p2p news / p2pnet: The Big Four Organized Music cartel members, "fought together to keep the online music market from emerging, and then ‘conspired to fix and maintain’ music prices once services like Apple’s highly successful iTunes became inevitable," says a class action suit.

Suing on behalf of 11 plaintiffs, San Diego lawyer William Lerach’s action says, "Sony BMG, Vivendi Universal Music, Time Warner, Bertelsmann, and EMI" use their market power to, "coerce online music retailers to sign ‘most favored nation’ agreements that specify that the retailers must pay each of the defendant labels the same amount," reports Red Herring.

"By setting a wholesale price floor at $0.70 per song, defendants have fixed and maintained the price of online music at supracompetitive levels."

The labels, who since 2003 have been suing their customers to try to make them pay these inflated rates, are also being investigated by the US Department of Justice and New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer on the same charges.

"The suit also alleges that the record labels sought to shut down online music pioneer Napster at the same time they were introducing their own joint ventures to sell online music," says the story.

" ‘MusicNet and pressplay ‘were not serious commercial ventures, but rather attempts to occupy the market with frustrating and ineffectual services in order to head off viable Online Music competitors from forming and gaining popularity after Napster’s demise,’ says the suit.

Also See:
Red Herring – Class Action Giant Sues Labels , March 9, 2006
same charges – DoJ probes Big Music downloads, March 3, 2006

Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local political representatives. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, org