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New York Attorney General subpoenas major labels
I’ve found confirmation of recent reports that New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer has started an investigation into music download pricing, and is handing out subpoenas to the major labels, including Warner Music, Sony BMG, EMI and Universal Music Group.
This is hardly unfamiliar territory for the music mob. The FTC once accused the major labels of costing consumers close to $480m via CD price-fixing. The pigopolists denied the charges but did agree to hand over $67m in cash and $76m worth of CDs to the suing states.
Now there's a question of just how the labels set download prices. Analysts often peg the per song sale price at about 70 cents. Companies such as Apple and Real then resell the songs for about 99 cents.
The record companies have been pushing hard to increase the per song download price for hotter acts. Why not get $1.39 per song for the latest American Idol spawn?
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User Comments (4)
Post a comment| Masque on December 27, 2005 11:07 PM | You sometimes wonder exactly where it'll end. What does it take for the RIAA/MPAA *****s to wake up? Yes, there's profit (honest profit) to be made, but NOT at the expense of mass rape of consumers.
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| Bartzy on December 28, 2005 7:02 AM | When we buy an album, whether in the store or in the internet, we pay mainly for the labels. The artist gets like 15-20% of the profits, and the rest goes away. Where to ? I don't know. Neither do you, or any of us.
So why are they doing it ? These companies have so much money. Why do they need more and more and more of it ?
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| asphix on December 28, 2005 7:05 AM | You always need more money.. theres no such thing as too much money.
However, that money shoudlnt come at the expense of others, nor your own beliefs/morals. I'm excited to see what Eliot comes up with against them. Hes run some interesting cases in the past and has always been the consumer champion!
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| mentaljedi on December 28, 2005 12:43 PM | There's no such thing as being too evil if your an evil person. Same if your a moneyhungry plc- "MORE MONEY!"
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