We interrupt your regularly scheduled pretentious nonsense for some news…
RIAA’s Lawsuit Numbers Revealed
The head lawyer for the law firm that is managing the RIAA’s file-sharing suits recently revealed some numbers around the success of their lawsuits. Turns out, they have been roughly 18,000 letters sent, 11,000 of which were John Doe letters sent via the ISP (the kind I received). It appears that everyone settled these cases for between $3,000 and $5,000 except for Jammie Thomas. My potential penalty was upwards around $3.1M so I figured settling was a better route. Some quick math shows that they made around $72M off these lawsuits; I have no idea if that recoups any lost revenues they claim to have.
Pandora Lives!
Pandora reached a deal with the major music labels that I see as a win-win-win. Music Industry wins because they open up a despearately needed new revenue stream that never existed; Pandora wins because they remain in existence and expect to produce revenue of up to $40M; Consumers win because we get sweet geeky algorithmic internet radio for free. The agreement is significant as it legitimizes the pandora/last.fm business model which will hopefully lead to more funding into these types of services in the future. The downside is that a poorly executed “internet-radio/social networking” will probably come out by the end of the year. I will join this network, be solicited for sex, be disappointed when there is xXLolitaWinehouseXx stops responding to my messages and then I will cry myself to sleep listening to Love is a Battlefield on loop.
The world’s oldest adolescent dies; kind of a jerk
Michael Jackson died. He didn’t leave Paul McCartney- the most important pop-star alive – the rights to his own songs.
