RIAA won’t state wholesale pricing
p2pnet.net News:- The Big Four Organized Music cartel is apparently, and understandably, leery of telling anyone exactly how much it’s charging for digital music wholesales.
We say “understandably” because maybe the Big Four are embarrassed to have to make a public statement about their rates?
They are, after all, charging anything from 60 to 80 cents wholesale per digital track, Mashboxx chairman Wayne Rosso told p2pnet in 2005. If they were being fair and reasonable, they’d be asking for perhaps 20 – 30 cents at most.
Ray Beckerman, who’s defending Marie Lindor, the New York home-health aid who, with her son, is being accused of being an online distributor of copyrighted music, wants to know and has asked for the information in court. But Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG aren’t saying claiming, among other things, the information is sensitive and needs a protective order.
The Big Four’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), “has refused to supply defendant’s lawyer with a timetable for its production of ‘all relevant documents’ concerning its wholesale prices for downloads in UMG v. Lindor,” says Beckerman on Recording Industry vs The People.
So after a month of wasted effort in trying to get them to agree to a schedule, he’s asked the magistrate to step in and fix a date.
“The RIAA responded, but its response does not even suggest to the Magistrate a date on which it would be willing to comply,” says Beckerman.
They’re locked into the old pre-p2p way of thinking where a) they could more or less rip people off at will and get away with it; and b) consumers weren’t able to commnicate with each other in the way that they are now, thanks to the Net, blogs, chats, IM, messaging, and so on.
However, several victims, including Lindor, have now suggested the $750-per-song damages demanded by the Big Four is unconstitutional and that in fact based, even, on a much higher rate than might be thought by some to be fair and reasonable, roughly 70 cents per song wholesale, it’s far too much —— 1,071 times too much, she says.
Stay tuned.
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
Also See:
Wayne Rosso – Mashboxx wraps Sony BMG, June 29, 2006
Marie Lindor – RIAA victim wants case dismissed, October 25, 2006
with her son – RIAA attacks Marie Lindor’s son, November 22, 2006
$750-per-song damages – Trouble looms for RIAA, November 10, 2006
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