Hey Gang,
Check out this Reuters (New York) article on 43 US states and Commonwealths suing the US recording industry. Basically there's a 67.4 million dollar penalty and then they'll be required to donate 75.7 million dollars worth of CDs to public entities and non-profit organizations. While I think it's great that they're in trouble, paying a penalty of 143.1 million dollars is a drop in the bucket for the companies involved (AOL/Time Warner, Sony, Universal, BMG, EMI, Tower records, Musicland, and TransWorld Entertainment). Is it just me or could these guys afford a couple billion in penalties for decades of price fixing? Furthermore they only have to pay 67.4 million dollars in cash, the rest is going to be 75.7 million dollars worth of CDs. Now who thinks that they'll give the latest and greatest, best-selling CDs to these organizations? Anyone willing to believe that they'll just be disposing of CDs that they overproduced and couldn't sell in the retail market? (like those Spice Girls CDs that came with a case of Pepsi in Europe). Now I wonder will this be 75.7 million dollars worth of CDs at their price fixed MSRP 15-18 dollars for a new CD or will this be 75.7 million dollars worth of CDs at cost? Hmmm... that's a tuffy. Let's do some more math shall we? 143.1 million/43 states = 3.33 million dollars per state. In the past +/-20 years (CDs were patented in 1983) does anyone believe that the citizens of any state in the union were taken for more than 3 million dollars by this powerhouse list of companies? Seeing how the average state has 5+ million people in it I'm willing to believe that every last citizen was overcharged by more than a dollar over the last 20 years related to CD purchases. Who thinks they were personally overcharged by 10 dollars, 50, 200? So in summary the music industry suffered a minor minor bug-bite and won't be in need of hospitalization any time soon.
-Christian Blackburn