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Music Media Government The Courts News Your Rights Online

RIAA Admits 70 Cent Price is 'In the Range' 210

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In its professed battle to protect the 'confidentiality' of its 70-cents-per-download wholesale price, the RIAA has now publicly filed papers in UMG v. Lindor in which it admits that the 70-cents-per-download price claimed by the defendant is 'in the range'.(pdf) From the article: 'The pricing data really may not be all that secret. Late in 2005, former New York Attorney General (and current Governor) Eliot Spitzer launched an investigation into price fixing by the record labels, alleging collusion between the major labels in their dealings with the online music industry. Gabriel believes that making the pricing information public would 'implicate [sic] very real antitrust concerns' as the labels are not supposed to share contract information with one another ... Beckerman argues in a letter to the judge that the only reason the labels want to keep this information confidential is to 'serve their strategic objectives for other cases,' which he says does not rise to the legal threshold necessary for a protective order. The proposed order would force the labels to turn over contracts with their 12 largest customers. Most details--such as the identities of the parties--would be kept confidential, but pricing information and volume would not.'"
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RIAA Admits 70 Cent Price is 'In the Range'

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  • by User 956 ( 568564 ) on Thursday January 04, 2007 @06:57PM (#17466378) Homepage
    Gabriel believes that making the pricing information public would 'implicate [sic] very real antitrust concerns'

    Well, if there's one thing record labels have an abundancy of, it's anti-trust.
  • Pricing Comparison (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ided ( 978291 ) on Thursday January 04, 2007 @07:04PM (#17466458)
    If you take a step back and put this into perspective you are able to really get a clear picture of how much money this companies are making on a per track basis. If they are charging .70 to music retailers then consider the following: .99 = iTunes (cheaper if CD is purchased) .93 = CD of 15 songs priced at $16 I recently came across an article suggesting that artists on average get paid around .25 per song. This computes into an estimated profit of roughly .45 per song. Of course compute that into a couple of million songs sold for one major artist and you're looking at $900,000 in profit for the record company. Not to shabby for one major artist. The point being I still see plenty of reports of artists selling this many records on a regular basis. I would find it difficult to do much complaining about profit loss when I am bringing in something like that from one person. All the smaller artists you have can cover costs.
    • by x3rc3s ( 954149 ) on Thursday January 04, 2007 @07:11PM (#17466554)
      No matter how many more songs there are on a disc, an album is nearly always defined as containing 10 songs in a recording contract. And payment is based on that figure to the artist, which means the labels do a good deal better on CD sales than online downloads, though that doesn't account for materials costs I suspose.
      • This baffles me. I got a "double-album" which was 18 tracks on 2 CDs. Why it was on 2 CDs I'll never know, since the total track time was 61 minutes.

        *The album was "Get Away From Me" by Nellie McKay, who reportedly fought long and hard with Sony to put out a "double-album". Apparently her insistence on a double-album for her second album ended her relationship w/ Sony.
        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward
          One CD for the rootkit...
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by hawg2k ( 628081 )
      $0.45 per song sounds high, but if you think about all that they take care of (advertising, risk of producing your album (which if it's your first could be a total loser bringing in no money), etc.), it doesn't sound too rediculous.

      I can't recall where I got this from (TV show, news article?), so it could be wrong, but I think if you're a new "up and commer" artist, your cut is ~ $0.02 - $0.03. And I can't remember if that was per song or per CD! Again these numbers may not be exact, but it puts the RIAA
      • by SydShamino ( 547793 ) on Thursday January 04, 2007 @07:44PM (#17466986)
        $0.45 per song sounds high, but if you think about all that they take care of (advertising, risk of producing your album (which if it's your first could be a total loser bringing in no money), etc.), it doesn't sound too rediculous.

        As I understand it, the production and advertising costs are usually recouped from the artists before they get a cut. In other words, those costs come out of the artists' $0.25, not out of the label's $0.45.
        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by aneurysm36 ( 459092 )
          good time to link this again-

          The Problem With Music
          by Steve Albini
          http://negativland.com/albini.html [negativland.com]
        • by Namarrgon ( 105036 ) on Thursday January 04, 2007 @08:48PM (#17467760) Homepage

          Quite true, and many more costs besides. The artists have to bear the entire cost of creating and selling the album, before they get any royalties.

