About those damages...
Well - it seems that there's a judge out there willing to question bozo damage claims from the RIAA:
A US COURT is forcing the Recording Industry of America to explain why it charges people it catches pirating $750 a single rather than the 70 cents they flog them to retailers for.
Sounds right to me. If the label sells the good for $X, then the presumed damage would be $X. Anything beyond that is into the punitive realm. The RIAA doesn't much like this:
The RIAA fought to prevent the amendment to Ms Lindor's case, claiming it was not up to her to decide damages. They said that her complaint about the level of damages was without merit and if the amendment went ahead it would prejudice them.
Cry me a river. My sympathy for the labels dried up and blew away a long, long time ago. Which reminds me - David Geffen is justifying the "Zune Tax" this way:
David Geffen, the media omniboss, is quoted: 'Each of these devices is used to store unpaid-for material...' The new business rationale is that stolen music should be paid for by profit sharing of newly sold Zune music players.
The raw stupidity of the labels continues to amaze me. Hey Geffen: you can take the Zune, and this "all my customers are criminals" attitude and stick it. As for MS: I won't be buying a Zune, and I'll be advising other people not to as well. When MS wants to take a "our customers aren't crooks" stand, perhaps one of the Zune guys could make an announcement on that.
Comments
[Tom Sattler] November 10, 2006 16:21:03.241
When I was a kid, I didn't have any money. None of my friends had any money either. But we were able to scrounge up enough to go to the local record store and buy a big bulk pack of blank cassette tapes (I liked TDK; some of my friends liked Maxell). Whenever somebody got an album, we'd all give the lucky receiver one of our blank cassettes, and he'd copy the album for us. That was the source of our music in those days. Good thing there was no RIAA around then, or we'd be in a prison somewhere eating rats.
Will the music industry ever move on ?
[Yann Monclair] November 10, 2006 19:25:51.222
I wonder how long it will take the music industry to realize that our comsumer habits are evolving. They have to change their business patterns. I think p2p and sharing music for free online is threatening the totalitarian regim that rules music world until now. Maybe it's utopic and simplistic, but a little rethinking of your business isn't always a bad thing.
[] November 11, 2006 2:28:16.270
Say this pay for stolen music tax worked quite well up here in Canada, where we paid a extra tax on CD/DVD and music device. Too bad the courts then decided the music industry couldn't sue users *again* for stealing content because they already paid for having stolen music on their music devices.