p2p news / p2pnet:- The lovely David Manning is, you’ll recall, the Ridgefield Press’ fake movie critic dreamed up by Sony to, “lure people to such truly awful flics as A Knight’s Tale and The Animal”? He or, rather, ‘it’ was an “intentional and systematic deception of consumers”.

A founding member of both the Big Four record label and major movie studio cartels, Sony was ultimately nailed for $1.5 million in a class action that was supposed to have benefitted members of various audiences who’d been scammed into buying tickets for (more) rubbishy Sony shows by Manning’s ravings.

“News of the settlement created a stir in cyberspace and the entertainment press, with visions of tens of thousands of chagrined rubes lining up around the studio with their palms outstretched,” says the Washington Post.

“Like, right on! Multiplexers unite!”

Sony had tried to argue that the phony crits were free speech safeguarded by the First Amendment, says the story. But this time, justice triumphed and the multi-billion-dollar company ended up having to fork out $1,500,000 to thousands of happy cinema goers.

Wrong.

“We did some follow-up and learned that Sony paid out $5,085 - total - to 170 real, honest-to-goodness ticket buyers,” says the Post, adding:

“The rest of the cash? Brace yourself, Virginia: According to court papers, the attorneys for the plaintiffs got $458,909. Sony paid an additional $250,000 for administrative fees and costs associated with alerting moviegoers to the settlement and processing the claims - all 170 of them. Not a bad payday.

“The settlement, in which Sony conceded no wrongdoing, stipulated that any money left over from the $500,000 the studio set aside for claims would go to charity. And indeed it did, with $494,915 donated to the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation and the Women’s Care Cottage in Los Angeles.”

(Thanks, Bill)

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See:-
fake movie critic - Sony fined $1M for lying, August 4, 2005
Washington Post - Big Payday for Lawyers In Sony Fake-Blurb Deal, September 10, 2005

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