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CD Price-Fixing Suit Ruling 292

Posted by michael from the money-for-nothing dept.
Jay Langhurst writes "As the AP reported Friday, if you filed a claim before March 3, 2003 online or otherwise you'll be getting a gift in the mail from those monopolistic music companies in the form of a check for about $13!"
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CD Price-Fixing Suit Ruling More

CD Price-Fixing Suit Ruling

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  • I dunno... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Huxley_Dunsany ( 659554 ) <huckdunsany@@@mac...com> on Saturday June 14, 2003 @12:45PM (#6200012)
    I'm still waiting for my check from Bill Gates... I must've forwarded that email to a billion people! :-) Huxley

  • $13.00! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 14, 2003 @12:45PM (#6200021)
    Now I can go and buy another CD!

    • Re:$13.00! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Master Bait ( 115103 ) on Saturday June 14, 2003 @12:53PM (#6200067) Homepage Journal
      I'm going to donate my $13 to the EFF.

      • Re:$13.00! (Score:5, Informative)

        by jsse ( 254124 ) on Saturday June 14, 2003 @01:10PM (#6200172) Homepage Journal
        I'm going to donate my $13 to the EFF.

        Let me make the job easiler for everyone. :)

        EFF [eff.org]
        FSF [fsf.org]

        • Re:$13.00! (Score:5, Informative)

          by jdunlevy ( 187745 ) on Saturday June 14, 2003 @01:26PM (#6200260) Homepage
          Might also consider sending your $13 (and/or other money you want to give to a good cause) to the Future of Music coalition [futureofmusic.org], which describes itself [futureofmusic.org] as "a not-for-profit think tank based in Washington, DC that strives for the creation of a musicians' middle class. The FMC's primary goal is to educate musicians and the public at large about some of the critical issues that are shaping the policy debate in the music/technology space." They're decidedly anit-RIAA and pro-musician and favor alternatives to RIAA-controlled distribution.

          • Donate To Chewplastic (Score:5, Interesting)

            by KU_Fletch ( 678324 ) <bthomas1@NOsPam.ku.edu> on Saturday June 14, 2003 @02:31PM (#6200601)
            In the ultimate move of spite, take the $13 the RIAA is settling with and give it back to Jesse Jordan [chewplastic.com], the student who's life savings was taken by the RIAA in a "symbolic move." It's his money, we're just giving it back to him.
            • SOMEONE mod that up! Damn not having mod points, this is a great idea. Thats where my $13 is going, I already donate to the EFF and the ACLU

            • Re:Donate To Chewplastic (Score:5, Interesting)

              by jerkychew ( 80913 ) on Saturday June 14, 2003 @04:53PM (#6201186) Homepage
              You may not need to.

              Check out his site - he's already received over $10,000 in donations since the settlement.
              • I noticed that his donations went up very soon after the suggestion was posted to Slashdot.
                • Yeah, sometimes Slashdot has an impact either than on bandwidth costs...

                  I'm donating my 13 sawbucks to this poor kids fund. I just hope that it doesn't get sucked up by the RIAA or the legal system.

                  Bastards...

                  But, as of 17:51 here's this post from Chewplastic:

                  "Thanks to the many generous people that have donated, I have recovered over 83% of my money lost to the RIAA. "

                  Whee! We CAN make a difference!

                  SB

            • Also Donate to This Guy the RIAA Screwed (Score:5, Informative)

              by KU_Fletch ( 678324 ) <bthomas1@NOsPam.ku.edu> on Saturday June 14, 2003 @10:37PM (#6202492)
              As was mentioned on Chewplastic's site, we might want to consider also doanting to Daniel Peng [arbornet.org], another student who was hit by the RIAA at the same time. He seems to be having a harder time getting donations since he hasn't had as much media attention as Jesse Jordan did. Plus Jesse seems like he's not that far from getting his money back and I know the RIAA is sending out a WHOLE LOTTA CHECKS.

              On a brief sidenote, this makes me very proud in the redeming qualities of the Internet and the overwhelming spirit of helping the Davids of the world fight thier Goliaths.

