One area's RIAA CD settlement tale...

[Jediab]

Taken from the Minneapolis newpaper Star Tribune. Cut and paste so one doesn't need to worry about that subscribe crap.


Minnesota's public and school libraries are richer by thousands of CDs, thanks to a class-action lawsuit against the major record companies over price fixing.

However, librarians aren't exactly singing hallelujah over what the companies have sent.

"I don't think Neil Sedaka and [old] Christmas albums are among their bestsellers," said Louise Merriam, a collections manager with the Minneapolis Public Library.

The suit was settled in September 2002 with the stipulation that $75.7 million worth of CDs be donated to libraries, schools and nonprofits.

Minnesota's allotment started arriving in June.

Of course, one of the central disputes in the suit was that CD pricing can often be relative. One man's "Sgt. Pepper's" is another man's "Milli Vanilli: The Remix Album."

Librarians in other states have complained of being loaded up with "cut-out" (discount) CDs. The Milwaukee Public Library got 1,235 copies of Whitney Houston's "Star Spangled Banner" and 188 copies of Michael Bolton's "Timeless," according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Representatives from library systems in Hennepin, Ramsey, Carver and Anoka counties gave their bundles of donated CDs a resounding 2½-star review. The quantity was less than in Milwaukee, but the quality seems a little better.

"I wouldn't say we got garbage, but we also didn't get anything that's really current or new," said Monica Stratton, music selector for Ramsey County libraries.

Among the few CDs that found their way to Ramsey County -- 40 or so -- are titles by Johnny Cash, Rebecca St. James, Ben Folds Five and, yes, Whitney Houston.

Hennepin County's stash -- just 30 or so donated discs -- includes ones by teen pop stars Jessica Simpson and Mandy Moore, plus the soundtrack to a movie called "Boycott."

"I don't think that one was too big at the box office," joked Jeffrey Gegner, popular-materials specialist for Hennepin County libraries. (Actually, "Boycott" was made for HBO.)

"We'll probably circulate about half of what we received," Gegner said. The other half will go toward fundraiser sales.

Educational CDs

The lawsuit, filed by 40 states, accused music labels and retailers of conspiring to set prices as a way of helping record stores compete with mass merchants such as Circuit City, Target and Wal-Mart that have grabbed a growing share of CD sales.

Schools across Minnesota received discs from the settlement that were more educational in nature, said Elizabeth Sipe, paralegal with the Minneapolis law firm Lockridge, Grindal and Nauen, which handled the settlement in Minnesota. Otherwise, the selection and distribution of the CDs was purely random.

"It would have been too labor-intensive to have done it any other way," Sipe said.

There was also a private aspect to the lawsuit. Individual CD buyers who signed up on a Web site last year to be a part of the case got part of another $67 million in the settlement. Checks for about $13 were mailed to participating Minnesotans around February.

Some librarians said they would have preferred a check instead of the CDs they got.

"Money probably would have been benefited us more," said Mary Caven, assistant director of Anoka County libraries, "but it's nice that they thought of libraries at all."



Seems to me this was just a way for the RIAA to unload thousands of overproduced crap. Now they dont have to worry about disposal because those cds are someone elses problem.

[Archer]

If I were the judge in this case I think Id be reviewing the evidence of those at the receiving end with a view of bringing the record companies back into court under contempt laws.

[Escape_Driver]

I hate the RIAA