RIAA Keeps Settlement Money, Artists May Sue
Written by enigmax on February 28, 2008Despite collecting an estimated several hundred million dollars in P2P related settlements from the likes of Napster, KaZaA and Bolt, prominent artists’ managers are complaining that so far, they haven’t received any compensation from the labels. According to a lawyer, some are considering legal action.
When EMI, Universal Music and Warner music reached settlement agreements with the likes of Napster, KaZaA and Bolt, they collected hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation - money that was supposed to go to artists whose rights had been allegedly infringed upon when the networks were operating with unlicensed music.
Now, according to an article, the managers of some major artists are getting very impatient, as it appears the very people who were supposed to be compensated - the artists - haven’t received anything from the massive settlements. They say the cash - estimated to be as much as $400m - hasn’t filtered through to their clients and understandably they’re getting very impatient.
Lawyer John Branca, who has represented the likes of The Rolling Stones and Korn, said: “Artist managers and lawyers have been wondering for months when their artists will see money from the copyright settlements and how it will be accounted for.”
Indicating the levels of impatience with the big labels holding the money he added: “Some of them are even talking about filing lawsuits if they don’t get paid soon.”
Of course, EMI, Universal and Warner have a different take on the delay, with sources suggesting that it’s down to the difficulties in deciding who gets what money, based on the levels of copyright infringement for each individual group or artist.
A recording industry on the back foot having spent most of its time fighting the digital revolution rather than becoming part of it, is clearly trying to hang on to every penny, even when it comes to compensating the artists who they claim they were defending by taking legal action in the first place.
Irving Azoff, who manages Christina Aguilera, The Eagles, Van Halen, REO Speedwagon and Seal (amongst others) says it’s hard for artists to get what they deserve from the labels: “They will play hide and seek, but eventually will be forced to pay something,” he said. “The record companies have even tried to credit unrecouped accounts. It’s never easy for an artist to get paid their fair share.”
Typically, the labels see it a different way. An EMI spokeperson said that it was “sharing proceeds from the Napster and Kazaa settlements with artists and writers whose work was infringed upon” while Warner’s said the label is “sharing the Napster settlement with its recording artists and songwriters, and at this stage nearly all settlement monies have been disbursed.”
The Universal spokesman spoke only of the label’s ‘policy’ of sharing “its portion of various settlements with its artists, regardless of whether their contracts require it” with no mention of whether it had actually done this or not.
But typically, when money is involved, things start to get murky. The same sources who suggested the reasons for the delay in making payments are also suggesting that there might not be much money to even give to the artists.
It’s being claimed that after legal bills were subtracted from the hundreds of millions in settlements, there wasn’t much left over to hand out.
Previously: Swedish Record Labels See Filesharing as Virtue
Next: Cashing In on Naive BitTorrent Users
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Get up, get-get get down,
RIAA, where’s the late crown?
Hey RIAA, I have nearly 10,000 tracks saved on my HDD if you want to come collect my money. My name and address are as follows:
Bill Gates
c/o Windows Corporation
Redmond, WA ….
I’ve got so much money I don’t know what else to buy so I’ll go ahead and pay every artist whats coming to them. I could almost eliminate world hunger with my massive wealth alone but that would be silly. I’d rather help the starving artists that are sucking dick to get some dinner.
Really I just want to be like Scrooge McDuck and built a giant money vault that I can swim around in.
This doesn’t make any sense but I was laughing when I thought of Scrooge McDuck
This is just more of the same “Hollywood bookkeeping” which writers and actors have complained about for years; a movie will make a lot of money, but the writers (and actors with a contract for part of the “take”) will get next to nothing due to the studio making bogus claims that it “didn’t make money” after production and distribution costs were “accounted for.”
Maybe now people like Lars Ulrich will see how stupid they’ve been for supporting the RIAA.
THis story is funny!
Again I say F the RIAA, no really go fuck yerself buncha lowlife scumsucking scatmunchers!
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I have a better idea, spammer. How about we DDOS your lame ass? Go fuck yourself.
The RIAA’s lawyers ultimately benefit from this. They get paid regardless. They know this is a cash cow for them. They convinced the RIAA that litigation is the best way to improve their bottom lines. These lawyers don’t want file sharing to cease, for fear the money train will disappear. The lawyers have their payments coming, the RIAA is holding on to the cash, hoping for hope, that they can come out ahead, yet their is no accountability for the artists. And the country is heading into a recession. The artists need to come together and file suit against the RIAA for misrepresentation.
The RIAA represents all recorded artists under contract as a whole. Who and why they target certain indivduals for using the internet for copyright infringement seems to be a mystery, but if they represent everyone under contract than they should target each artist’s work that is downloaded or uploaded that way they can treat all artist the same when the time comes to hand out checks to each artist. lol
Well folks, I think the time has come for an investigation by the Justice Department. The problem is, the current Justice Department has a serious lack of credibility, and that it is tied to the Bush administration’s Copyright Royalty Board (CRM). Big business and big conservative government are taking not only the small guys for a long ride, but most of the middle-sized guys as well. Let’s get a ‘reasonable’ white house administration elected, and send this whole mess to a ‘new and honorable’ Justice Department.