        • FSF? (Score:5, Funny)

          by siskbc ( 598067 ) on Saturday June 14, 2003 @06:08PM (#6201504) Homepage
          For only 70 cents a day, you can make sure that a needy child refers to Linux as GNU/Linux.

    • Re:$13.00! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 14, 2003 @12:59PM (#6200103)
      In other news, RIAA announced a new minimum price of $14 per CD.

    • I'll be honest (Score:5, Funny)

      by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Saturday June 14, 2003 @01:00PM (#6200107) Homepage
      That $13.00 will go towards the monthly fee for my DSL, so that I may continue to use Kazaa.
    • That penalty was a slap on the wrist, but consumers can really punish the recording industry by boycotting them. [dontbuycds.org] Let CDs gather dust on the shelves.

    • Re:$13.00! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by ianmorris ( 644822 )
      i could get 13 songs on apple music store for that money

  • $13? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Mister Black ( 265849 ) on Saturday June 14, 2003 @12:46PM (#6200028)
    Strange that the settlement payout is about the price of a new CD. Coincidence?
    • Here in Canada, a CD is typically $19.99 + tax. (In Manitoba, it's 14% - 7% GST, 7% PST) Total cost of CD = $22.79.

      However, I do not believe that the ruling in question applies to Canada. (I haven't read the article -- keep getting distracted by Blazing Saddles. :)
      • Unless I go to BestBuy, a new CD in most stores around here are $17 + sales tax.

        • Funny thing is that the new CDs at Best Buy are usually around $13 or $14, but the older ones are like $17 to $21. That kinda sucks.

          • Funny thing is that the new CDs at Best Buy are usually around $13 or $14, but the older ones are like $17 to $21. That kinda sucks.

            It really sucks. There are old albums I've paid for twice already, once on vinyl and again on tape. If I want it on CD, it costs me another $20, more than I paid for the vinyl and tape combined. The music I'm talking about is 20-30 years old -- it's not like the RIAA hasn't made enough money off of it already. And many of the performers are dead. How does the artificial

  • Wow! (Score:5, Funny)

    by The Bungi ( 221687 ) <thebungi@gmail.com> on Saturday June 14, 2003 @12:47PM (#6200029) Homepage
    $13.00? I'd probably get more for recycling my stash of AOL CDs.

  • free money? (Score:4, Funny)

    by rot26 ( 240034 ) * on Saturday June 14, 2003 @12:47PM (#6200030) Homepage Journal
    Doh! Now I wish I had bought all my music instead of debo-ing it from napster. Just think what I could do with $13.

  • When.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Nagatzhul ( 158676 ) on Saturday June 14, 2003 @12:49PM (#6200045)
    do they lower the prices?
    • They already have, sorta. When I got my first CD player in '84 or '85, I paid $15 a pop for cds. I haven't bought one in years, but they are still about $15 each. Lets look at the cost of everything else, or at least a base pay reference. Minimum wage was about $3.35 an hour. Today minimum wage is around $6/hr. So you've halved the amount of time you got to work a McJob in order to buy that new CD you want.

  • RIAA Numbers (Score:5, Funny)

    by Paddyish ( 612430 ) on Saturday June 14, 2003 @12:49PM (#6200048)
    What they forgot to mention was that the RIAA will claim that the $13 should actually be $0.13 due to the extreme value of a dollar.

  • The heck with that, I want lower prices. (Score:5, Funny)

    by drdanny_orig ( 585847 ) * on Saturday June 14, 2003 @12:53PM (#6200065)
    Now that it's been decided they're guilty, can we expect a roll-back of prices? I wouldn't pay $19.99 list for God's Own Words® let alone Madonna's.

    • RTFA (Score:4, Informative)

      by missing000 ( 602285 ) on Saturday June 14, 2003 @12:59PM (#6200097)
      It clearly says it's a settlement.

      Now, you would have had to read a whole 6 words to figgure that out, so posting a question was so much easier.