          Fair enough, you say? Perhaps - except they don't get to keep it. That album, that they conceived, wrote, performed, recorded, marketed and paid for in full, is no longer theirs. Copyright for the album is owned by the LABEL, and NOT the artist. That really sucks.

          Time to link to Steve Vai's words of experience [vai.com] too, on this and the many other nefarious clauses that appear in a standard label contract.
          • by KoshClassic ( 325934 ) on Friday January 05, 2007 @12:28AM (#17469558)
            Not only that, but the record companies often cook the books - which means that the artists have to hire outside auditors at their own expense to try and recoupe royalties from the sales that the record company claims never happened, but also from inflated promotional expenses that come out of the artists cut. Then they usually settle with the record companies for pennies on the dollar. That's the record companies for you - they are supposedly looking out for the artists interest whle at the same time engaging in this sort of practice.

            The top 5 record companies are all far larger than any of their other competitors. That these companies cooperate in any way - like by forming the RIAA - ought to be a huge anti-trust violation.
        • There are two royalties in the $.25 figure, one is the royalty on the recording which is paid to the musicians who played on the track, it needs to recoup. The other is the mechanical which is paid to the songwriter (often times the same as the musicians) which has a regulatory rate of $0.12 a track and is paid for every track sold even before it recoups.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • but if you think about all that they take care of (advertising, risk of producing your album (which if it's your first could be a total loser bringing in no money), etc.), it doesn't sound too rediculous.

        Until you find out that all those expenses are effectively taken from the artist's [salon.com] cut. They have to pay it back...

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by trentblase ( 717954 )
          Not that I support the way labels do business, but of course those expenses are taken from the artist's cut. Do you propose that the record labels promote/produce/etc. for free? Any fee they do charge comes out of the "artist's cut". And if the label spends all that money promoting/producing/etc. and it makes no money, those costs are NOT taken from the artist's cut (because they have no cut, the revenue being 0). It's not like the artist is then expected to get a day job and pay back the initial costs
          • by shark72 ( 702619 )

            "Not that I support the way labels do business, but of course those expenses are taken from the artist's cut. Do you propose that the record labels promote/produce/etc. for free? Any fee they do charge comes out of the "artist's cut". And if the label spends all that money promoting/producing/etc. and it makes no money, those costs are NOT taken from the artist's cut (because they have no cut, the revenue being 0). It's not like the artist is then expected to get a day job and pay back the initial costs (w

    • by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Thursday January 04, 2007 @07:51PM (#17467096) Journal
      The article you "came across" was dead wrong. From every dollar, the most an artist will get is 20 cents and that's only the top few percent of recording artists.

      Do you know how much money MOST recording artists will make from every dollar in record sales? Less than 8 cents, and that's only after all the expenses of the recording, distribution and marketing are paid for. In fact, nearly 1/3 of all recording artists who make records that sell more than 1000 copies (to get past the cases where only family members buy the records), will make exactly NOTHING from record sales. You can't just accept the very highest percentage that the top-paid artists will receive as representative, but look at what the recording industry does as a whole. After all, it's not only the top percent of artists that bring in the greatest portion of the entertainment industry's profits.

      And the back-catalog, that enormous cash-cow of the big record companies, generally pay nearly nothing to the original artists. The composer might make a few cents on the dollar, but only if they didn't relinquish their publishing, which is much more common for new bands than you would think.

      There are better ways for artists to make a living, and for their work to be distributed to consumers. Many have already found them, thank you very much.
      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by tkrotchko ( 124118 ) *
        I'm not quite sure how it works, but the composer always makes money on airplay, I think it's called "Mechanical Royalties". There's an article here: http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/music-royal ties6.htm [howstuffworks.com]

        but I have no idea if it's accurate.
        • Only if they haven't signed over the song to the record company in the first place.. Which is happening more and more.

