That story just made my day.

This happens everywhere, apparently.
I just wish the wronged persons could sue in the same way as this class-action lawsuit in other countries.
It just confirms that the large record publishing businesses are never interested in protecting their artists rights, just making more money than sense.
I hope they get their $6 billion.

Oh, this is just delicious!

I will sleep very well tonight. CRIA needs to be shutdown and I seriously doubt they can pay that $6billion bill off.

Oh the sweet, sweet irony...

Isn't this the very same organisation that profits from the "piracy tax" on CD purchases? :)

Wow, I feel all fuzzy and warm inside now :-D

I heard about this lawsuit a few weeks ago.
My thoughts: Oh, god, please let the artists win.
And have lawsuits like that in the US.

In this day and age, with easy access to digital distribution and online promotion, why do record companies even exist anymore? Artists can produce, promote and sell themselves just as effectively as any record company could, without all that corporate interference and without them taking their (hefty) cut. If this lawsuit is successful and it leads to others of its kind, I really hope it is the final nail in the coffin of the recording industry as we used to know it.

+1
I'm tired of buying my music abroad only because of ridiculous overpricing. May this lawsuit be the first of many.

What amazes me is how successful the movie and recording industries have been at getting countries to create laws that benefit only the movie and recording industry. Laws they apparently don't need to adhere to.
Spain is the current battleground it seems.

Isn't it because the record companies finance the production of the albums, advertising, tours and shit like that?
Also if record companies ceased to exist, who would snort all that cocaine of a hooker's tits? Their loss would devastate the amateur pharmacology and pleasure related contracted personal interaction industries

Well that's my point, why do artists need record companies to do things like that (the financing part, not the snorting coke part) when the average person can do it virtually for free, or for very little out of pocket, using readily available online sources and the like? It would seem to me that artists would prefer to do things that way, since they will never have to doubt who is in control of their work and would never have to give anyone a cut.

This is only really true more recently, and it's the previous fifty years or so that have allowed the record companies to gain a choke-hold on popular music.
It is quite amusing writing that though, that recorded music has only been an industry for less than a century, and yet if asked, they will say that there can be NO OTHER WAY.
It's as much about control as it is about music, the big media companies like to take everything they can get, and give nothing for free.
On a similar note, I'd recommend reading todays penny arcade post, which mentions the rather silly situation of lending with regards to digital media (in this case, e-book readers) you'll have to look beyond the dantes inferno bit.