      Just to clear things up a bit more, since you won't read the article, here is a quote:

      " The defendants â" Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Music Distribution, Warner-Elektra-Atlantic Corp., Universal Music Group and Bertelsmann Music Group, and retailers Tower Records, Musicland Stores and Transworld Entertainment â" deny any wrongdoing. Attorneys representing the companies declined to testify in court. "

      • Re:RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)

        by $carab ( 464226 ) on Saturday June 14, 2003 @01:08PM (#6200151) Journal
        That's right.

        So everyone who's getting the money has agreed that the music companies didn't fix prices.

        In effect, if you're getting that 13 dollar check, don't bitch about the cost of CDs, you lost that right when you agreed to the settlement.

  • Use the money (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Trolling4Dollars ( 627073 ) on Saturday June 14, 2003 @12:54PM (#6200073) Journal
    to send a donation to xiph.org or towards the purchase of software that uses Ogg Vorbis. That will really screw their plans if enough of us do it.
  • Well, that seems to be enough to buy a CD at Best Buy or otherwise. Not half bad if you consume a lot of music; you just got a freebie!

  • Wow, a whole $13 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Schlemphfer ( 556732 ) on Saturday June 14, 2003 @12:55PM (#6200077) Homepage
    I'm looking forward to receiving my $13. I bought a hundred or so CDs between 1988 and last year, so I figure this check covers about 1% of the total I've been overcharged. In any case, the recording industry will never get another nickel from me. The RIAA disgusts me so much that I've stopped buying new CD's entirely. Now I just buy used, listen to it a while, and sell it. The money I save goes to seeing the musicians I like perform locally, and sometimes to buying higher margin stuff at their shows, like T-shirts and so forth.

    We've got the recording industry in a vulnerable spot. It's time to withhold cash from them and go in for the kill.

    • Not quite. $13 may represent 1% of the total you paid for 100 CDs but unless you are saying they should have been free I don't think you can say the settlement is only giving you 1% of what you were overcharged.

      • Free? Do the math. The poster probably bought the CDs at prices between $15-$20. Assuming he/she bought 100 CDs, he/she values them between $2-$7. Not free.

        Maybe $2 is a low figure, but $7 isn't. The costs for the disk, packaging, shipping, and operating a retail chain can't be more than $2 per CD. If it is, they are a bunch of stupid fucktards who can't run a business and should be smothered into the ground. A $5 profit split between the musician, label, and store is more than plenty.

  • what ever you do, don't buy a cD! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pioneer ( 71789 ) on Saturday June 14, 2003 @12:56PM (#6200086) Homepage
    Yeah yeah... 13$ is about the price of a CD... so whatever you don't feed it right back into the machine that is the RIAA... instead go donate it to a good cause like the couple below (no affiliation)

    boycott-riaa.com [boycott-riaa.com]

    digital-consumer.org [digitalconsumer.org]

    do something useful and fight this idiotic RIAA crap!

    • Re:what ever you do, don't buy a cD! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by linuxbaby ( 124641 ) * on Saturday June 14, 2003 @01:17PM (#6200207)
      That's like saying 'Never buy software' because you don't like Microsoft.

      At CD Baby [cdbaby.com] we work directly with 38,000 musicians (NO record labels) that are selling their music direct to the world.

      Just like we should all support the independent programming projects [slashdot.org] when possible, you should support independent music so that these big record labels will have to reinvent themselves or die.

      Hurt the record labels, not the musicians themselves. Do a musician a favor. Bypass the labels. Buy direct [cdbaby.com] . (My little store alone has paid over $3 million directly to musicians [cdbaby.org] in the last couple years.)

      (See our flavor [cdbaby.com] galleries for some real creative browsing.)

    • Re:what ever you do, don't buy a cD! (Score:5, Informative)

      by yamcha666 ( 519244 ) on Saturday June 14, 2003 @01:25PM (#6200250)
      Or better yet ... Buy a CD from an indie band covered under an Indie label - Actually, for how much indie bands charge for their CD's, you could probably get 2 of 'em for $13. If you need a head start on where to look, I suggest All Or Nothing Records [allornothingrecords.com]. You can buy one of their band's CD's for $8 off the online store.