          As a crazy example, did you know that Michael Jackson gets mechanical royalties for the Beatles' back catalogue?

          Sir Paul is (rightly) pissed about that one, since he doesn't get a dime.
      • by Jah-Wren Ryel ( 80510 ) on Thursday January 04, 2007 @11:02PM (#17468964)
        I recently came across an article suggesting that artists on average get paid around .25 per song.

        The article you "came across" was dead wrong. From every dollar, the most an artist will get is 20 cents and that's only the top few percent of recording artists.

        You misunderstand. The article said, ".25 per song" -- not per dollar, not per copy.
        Just 25 cents total, once and for all.
        • by Zaatxe ( 939368 )
          You misunderstand. The article said, ".25 per song" -- not per dollar, not per copy.
          Just 25 cents total, once and for all.


          Then the rapper 50 Cent must be twice as successful as most artists!
    • All of MP3 charges about a dime a song. That's paying there server costs and making them a profit. Let's add on 20 cents for an artist profit.

      That means a profitable bussiness that had no promotional and production costs for the artist could operate at 30 cents a song. Presumably with higher volume then that could be even lower and still make a profit.

      Thus there's a 40 cent gap here. Surely the cost of promotion and production when ammortized over all artisits (proficable ones and not profitable ones) c
  • Damages (Score:5, Insightful)

    by HappySqurriel ( 1010623 ) on Thursday January 04, 2007 @07:04PM (#17466462)
    If they only make $0.70 wouldn't that imply that for the damages of 1.5 trillion from AllOfMP3.com would only be justified if AllOfMP3.com had uploaded over 2 trillion copies of songs to their users?

    Personally, I suspect that is the reason they wouldn't want their prices known; it destroys the RIAA's ability to sue for massive damages.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Sciros ( 986030 )
      Well, nothing can really justify the claim that AllOfMP3.com is responsible for $1.65 trillion in damages. But I do agree that in general by making their profits more public they will have a tougher time making outrageous claims of losses to piracy.
      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        Out of curiosity, how is AllOfMP3 responsible? They operated within the laws of their country and paid the appropriate fees.

        If the RIAA want their pound of flesh, would they not be better off going after the Russian licensing agency?
        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by repvik ( 96666 )
          Out of curiosity, how is AllOfMP3 responsible? They operated within the laws of their country and paid the appropriate fees.


          They aren't


          If the RIAA want their pound of flesh, would they not be better off going after the Russian licensing agency?


          Yes. But since the RIAA is in the US of A, suing a "innocent" company in another country (with different laws) for ridiculous amounts just might work.

    • by jfengel ( 409917 )
      Not that I'd expect allOfMP3.com to cough up $.70 per download, either. It would put them out of business just as fast.
      • No doubt ...

        If they calculated the damages at $0.70 per download AllOfMP3.com would (likely) be facing damages of $100,000,000 or more which would probably put the company out of buisness. A smart (and well connected) company might consider buying the bankrupt company and attempt to get the legal right to sell the music; a valid argument to make to the RIAA is in places like Russia and China no one is willing to spend more than AllOfMP3.com was already charging for music and AllOfMP3.com would attempt to pr
    • by Harmonious Botch ( 921977 ) on Thursday January 04, 2007 @07:15PM (#17466608) Homepage Journal
      There is a difference between actual damages and statutory damages. Actual damages are an attempt to compensate the victim. Statutory damages are an attempt to include punitive damage in statute law.
      Whether or not this is wise law-making is debatable. I suspect that it would be better to force the victim to sue directly for punitive damages, thus leaving the matter to a judge to determine of the punishment fits the offense.
      • by Misch ( 158807 )
        There is a difference between actual damages and statutory damages. Actual damages are an attempt to compensate the victim. Statutory damages are an attempt to include punitive damage in statute law.

