[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

The nature of publishing itself is monopolistic, in a certain sense: A publishing house signs a deal with an author, and then the author's books are produced and distributed through only that house. The publisher has a monopoly on the author's work, in that sense. But that's not very different from the way it works with other products. If you want a new Viper, you have to either get it through Dodge. There's nothing monopolistic about that, in a legal sense.

Oh, sure. I'm basing it on the fact that so little price variation exists between labels, if nothing else. (talking about the music business, anyway) Why wouldn't they want to compete on price? Because the artists are all unique? Because every company is already maximally efficient? All that seems rather unlikely. At least with publishing houses you have MMPs competing with regular/trade pbacks etc.

Could you explain that a little bit more? Why would they need to "discover" the names of the people they were suing themselves? Or were they being sued by John Does, and trying to find out the names of those suing them so they could countersue?

Original suits filed in order to ascertain the names that belonged to the IPs, then individual suits for all "found" people. I'm told it's not a proper use of the "discovery" procedure.

The behavior of the RIAA, while I might find it heavy-handed, does not in any way justify intellectual property theft. The justice system isn't based on the principle of "equal protection under the law for nice people".

I always find these "none whatever" statements odd.
In any case, neither were court costs meant to be used as an incentive for people to settle out of court, I suspect, on so large a scale, and with so little evidence.
Otherwise, what is to prevent someone with lots of money to spend, and lawyers on retainer, from threatening to sue everyone for, say, 200$? The point isn't that some of these people might be guilty, the point is that those who aren't still don't have a reason not to settle. The amount of money they might be forced to pay involved makes the risk they would run too great.

It's possible to detest some of their tactics (e.g., suing junior school students) while still believing that they should have protection under the law. Regardless of what you think of the deals they make with artists, the fact of the matter is that they have made deals with artists, and they're therefore entitled to the rights that the artists sign over.

Sure it's possible, but why on earth would you? "Detesting" won't get them a slap on the wrist, you know. They could care less what you think of them. Capone also had "deals" with shop owners (if not notaried ones).. the legality of the document doesn't make the practice right. Also, from the things I hear about it, the "Deals" they cut artists are becoming shabbier and shabbier, as paying off-shore daughter companies for "services rendered", thus siphoning off the obvious profits, has become more and more prevalent. Sure, it's not their fault that most artists are fiscally retarded, and are willing to sign, but that hardly makes their behavior one I would want to endorse by paying them.

And of course, the other big issue is that, for the most part, their interests are the same. What hurts the RIAA also hurts the artists they have signed. That's unfortunate, but it's true.

So what if a few artists don't sell well. Artists come and go, while the practice will live on unless challenged. The institution is the problem, not the suffering of its members.
Consider that, for instance, Toni Braxton, (whose single "unbreak my heart" made 160m worldwide) or TLC (" the group was taking home less than $35,000 a year") had to file for bankruptcy because they got to see almost none of it. (Given, that is, that it is highly dubious that Toni would've spent even a substantial portion of that money in 5 years time if she'd gotten a reasonable part of it..) Sure artists will go broke sooner than the record companies; small wonder if they only get a dime for every album while the company keeps the rest. It doesn't make fiscal sense that artists have to "suffer" even though the company that sells them runs at a substantial profit, from those same artists. The explanation for that isn't "piracy", it's "extortionate practices".