There were 300,000 infringing works and the statutory damages were 20,000. That's 6 billion bucks.
50 million is chump change. The music industry is willing to take people's retirement savings, ruining their lives, but they get only a slap on the wrist.
It seems to me some interpretation of the Hammer Clause probably applies here. Basically, if an Insured makes a settlement without the consent of the Insurer, then the Insurer is only on the hook for the amount that THEY WOULD HAVE AGREED TO SETTLE FOR. This is usually used to discourage a company from fighting a case on principle and losing more than they would have by settling. In this case, it would seem that the CRIA members might have paid LESS if they had gone to trial -- but in any event, if the Insurer did not authorize the settlement, then they aren't going to pony up for it above and beyond what they would willingly have settled for, nor will they pay for legal fees beyond the point at which they would have settled. The law probably is different in Canada, as I know it varies in other significant aspects from U.S. law. (For example, the law says policies sold to the public must be written in plain English/French and not legalese -- or at least the legalese has to be explained in plain language, and in the case of a conflict, the plain language prevails.)
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
Why is it surprising that they would want to make a claim?
Of course insurance companies have more experience with getting out of paying claims than record labels do stiffing copyright holders.
You miss the REAL point - that if they can get people to think that insurers are liable for copyright infringement fines, the next step is to sue you, and then go after your insurance policy to pay the damages ... after all, your insurer probably has deeper pockets than you do.
How many people will pay up a few bucks rather than have their insurance premiums go through the roof, or even become unable to get insurance.
1. **AAfia sues their own insurers to cover copyright violations.
2. **AAfia sues your insurers to cover copyright violations.
3. Re-invest those PROFITS in more cocaine and hookers (aka business as normal) for lobbyists, etc.
What policy do I have to take out in order for my insurance company to be on the hook for liabilities from illegal activities that I choose to engage in? I'm pretty sure there were some tidy paragraphs in my policies stating that I'm essentially fucked if damages occur due to me breaking the law. My homeowners won't pay shit if I burn down my house trying to run a meth lab, for example. If I go on a crime spree and try to make a high-speed getaway and destroy my car in the progress, I'm betting my auto insurance company will tell me to fuck off. Do I have to incorporate in order to get the awesome "Get away with murder" insurance policy that these companies (seem to think they) have?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
methinks you are an idiot.
Now, if he'd said without the death penalty there can be no morality, you'd be on to something, or if he'd said with copyright there is no justice, same thing.
But he didn't.
What a great scam!
Expect insurance to cover any litigious liabilities, and then sue the insurance!
If they lose the case against the insurance company, will they go after the insurance company again to cover the costs of the first case? Just repeat forever.
Man, the recording industry lives by their own rules of common sense and decency (or lack thereof).
But you don't make music.
Why are they paying 50M$? Seems to me like they're liable for something.....
When file sharing first came out in the late nineties with Napster and Kazaa the record companies should have jumped on the bandwagon and sued the internet service providers for allowing such a thing to go on over their networks. Then they should have provided a very low-cost subscription service that allowed people to download any song they want at a fraction of the cost of buying a CD. I think a lot of people would have loved to have gone legal with their purchasing of music but the only option was iTunes which came out much later. A lot of people just want to listen to their music but don't want to download and have a copy on their computer. The biggest draw of the file sharing was the variety and people wanted variety and not to have manufactured pop shoved down their throats. I think companies like Rhapsody somewhat get this fact and will become the wave of the future for music.
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