        They can also be used in cases where the actual economic damages are difficult to compute.
      • by DragonWriter ( 970822 ) on Thursday January 04, 2007 @07:57PM (#17467188)
        <blockquote>There is a difference between actual damages and statutory damages. Actual damages are an attempt to compensate the victim. Statutory damages are an attempt to include punitive damage in statute law.
        Whether or not this is wise law-making is debatable. I suspect that it would be better to force the victim to sue directly for punitive damages, thus leaving the matter to a judge to determine of the punishment fits the offense.
        </blockquote>

        This is not quite correct.

        Actual damages are damages proven in court, and are intended to compensate the victim.
        Punitive (also "Exemplary") damages are damages intended to "punish" or "make an example" of the victim (largely as a general and specific deterrent), beyond what compensates the victim.
        Statutory damages are amounts set in statute law in the absence of proven amounts of actual damages (or when the proven amounts are lower); in some cases they are largely compensatory in purpose, and included on the presumption that the kind of harms the statute seeks to provide a remedy for are prohibitively difficult to prove and quantify, and that substituting a default damage amount is a way to provide a reasonable remedy. In other instances, their intent is somewhat punitive in nature, though they are particularly ineffective in that regard as they tend to be superceded by actual damages rather than on top of actual damages.

        <blockquote>Whether or not this is wise law-making is debatable. I suspect that it would be better to force the victim to sue directly for punitive damages, thus leaving the matter to a judge to determine of the punishment fits the offense.
        </blockquote>

        Since the courts have held that punitive damages may only be awarded in a limited proportion to the actual damages proven, this would eliminate the principle role of statutory damages, which is to obviate the need to prove specific actual damages to receive some remedy for certain offenses.

        Certainly, there is an argument that substantive due process analysis of the type that constrains <i>punitive</i> damage awards ought also be applied to statutory damage awards beyond what can be reasonably seen as compensatory, and/or that statutory damage amounts in law serving as a rebuttable presumption of actual damages rather than providing an amount that is available in all cases regardless of circumstances.
      • When I was in a jury selection pool being coached on civil lawsuits, the terms used were compensatory and punitive damages. The first was to compensate for actual losses, the second is just plain punishment. I've never been chosen for actual jury duty so I've never seen the deliberation process.
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by bitt3n ( 941736 )

        There is a difference between actual damages and statutory damages. Actual damages are an attempt to compensate the victim. Statutory damages are an attempt to include punitive damage in statute law. Whether or not this is wise law-making is debatable. I suspect that it would be better to force the victim to sue directly for punitive damages, thus leaving the matter to a judge to determine of the punishment fits the offense.

        I've often wondered why punitive damages are given to the plaintiff, rather than, f

        • I've often wondered why punitive damages are given to the plaintiff, rather than, for example, funneled into law-enforcement programs (such as is presumably done with recovered drug money, etc.).

          Punitive damages are held to serve a public social purpose by deterring, through the harsh example, deliberate wrongdoing—which is where punitive damages are available, generally— they are given to the plaintiff because doing so increases the incentive encourages the plaintiff to file suit where such de

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          If damages were given to the gov't, can you imagine what the laws and rulings we'd end up seeing? It's already bad enough that cops "camp out" on the highways to zap us for going 5 mph over the speed limit in order to generate revenue ...
          • That's funny I always thought they reminded me of Counterstrike.... hmm maybe they should make a game called CopperStrike where all the police go on strike and just start shooting people with sniper rifles instead of radar guns... senseless violence, I suspect it would sell well in the 13 - 21 crowd
        • The purpose of the punitive damages is to punish the defendant. Why should the plaintiff get them?

          Sometimes (ok, rarely) the government does get a cut. But it makes sense to give it to the plaintiff in order to create an incentive to proceed with expensive litigation even when the actual damages are relatively low (which makes it damn hard to get representation). This may be viewed as an unfortunate response to the inefficiency of our regulatory agencies -- in other words, the plaintiff is doing the g
        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          I've often wondered why punitive damages are given to the plaintiff,

          Because their lawyers get a third and lawyers write the laws.

    • Re:Damages (Score:4, Funny)

      by kfg ( 145172 ) on Thursday January 04, 2007 @07:21PM (#17466666)
      I suspect that is the reason they wouldn't want their prices known; it destroys the RIAA's ability to sue for massive damages.

