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."

Comments

Re:Hmmm.

[TheRaven64]

I always have heard that CEO's and other directors gets higher pay because they do job of many

Nope, they get higher pay because their actions make more of a difference to the overall profitability of a company. Look at what Carly Fiorina did to HP or Steve Jobs did to Apple to see how much of a difference a CEO can make in either direction. The difference between a good engineer and a bad engineer is a lot less to a typical company's bottom line. The problem is that Carly got paid over $20m for almost destroying the company, so the incentives are completely wrong. Do a bad job and you make a lot of money, do a good job and you make a crazy amount of money.

Re:Canadian dollar slipping?

[James McGuigan]

$50,000,000 / $80,000 * 0.98 USD/CAD = 612 MP3s
612 MP3s * 6Mb = 3.675 Gb

In other words, this is the price of a single pirated iPod shuffle.

Hammer Clause?

[Mal-2]

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.)