A U.S. judge has reinstated an antitrust suit against the major labels based on violations of The Sherman Act. The case was originally dismissed by a lower court judge in October 2008.
The U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York named the defendants as “Bertelsmann AG, EMI Group, Sony Corp, Time Warner Inc, Vivendi SA, and Warner Music Group Corp or various affiliates.” In the original case, the plaintiffs said that these labels had contrived to set “artificial price floors” by entering into “joint ventures and licenses.” They also maintain that the companies agreed a minimum price of 70 cents per song, and this was to be enforced through “restrictive license agreements.”
Judge Robert Katzmann wrote that the case put forward by the plaintiffs was valid enough to point to a possible plot to fix prices. The labels control around 80% of all digital music sales in the U.S. and Judge Katzmann reckoned “some form of agreement among defendants would have been needed to render the enterprises profitable.”
Remind me: why does the RIAA get so angry about illegal downloading again?