      The damages requested are quite reasonable. Yeah, it's only about a quarter million in actual losses, but the adminstrative expenses run to a trillion and half, especially given that the administrative offices are located in the Cayman Islands.

      KFG
      • Re:Damages (Score:4, Funny)

        by meta-monkey ( 321000 ) on Thursday January 04, 2007 @08:47PM (#17467754) Journal
        Well, yeah. Do you know what a latte costs in the Caymans?! $1.5 Trillion's a little on the light side, I'd say!
        • Re:Damages (Score:5, Funny)

          by kfg ( 145172 ) on Thursday January 04, 2007 @09:10PM (#17468026)
          Do you know what a latte costs in the Caymans?!

          Yeah, I understand it's pretty expensive there. I had a record company executive try to explain it to me once, but he used a lot of financial jargon, like "exchange rate" and "hooker," so I really didn't catch it all.

          Then he walked away singing Titties and beer, titties and beer, titties and beer. . ."

          And all this time I've been laboring under the impression that record company executives weren't particularly fond of Zappa.

          KFG
    • Re:Damages (Score:4, Insightful)

      by qrwe ( 625937 ) * on Thursday January 04, 2007 @07:34PM (#17466858) Homepage Journal
      AllOfMp3:s greatest strength is (in my own opinion) a solution for everyone to choose whatever the music they want in whatever format they want. (Yes, I've tried it..) For example: As I choose Vorbis when ripping my own CD:s and there's poorly of those iTunes-like stores out there offering this format, some people choose allofmp3 just for the opportunity. Plus, you pay only for how many kbps you want the track in. Conclusion: how possibly can anyone claim 0.70 USD for a lossy formatted track where you can't even choose exactly how you want it?
      • Re:Damages (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Jeff DeMaagd ( 2015 ) on Thursday January 04, 2007 @08:15PM (#17467404) Homepage Journal
        Conclusion: how possibly can anyone claim 0.70 USD for a lossy formatted track where you can't even choose exactly how you want it?

        Let's be honest here, the only people that truly cares about these particular details are the nerd-types, and while we are at it, let's be honest enough to say that we are a minority. I would bet that if you approached ten people that you normally wouldn't associate with (or they wouldn't normally associate with you) and ask them what a "lossless" or "lossy" format is, nine or ten of them will say "huh?". In short, most people don't really care about that.
        • by Fweeky ( 41046 )
          Most people don't know what lossy or lossless formats are, but most will understand the implications if they're explained in a context that might matter to them.

          "Future portable players will support formats which allow you to fit 2 or 3 times as much music on them without noticable loss in quality. Do you want to buy a future-proof lossless format which can take advantage of such an advancement in future but will take a bit more space on your PC, or a lossy format which might result in noticable quality lo
        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          Let's be honest here, the only people that truly cares about these particular details are the nerd-types, and while we are at it, let's be honest enough to say that we are a minority. I would bet that if you approached ten people that you normally wouldn't associate with (or they wouldn't normally associate with you) and ask them what a "lossless" or "lossy" format is, nine or ten of them will say "huh?". In short, most people don't really care about that.

          It might be more appropriate to say "They care, they

    • by CODiNE ( 27417 )
      It'll also tell Apple exactly how much everybody else is paying. Since they're the #1 online music seller, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be to happy to find out they're paying more than the rest. This information would give Apple HUGE leverage if it turns out the music industry has been trying to fight Apple by selling the same music cheaper to the competition.
  • ...afford a per-song cost in that range. I think I got spoiled by eMusic recently by getting songs for 22 cents/song. And there was no whole album penalty for anything. I even got long tracks-as-album (60 minute songs) for the same price. Only downsides to eMusic are: 1) only independent artists, so I still miss my Autechre, Boards of Canada, etc., 2) No official/maintained Linux client, just an old one they used to support.
    • by SeaFox ( 739806 )
      2) No official/maintained Linux client, just an old one they used to support.