      Indie bands need the support, plus, they appreciate their fans' support. Win-Win situation.
  • I really didn't expect to get any money from it, especially after it was posted on /. If enough people signed up to make it too expensive to send out too small of a check, they were just going to give donations to charity. I'm certainly suprised to see it's at $13 a chack, as opposed to the maximum $20.

    How should I spend this moeny? Maybe we can start some sort of collective slashdot "Anti-RIAA/MPAA fund" out of all the checks we get. I doubt we could all agree on 1 use for the moeny that hurts the RIAA

    • How should I spend this moeny? Maybe we can start some sort of collective slashdot "Anti-RIAA/MPAA fund" out of all the checks we get. I doubt we could all agree on 1 use for the moeny that hurts the RIAA, but it's sure be nice (and fun).

      You should listen to the RIAA more often. All we would need to do is make a new p2p sharing program.

  • Only $13? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 14, 2003 @01:04PM (#6200129)
    I own about 500 CDs. $13.00 works out to about two and a half cents per CD. Is that all they were gouging me for?

  • Stop seeing it as a $13 issue (Score:4, Insightful)

    by MoThugz ( 560556 ) on Saturday June 14, 2003 @01:06PM (#6200133) Homepage
    It's actually $45.5 million out of RIAA pockets in total. Sure, not that much considering the size of RIAA. But at least they'll feel the pinch.

    Now that we have precedence, maybe there should be waves upon waves of this class action. If there is relentless waves of such cases, hopefully the RIAA will get the point, and look at other distribution models more carefully...

    Not that I'm holding my breath anyway.

    • Re:Stop seeing it as a $13 issue (Score:5, Insightful)

      by alienw ( 585907 ) <alienw@slashdot.gmail@com> on Saturday June 14, 2003 @01:23PM (#6200232)
      You can't have 'waves upon waves' of suits for the same issue. The case has been settled. It's over. You can't sue them again, unless you excluded yourself from the class action.

      Also, it IS a $13.00 issue. Let's see, the recording industry got at least hundreds of dollars from almost every person here ($100 = about 7 or 8 CDs). A few will get $13.00 back. Who wins, you or the RIAA?

      Also, a $45M settlement is pennies for the RIAA. They will not feel anything. They would feel the pain if this was 2 billion or even 500 million, but not for $45M.
      • Crap. According to this [musiccdsettlement.com] (which is supposed to be in this frameset [musiccdsettlement.com]) the deadline is past for excluding myself.

        I never included myself, so I don't get a settlement, and I don't care about that because I didn't want those settlement terms, anyway.

        But since I didn't explicitly exclude myself, does that mean I've lost all legal options to pursue a claim that they conspired to price gouge me?
        • A lot of people don't realize that class action law-suits are more of a protection for the parties being sued (like the RIAA) than anything else. It means that they can deal with the issue once, and then not have to worry about more litigation later on for the same issue.

          As a lot of people here are discussing, it was up to THEM to either join or explicitly exlude themselves from the suit. Even if they didn't know about it, they're screwed from future actions similar to this.
    • There is no precedent. This is a settlement. In the eyes of the court, the fact question whether the recordingf industry has fixed prizes has not been determined yet.

  • Don't spend it on more RIAA! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Do something symbolic and start to discover all the amazing musicians out there that DIDN'T sell their soul to a big record label.

    They're really not just garage bands anymore. Go browse your favorite style of music over at CD Baby [cdbaby.com], and check out their editor's picks. Really amazing stuff there, and all of your money goes directly to the MUSICIAN [cdbaby.com] not to the very record labels who this lawsuit was against!

  • $13? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NoInfo ( 247461 ) on Saturday June 14, 2003 @01:06PM (#6200142) Homepage Journal
    Umm, only $13? Good thing 'we' 3.5 million people settled this case. </sarcasm>

    The real winners here, of course, are the lawyers. A large portion of the remaining $23.3 million goes to them.