T.J. Grant, VP of Programming
Melted Metal Web Radio
http://www.meltedmetal.com/
This just confirms what many of us already knew about them. The scum sucking maggots would steal the pennies from a dead man’s eyes, rob their own mothers blind. Even though they already live in shameless luxury, like the churches. The Mafia isn’t so bad in comparison. I for one certainly don’t buy CDs anymore, and if I were a musician I’d give up music before enlisting their “services”. You deal with the devil and you’re sure to get burned. There are other better distribution methods; -the Internet, and look what Prince did. Bittorrent reaches a worldwide audience. Set up a Web site with free samples, and offer albums for whatever people can afford or want to pay, say $1-$5. You’d rake in millions. How much more do you want?
So you decide to go with Sony like the bigshots. Why why why??? When Neil Diamond released his new album in 2005 it may as well have been classified top secret for all the publicity it was given. The only way people found out about it was because of the News stories on the Sony rootkit(c) fiasco. Because of that they ensured that nobody would buy it, and those who now knew about it and wanted it got it via bittorrent. If he had offered it online as suggested he would have been able to afford the latest gold plated diamond studded nuclear powered Lear jet, rather than have to settle for the brass plated version.
Doesn’t Prince have his own Concorde? I guess he likes his space but really, that’s just a little wasteful I think!
You can be sure they never had any intention of paying the artists. Just part of their propaganda to justify their immoral behavior. Meantime thousands of innocent people have had their lives ruined for nothing.
Good luck with suing them. They don’t even pay up when you win. Even if they did have to pay out millions, it wouldn’t be so much as drop in the bucket to them, more like a grain of sand on the beach. They’re still laughing, and they’re no strangers to litigation. That doesn’t bother them. It’s what they do, what they live for. If it wasn’t for so-called copyright infringement, they’d still be suing their own clients and each other.
The best and only thing is to seize and confiscate all their assets and jail them for a long time, which is still better than they deserve.
They’ve been screwing the artists for so long, let them see what it feels like for a change. Compensation time is coming!
Who needs them? When you have a pebble in your shoe you remove it. Leeches on your skin you remove them. Watch them weeping when the economy takes a nosedive, or they suffer an untimely death. Who will grieve for them while they mourn their losses, and because they can’t take it with them? What will they do when their judgment comes? Try to bribe their way out and buy time? Their judge won’t be interested in their ill-gotten wealth.
Surely now everyone will see them for the joke they are. File sharers and music lovers full steam ahead.
When a thief calls others thieves who takes them seriously? You can’t, even if it were true which it’s not. They are the real criminals, and file sharers are just normal decent and honest people, sharing what they have with others, which is what the Internet is all about. Many prefer just to take, because they haven’t learnt to share, or because they have to unfairly pay for uploads also or their IP makes it difficult, but that’s ok too. I don’t give and expect something in return. I don’t know who gets what anyway. This whole war against the Internet and sites offering music should be stopped, and would be if the music mongrels were shut down and put out of business. If CD sales stopped tomorrow, they’d still be suing to the end. The law must clamp down on them and restore some sanity. At least for the sake of all (honest ones) who depend on the Internet for their livelihood and education.
They will screw anyone they can.
It’s being claimed that after legal bills were subtracted from the hundreds of millions in settlements, there wasn’t much left over to hand out.
You dont pay when you win.
Lying bags of mierda.
So, in other worda, the LAWYERS are making money and the ARTISTS are still starving?
Now I know who paid for the DMCA, it was the lawyer groups!!
Look, we already knew that the RIAA is nothing but a bunch of scumbags, so why should this surprise anyone. The blood-sucking lawyers take the biggest portion of any settlement, then the scumbags at RIAA get their share to portion out to their employees. Finally the labels get their cut and there isn’t enough left to give anything to the artists. Typical.
Jesus Christ, damn shitheads.
I can understand artists wanting to be compensated for what we have downloaded but if these assholes arent going to give them the money they dexerve from the settlements then whats the point. STOP BOTHERING THE FILE SHARING COMMUNITY
[quote comment="299990"]wow. the RIAA are seriously a bunch of douchebags.[/quote]
Amen!
This news doesn’t directly affect filesharers. What it DOES do is serve as a reminder to musicians. The message is this:
“IF YOU ARE AN ARTIST, DO NOT SIGN A RECORD DEAL. DO NOT BE A PROSTITUTE FOR THE PIMPS OF THE RIAA.”
Anyone that signs a record deal with a major label is getting into bed with the devil. Stay independent. Control your own finances. Leave the lawyers to die.
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