      I think the fact a client is not required to use the service is one of its strengths. You can download new tracks for yourself anywhere you can get internet access and the ability to save them to a local disc. They allow two songs to download simultaneously at a time so it should be possible to configure any download manager to work under these restrictions.
      • They allow two songs to download simultaneously at a time so it should be possible to configure any download manager to work under these restrictions.

        Actually, they don't restrict the number of simultaneous downloads at all, AFAICT. In moz, you just have to up the number of "persistant connections" and Bob's your uncle. I have mine set to 6 and I can do 6 downloads at once.

        The things I really like about emusic:

        • $0.22 per track. The fact that the RIAA is talking $0.70 wholesale really highlights the fac
        • $0.22 per track. The fact that the RIAA is talking $0.70 wholesale really highlights the fact that they are greedy criminals.

          I think you've done some incorrect currency conversion there. eMusic tracks are $0.33 in the USA and £0.22 in the UK (at the current exchange rate, $0.33 is £0.17, by the way). iTMS, for reference, is $0.99 in the USA and £0.79 in the UK. This makes iTMS 3 times the price in the USA and 3.6 times the price in UK.

  • They make 30 cents a song? Ill do it for 5 cents a song. Where do I sign up?
  • by SenorPez ( 840621 ) on Thursday January 04, 2007 @07:17PM (#17466624) Homepage
    Even at the $0.70 per song mark, you have to consider damages for the pain and suffering of those poor, poor record executives. I mean, honestly: Think about the hours and hours that they spent in their mansions, lying awake on their double-king canopy beds, surrounded by sleeping hookers... and unable to sleep because of the massive injustice being done to their industry.

    Or something like that.

    In all honesty, it's a hard thing to nail down. If I work in a donut factory, there is SOMEONE, even if that person isn't me, who knows how much that donut costs to make, including materials, equipment, labor, shipping, and pesticides. When it comes to things like music, art, etc., how DO you quantify the cost of the artists' talents, the labels' marketing efforts, the RIAA's... something... etc. Even the most talented singer in the world is useless without distribution... and marketing and distribution channels can sometimes (Britney?) overcome a shallow pool of talent.

    That being said, anything that comes out of the multi-mawed beast known as the RIAA is met with instant skepticism. When you spend years upon years intimidating people who may or may not have committed a crime, and many of those that are nominally guilty are in the "OMG, You ate a peanut out of the grocery store bin!" variety, it's hard to find any foothold of remorse in the market. So $0.70 wholesale price might be in the "ballpark." But I don't give a damn.

    • by HappySqurriel ( 1010623 ) on Thursday January 04, 2007 @07:49PM (#17467064)
      The basic structure of the modern music industry was that Music Labels would promote and distribute and Artist's work in exchange for the lion's share of the physical Album's revinue while the artist would still collect the revinue from merchandise, touring and radio play; this (at the time) was a remarkably fair dead because it was expensive to promote and distribute an Artist's work in the pre-internet era.

      The internet has changed everything ...

      The cost to distribute music is no longer significant and a (hard-working) individual can promote themself to a reasonably successful level with very little work; you probably won't sell out stadiums, but you can make a decent living for the rest of your life as an Artist which (from all the Artists I have met) is the dream. Now, Labels exploit artists they do not help them.

      The "Cost" of an Artist's work is a lifetime of developing a skillset that very few people have; it is priceless. The price of an Artist's work per song with how little it costs to distribute the song should be (roughly) the ammount of money the artist is getting.
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by meta-monkey ( 321000 )
        Now, Labels exploit artists they do not help them.

        This depends on the artist. There are an awful lot of pop-idiots, like Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake, who, without the mass-market power of their record labels and publicists would be improverished and completely unknown, and deservedly so. I hardly think these characters are furious with their labels for turning their pretty faces and marginal talents into millions upon millions of dollars. It's the poor schmucks with talent but no marketing savvy
        • Yeah.

          I've seen her goodies.

          Britney couldn't even make it as a *porn star* without her label.