    Just a hunch, but I imagine it comes out to a tad more than $13 for each for them.

    IANAL, but right now I wish I was.

  • It's been said before but: (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This settlement is a rip-off. By far not a long term solution. I guess the only benefit than can be gotten from it is if people donate their newly acquired riches to xiph.org or a similarly focused group. At least that way we're looking at a more long-term solution to combatting artificially inflated prices.

  • Wow: $13... (Score:3, Funny)

    by skryche ( 26871 ) on Saturday June 14, 2003 @01:26PM (#6200262) Homepage
    Will I have my hair cut, get my car hot-waxed, or buy a $13 hammer?
    • I vote for the $13 hummer

  • this was the same site (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    that was DOS'd for the last few days before march 3 2003. makes you wonder if the riaa did that to recude the number of payouts or total dollar amount. i own thousands of CD's and couldn't get onto that damn site, even at 3 AM!

  • iTunes Music Store (Score:2, Insightful)

    by theraccoon ( 592935 ) *

    Hey, that's 13 songs I can download from the iTunes Music Store [applemusic.com]!!

  • 13 bucks (Score:3, Funny)

    by frovingslosh ( 582462 ) on Saturday June 14, 2003 @01:35PM (#6200301)
    gee, 13 bucks, no matter how many CDs I bought. And they obviously just keep on price fixing.

  • it's not going to stop (Score:3, Interesting)

    by anthony_dipierro ( 543308 ) on Saturday June 14, 2003 @01:40PM (#6200326) Journal

    Plaintiffs allege that the Defendants conspired to illegally raise the prices of prerecorded Music Products by implementing Minimum Advertised Price policies, in violation of State and Federal laws.

    I thought that was illegal... Now someone explain to me, why is it that I still hear so many commercials saying "prices so low we're not even allowed to say them here!" And then someone else tell me, where can I buy popular dvds wholesale?

  • From the article: Of the total settlement, $75.7 million would be distributed in the form of 5.6 million music CDs sent to libraries and schools throughout the nation

    $75.7 million/5.6 million CDs = $13.52 per CD. But isn't that the 'fixed' price for CDs? Wasn't this suit about how they should be priced much lower?

    This strikes me much like the proposed settlement in the Microsoft case that had them distributing several hundred milliion dollars worth of software and operating systems to schools. In that case, it was a little bit more blatant, since it was obviously an attempt to use the settlement to undercut Apple's education market without fear of repercussions. In both, though, the settlement is for an inflated dollar value that doesn't really reflect the cost of the product they're distributing.

    -T

  • You know, when this story was floating around, I would try to share it with everyone and the replies were "We wont get shit, why should I waste my time, its spam, etc."

    Now I will have $13 and they will not. $13? Thats a free pizza + a good tip for the driver.

    I love class action lawsuits!

  • They want what for $13? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pherris ( 314792 ) on Saturday June 14, 2003 @01:58PM (#6200440) Homepage Journal
    From "Questions and Answers" [musiccdsettlement.com] :
    Include your full name, business name if you are filing on behalf of a business, your complete address, your telephone number with area code, your date of birth, including the year, and the last four digits of your Social Security Number.
    There doesn't seem that be any mention about what happens to this data after the settlement. Is it legal for someone connected to this action to sell it?

    That's ok, keep your money and I'll settle my claim via kazaa.

  • They've already weaseled a way around it (Score:5, Interesting)

    by splanky ( 598553 ) on Saturday June 14, 2003 @02:10PM (#6200502)
    Just a heads-up, I'm biased as I work at a record store...

    The Eagles just released a single and instead of selling it through everybody, they only are selling it through one retailer! So even though the "price fixing" lawsuit finished, by selling through only one retailer, the music consumer ends up paying a higher price because the retailer doesn't have to compete for business. Using this Eagles single and the new Metallica as an example:

    The new Metallica: loads of competition. Best Buy price for first week: 9.99. Wholesale price to record stores (and Best Buy): 11 bucks and change. Net Margin? Negative!

