The RIAA is in the news again, but this time instead of a victim paying out money to the recording labels, the RIAA was forced to pay out 50,000 in legal fees. The victim, Debbie Foster was sued for copyright infringement, however the case was dismissed last Summer.As the Inquirer points out, this is a pretty significant case because previously, the RIAA has not been ordered to compensate people when they have been wrongfully sued.
Wired spoke with Foster’s attorney who is obviously happy with the outcome. Her attorney also mentioned that she’ll likely get more than the $50,000 originally ordered.You can bet Capital Records isn’t too happy about the hefty amount they’ll be responsible for sending out shortly. Not a good day for the recording industry!
In other RIAA news…
I came across this article from WHAS11.com in which they point out a Key Stats/Facts page on the RIAA website which says that CDs really should cost more. The RIAA’s website says,
By all measures, when you consider how long people have the music and how often they can go back and get “re-entertained” CDs truly are an incredible value for the money.
Their claim is that between 1983 (when CDs were first introduced), and 1996, the price of a CD fell by more than 40%. During the same time, consumer prices went up around 60%. According to their calculations, in 1996, consumers should have been paying $33.86 instead of $12.75 for CDs.
I don’t know ANYBODY that would have been willing to pay over $30.00 for a CD. The RIAA goes on to talk about how the quality and the number of songs has increased, and so has the range of choices, and ease of use, yet the price hasn’t, so really people are getting a great value.
In the world of Technology, the price tends to go down, not up which makes this even more ridiculous. If the price of a computer went up since it was first introduced, there’d be very few people in this world that owned one. The same goes for the price of CDs. And their argument over the ”re-entertainment” value? It’s pitiful.
You can read the entire “Cost of a CD” article from the RIAA here.
Source: Thanks Curtiss!
I read the story from another source about the RIAA wanting their prices to be significantly higher, and the flaw in their argument is they only factor in [en.wikipedia.org] into the equation improperly. They completely disregard all other relevant information that would counter their argument, which should be expected. For example, they leave out the overwhelming fact that when any product (especially tech products) are introduced, they manufacturing process is inefficient and not mass produced, and overtime moves toward mass production and efficiency in the production process, which brings down prices significantly because they have the capacity to sell in volume and have saved money through more efficient means of production. They also don’t factor in things like the [en.wikipedia.org] among several other principle concepts in (basic) economics which I won’t go into, as to spare you all an economics lecture, but as I read the source originally, it not only propagated several application errors in the use of CPI, but as I said above completely ignored all other relevant information, as to intentionally deceive (though this source did correct it to some degree, from the source I initially read this from).
The RIAA does the best job at the dissemination of disinformation, better than Fox News, or other mass media outlets, it never ceases to amaze me.
Thank the lord. I was beginning to think that these guys controlled the world.
(Except for maybe [tech.cybernetnews.com] 
)
This just goes to show how ignorant they (RIAA) are! They will eventually lose totally and all music will be digital. Do away with DRM and lower the price of songs and more people will actually buy. They need to learn, you will NEVER win against hardcore piracy.
The RIAA thinks there is issue now with illegally obtaining music, if the prices rise like the RIAA wants, there would only be more illegal music out there. Is the RIAA crazy?
Price is not the only issue, selection (or lack there of) is another.
Hrm….no one wants to buy your crap….obviously the prices aren’t high enough!
Hopefully, this kind of thinking will lead to their extinction, rather than more stupid iron-triangle crap. I think we would have a lot better music if we got rid of all those crappy companies and just got music from the artists. With distribution as easy as it is now, who needs the crappy evil middle man?
You have to read [apple.com] it was just posted yesterday. It’s true, though. I know many people who will not buy music on CDs because there are too many songs on the disc that they don’t like, and they won’t pay for music online because of the DRM! If the RIAA and MPAA gave up on the whole DRM thing, then they could quite possibly have a boost in sales.
I think Jobs should take a more active role though…especially now that he has power. Just think of how much money the record labels make of iTunes – plus with its convenience, people will be much more inclined to find buy their music there. If Jobs says, “No DRM, or you aren’t on my service.” Then it’s a win-win both ways.
A) RIAA says fine, we quit iTunes. Result: RIAA goes bankrupt after no revenue and continued losses in court; iTunes is filled with good music by real artists, rather than crappy artists under RIAA.
B) RIAA says ok, no DRM. Result: No DRM, who cares what music you buy – we are back to the free market and everyone is happy! Music sales are based more on what consumers want and stupid companies that can’t adapt die like they should in any free market.
Once a product has been out for a while the production cost get cheaper which reduces the cost of the product. If using the RIAA’s math DVD player, etc… should get more expensive each year instead of cheaper. We all not that is not true, look how cheap DVD players are now compared to how much they were when first released. If anything, the cost of CD should be coming down. I know that I pay alot less for CDR’s now then I did several years ago.
$30 for a CD? Come on! As we say in Dutch: “they are digging their own grave”.
I don’t understand why CD’s don’t cost the same (or maybe $1 more) than what you can buy an album for online. All a CD has is a plastic case and a CD which probably costs them $0.20 in production costs. The world is becoming more and more digital so maybe CD’s should be even cheaper than buying them online because there is less of a demand for them.
RIAA is insane!
DRM cripples media. You have far more rights to your media when downloaded P2P then when bought legally, because of the lame DRM. None of it makes any sense at all!
I say let them raise prices.
And as their prices fall like stones I will do nothing but laugh.