Slashdot Mirror
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."
...that the law to disconnect copyright infringers from the internet would have gone through.
Agreed to indemnify if Universal lost the case. In this scenario, Universal refused to accept responsibility. Hence they can't get their money from insurer. Or they could accept liability and responsibility, and open themselves for more lawsuits.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
$50 million to compensate for hundreds of thousands of infringing uses of sound recordings.
$50 million is only like 2 or 3 pirated mp3's here in the states.
Required reading for internet skeptics
Still, it boils down to media company vs. insurance company vs. lawyers, and I think it's pretty obvious the only winner out of that triumvirate is going to be lawyers. Oh well, I guess two out of three will just have to do.
You're forgetting the rule that nobody out-evils an insurance company. After all, someone had to teach it to the lawyers...
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
My car insurance has a lot of provisions like "... void if vehicle is driven under the influence ...", "... void if vehicle is used in criminal activities ..." (i.e. smashing while being chased by the police gives no relief).
I would assume most insurances have exclusions if a crime has been involved. Copyright violation is theft, right?
Legally they may be in their right. Morally, not so much. They actually settled for 5$ million _less_ than they had already agreed to pay. And now they are trying to get the insurer to pay the money they already should have paid if they hadn't frauded and there wouldn't have been a case in the first place.
This is just sickening greed. They already got a profit of 5$ million dollars out of their cheating and are now seeking even more rewards for their fraud. If this isn't legally wrong, it should be.
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
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.
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.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
So if they've got insurance for copyright indemnity - why are they chasing John Doe cases when they can just claim on their insurance instead?
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.
Actually if you did this you'd get a trillion dollar fine. This is a $200 payment for each song they infringed. Not per copy, per song. They sold them over and over and over and over. They paid a microscopic fraction of the profit they made by selling songs they did not have rights to.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
Not too far wrong. Jobs' salary was tiny, but he got a lot of share options. When Apple's value increased by 8,000%, Jobs made an enormous pile of money. If Apple's value had gone down, he'd have made $1/year (or lost money, depending on whether he exercised his options). Ideally, you'd pay your CEO something close to minimum wage (enough to live on, because you don't want only independently rich people to be qualified, but not enough to make them rich, or even particularly comfortably off), but then you'd link all of the rest of their income to the company's performance. Even more ideally, you'd set up their share options so that they couldn't sell the majority until five years after they left, so if they didn't choose a competent successor and leave the company in a long-term manageable state they'd lose too. With share options set up the way they currently are, it's typically a good strategy for a CEO to make massive cuts to R&D, wait for the share price to increase as the short-term profits double from not investing anything in growth, and then quit the company, sell the shares, and find another company to break.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I do understand the way you feel, and it is a valid objection, but just for argument's sake, imagine you see a beggar in the street, and you know he's homeless and hungry, and you want to help by giving him some money, but there's a big Maffia thug (obviously well fed, with a fancy car parked across the street) standing next to him and declaring that for every dollar you give to the bum, you have to give 20 dollars to the thug. Would you still give the money to the bum? Or would you walk away? Of course the beggar might say "but the thug is protecting me, he got me this spot, without him I wouldn't be able to beg here!". Still, I don't think many people would help the bum.
Now of course I do understand that this is the only way for many artists to get a living, and by not buying their music we are denying them their little bit of income, but that justification gets weaker and weaker the more you here about abuse by the labels. The thugs are even snatching the pennies away whenever the bums aren't looking. And they are denying them the right to do anything without them, treating them like slaves. And why should I pay for a ringtone, for example? In that case, the artist isn't getting anything whatsoever, thanks to some lawsuit the greedy labels won! This sort of bull shit takes away 90% of the motivation from people who might turn from piracy to decent buying.
Yes, there's still a little bit of a feeling left of "doing the decent thing", and "supporting the artists", but not as much as there could be if the labels were honest.
Would a long time pirate want to legalize his music collection by paying $1000 to the artists once he got well off financially? Maybe, seriously. Would he pay $10 to the artists and $990 to the labels? After reading one of many articles about the labels ripping off the artists? No way.
Now of course I do understand that this is the only way for many artists to get a living, and by not buying their music we are denying them their little bit of income
Why do people keep throwing this argument into the air?!?!?! NO! No they are not getting their living from that. They are not even REMOTELY getting a living from that.
CONCERTS! LIVE SHOWS! THAT'S where they get money. They do not get money from the labels (ignoring the handful of pennies mentioned above, which is a microscopic fraction of what they make playing live).
You can't make one song and then live off of it forever, just like I can't build someone's house and keep getting paid by them for as long as they live there. Life doesn't work that way. Why do people keep thinking artists have a free pass to infinite money after making a song?
Coincidentally, tonight I will be seeing a band live. I paid for the ticket, and I plan to buy a shirt. Multiply that by hundreds or thousands of people, almost every day for as long as their tour is. THAT is how they can feed and clothe themselves.
No, what's immoral is the life+70 years monopoly before it enters the public domain, DMCA, and many other faults of copyright law. The ludicrously long term hinders creativity. The DMCA makes backing up data you've paid good money for illegal.
Keeping what I've already paid for away from me is immoral. Taking what belongs to we, the people (art and literature) is immoral. Copyright law is in terrible need of reform. Power needs to be taken form the entertainment companies and given to the people who actually create the art and literature.
How is that life+75 years going to entice Jimi Hendrix of Janice Joplin to produce more works? It doesn't. It's a disincentive to the record companies to record someone new; they can still make money off the old. Make the term 20 years and an artist won't be able to retire on the revenues of a single work.
Free Martian Whores!
OMG, ain't that the truth. Last winter, I was driving the kids home from school when a woman lost control of her SUV, slid through an intersection in front of me, and caused me to run into her. Everyone was mostly OK (and the kids were thrilled - "that was awesome, Dad!") but my car needed a little work and I wrenched my back.
I went to a chiropractor (read about my previous experiences before you start in) for a few visits and felt great afterward. The body shop did a nice job fixing my car. When everything was done, her insurer, GEICO-the-thieving-bastards, called me to offer a settlement. I wasn't about to sue them or anything, but they basically wanted to buy my agreement to end the matter once and for all. It was a small amount - let's call it $1,000 for roundness - but I was willing to cash the check they were offering to write. It sounded fair.
So the check came, for $200. As it turns out, they hadn't paid any of my medical bills and not all of my car repair bills. That $1,000 settlement included the final payments on the bills those assholes were already legally obligated to pay. I checked with the state board of insurance, but they thought it was a perfectly reasonable thing for GEICO-the-thieving-bastards to do.
I am physically incapable of seeing a commercial for GEICO-the-thieving-bastards without yelling "fuck you, lizard!" at the TV. When the zombie apocalypse happens, that's one pack of jackasses who won't be allowed in my bunker. I'll wait for them to get eaten or infected and double-tap them for pleasure.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?