    The Eagles DVD single. no competition. Best Buy price: 6.99. Wholesale price to record stores (and Best Buy): 4-5 bucks. Net Margin? 28-40%

    Also, compare the price of that DVD single with others --- a lot of DVD singles have run only a couple of bucks (heck, the last McCartney DVD single was actually FREE to encourage people to buy the full length) --- so in this case the manufacturer actually raised their price also because there would be no competition on it.

    The frustrating thing about this is that the Eagles are directly responsible - they made this big deal about leaving all the major record companies - but when they did, they made even worse decisions than the major record companies did - independent record stores like mine are locked out from selling the record, while the one major company makes big bucks on it. Considering all the BS Don Henley gives about fighting corporations and such, he's just a washed up hypocrite.

    • The new Metallica: loads of competition. Best Buy price for first week: 9.99. Wholesale price to record stores (and Best Buy): 11 bucks and change. Net Margin? Negative!

      Just want to point out that the new Metallica CD contains an 80 minute DVD containing live performances of the entire album. Typically "free" DVDs are about 20 minutes, so you get quite a deal with this.

      • Totally... For all the pissing we do on record companies (and they deserve *a lot* of it!!), every now and then they come out with stuff that is actually a very fair (or even good) deal. The new Metallica is a good example - the free DVD, the long length of the album, IMHO a very good album, and the reasonable price... It shows what happens when you've got tough competition and a free market working - Metallica (contrary to popular opinion) is a very, very savvy band. They knew to get their fans into the

      • Re:They've already weaseled a way around it (Score:5, Funny)

        by lactose99 ( 71132 ) on Saturday June 14, 2003 @03:39PM (#6200872)
        Just want to point out that the new Metallica CD contains an 80 minute DVD containing live performances of the entire album. Typically "free" DVDs are about 20 minutes, so you get quite a deal with this.

        Beauty (and value, in this case) is in the eye of the beholder. I'd akin an 80 minute Metallica live DVD with getting a root canal by a epileptic dentist.

        • Re:They've already weaseled a way around it (Score:4, Informative)

          by angle_slam ( 623817 ) on Saturday June 14, 2003 @03:52PM (#6200915)
          If you don't like Metallica, obviously, you're not a target for the new album. But let's you do like a band somewhat, but are reluctant to buy CDs. Wouldn't you be more likely to buy an audio CD if it came with an 80 minute DVD for free? Sure, you could download it, but an uncompressed copy will be multiple Gigs and a compressed copy would not be of good quality.
  • Now that it has been decided that there was price-fixing for Jan 1, 1995 to Dec 22, 2000; what about Dec 23, 2000 - Now?

    Will prices of CDs go down? Will there be another class-action?

    Will the prices go up? Will the RIAA say "We just had a lawsuit and we would cut CD prices, but there is still file-sharing and cannot afford it."

    Lots of questions, no answers.

  • But i dont agree with the ruling. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Saturday June 14, 2003 @04:24PM (#6201054) Homepage Journal
    And i never signed the form, does that mean i can still sue?

    I have over 500 LEGAL cds in my collection. I am owed more then a tiny 13 dollars.

    • I don't have nearly 500 CDs (ok, maybe a couple hundred - all legal) and agree $13 is a bit small, but its more than I expected.

      Unfortunately, I don't see this affecting the prices of CDs now. If new CDs were to drop to about $10 (maybe $15 for a double disc set) they'd pull in a lot more business.

      Well, that an cancelling Madonna's contract and killing all the manufactured crap thats out now. Anyone catch her last video? Is it me or did it sound like a rake on a chalkboard to everyone else too?

  • RIAA will probably keep me from getting it (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MonkeyBoyo ( 630427 ) on Saturday June 14, 2003 @04:27PM (#6201071)
    If they notify me via email that looks like spam I will probably just delete it. Same thing if it is paper mail that looks like junk mail.

    Somebody, when they start the refunds please post info on what the refund looks like.

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