          Hell, she wouldn't make much as a hooker, either!
    • by EtherealStrife ( 724374 ) on Thursday January 04, 2007 @08:25PM (#17467498)
      Detective: Look, there's Lars now, sitting by his pool.
      Kyle: What's the matter with him?
      Detective: This month he was hoping to have a gold plated shark tank bar installed right next to the pool, but thanks to people downloading his music for free he must now wait a few months before he can afford it.
      *Lars crying next to his pool*
      Detective: Come, there's more. Here's Britney Spears' private jet...notice anything? Britney used to have a Gulfstream 4, now she's had to sell it and get a Gulfstream 3 because people like you chose to download her music for free.
      *Britney sighs, depressed*
      Detective: The Gulfstream 3 doesn't even have a remote control for its surround sound dvd system. Still think downloading music for free is no big deal?
      Kyle: We...didn't realize what we were doing...
      Detective: That is the folly of man. Now look in this window. Here you see the loving family of Master P. Next week is his son's birthday and all he's ever wanted is an island in French Polynesia.
      Kyle: So he's going to get it, right?
      Detective: *closes eyes and puts hands on forehead* I see an island without an owner. If thing's keep going the way they are, the child will not get his tropical paradise.
      Stan: We're sorry, we'll never download music for free again!
      Detective: Man must learn to think of these horrible outcomes before he acts selfishly, or else...I fear...recording artists will be forever doomed to a life of only semi-luxury.
    • by BillX ( 307153 )
      In all honesty, it's a hard thing to nail down. If I work in a donut factory, there is SOMEONE, even if that person isn't me, who knows how much that donut costs to make, including materials, equipment, labor, shipping, and pesticides. When it comes to things like music, art, etc., how DO you quantify the cost of the artists' talents, the labels' marketing efforts, the RIAA's... something... etc.

      Well, that makes it easy - it's in the artist's contract. The cost of the artist's talents is what the artist agr
  • Gabriel believes that making the pricing information public would 'implicate [sic] very real antitrust concerns'

    But doesn't this basically mean "if we told everyone the price then people would know it was illegal!"
    • Gabriel believes that making the pricing information public would 'implicate [sic] very real antitrust concerns' But doesn't this basically mean "if we told everyone the price then people would know it was illegal!"

      Haven't read the full text through yet (working on it) but.. I think the answer is.. no.

      Basically their argument goes "we're not suppose to know what each other's prices are.. so we can't tell you either cuz then we'd all know."

      I also could be wrong, flame away.

      -GiH

      • Just because their argument is irrational, don't assume you're missing something.

        In fact you are right.

        And they are the ones missing something.
  • Why the [sic]? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by h4x0r-3l337 ( 219532 )
    Gabriel believes that making the pricing information public would 'implicate [sic] very real antitrust concerns' as the labels are not supposed to share contract information with one another

    Why is there a "[sic]" in there? That is in fact how you spell the word, and it is used correctly in that context (having the meaning "imply" or "entail").

    • Why is there a "[sic]" in there? That is in fact how you spell the word, and it is used correctly in that context (having the meaning "imply" or "entail").

      Imply, implicate, and entail are NOT synonyms.

      Implicate can mean "to require as a necessary circumstance", i.e, a prerequisite (not a result). Here, the antitrust concerns would arise *as a result of* disclosure of the pricing information. Even "imply" would not be correct here, but "entail" would be OK.
  • by snowleopard10101 ( 964540 ) on Thursday January 04, 2007 @09:07PM (#17468006) Homepage
    RIAA's name should be changed to MAFIAA. MAFIAA: Music and Film Industry Association of America
  • I wonder... (Score:5, Funny)

    by OriginalSpaceMan ( 695146 ) on Friday January 05, 2007 @12:39AM (#17469628)
    What does 50 cent think of this knowledge? Maybe he'll sue for the back-owed 20 cent difference? ... sorry, I had to.
  • These are publicly traded corporations. Their contracts should damn well be public.

    For everyone else, a non-public contract should be viewed by the courts as highly suspect. The existance of secret contracts exposes people to fraudulent modification of the contracts. If it's not public, it should be damn difficult to enforce.

The means-and-ends moralists, or non-doers, always end up on their ends without any means. -- Saul Alinsky

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