record-labels
RIAA Digital Music Price-Fixing Case Reinstated
Judges note, among other things, that record labels didn’t dramatically lower their prices for online music as compared to physical CDs despite the fact that they “experienced dramatic cost reductions in producing” it. It’s been an open secret that record labels have long colluded with one another to ensure maximum profits with limited competition and consumer choice. A group of plaintiffs has taken the RIAA to court over the matter, and after initially having to watch the case dismissed at the District Court level back in 2008, has now convinced a three-judge panel at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to reinstate the case.
Continue reading »etc: It’s time for The Pirate Bay to pay up, say the record labels, who want a judge to fine the admins about $71,000 because the site is still up and…
It’s time for The Pirate Bay to pay up, say the record labels, who want a judge to fine the admins about $71,000 because the site is still up and running. Read More: PC World
Continue reading »Billy Corgan’s New Album to Be Free Download
Will release 44 tracks, one at a time, beginning later this month, also calls record labels “dead ghosts walking.” Billy Corgan, longtime vocalist and lead guitarist for the various incarnations of alternative rock band The Smashing Pumpkins, has decided to do a bit of experimentation of his own when it comes to releasing an album to his fans. Though he denies being inspired by the likes of Radiohead, who pioneered the art of giving away music for free with their album “In Rainbows,” Corgan plans to do just that with his new album “Teargarden by Kaleidyscope,” releasing each of the 44 tracks as a free download beginning sometime later this month. “No strings attached, no e-mail address need be given, no fees, nothing, totally free,” he told Rolling Stone in an interview.
Continue reading »Oy Tenenbaum! RIAA wins $675,000, or $22,500 per song
A Boston federal jury has ordered Joel Tenenbaum to pay a total of $675,000—$22,500 per song—to the major record labels for willfully infringing 30 songs by downloading and distributing them over the KaZaA peer-to-peer network. The figure is closer to the $222,000 award in the first Jammie Thomas-Rasset trial than the $1.92 million figure from the second trial. The verdict came down at late Friday afternoon after less than three hours of deliberation.
Continue reading »Fate of "hardcore, habitual" infringer Tenenbaum up to jury
Joel Tenenbaum is a “hardcore, habitual, long-term, persistent infringer, who knew what he was doing was wrong and did it anyway,” recording industry attorney Timothy Reynolds argued to the jury who will determine how much the 25-year-old grad student will have to pay for his admitted use of peer-to-peer software to obtain music for free. But it is “hard to imagine an infringer who is lower on th[e] scale [of culpability] than Joel,” countered his counsel, Harvard Law School professor Charles Nesson. “Let the punishment fit the crime.”
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