Judge To Record Labels: Reveal Wholesale Costs Of Music Downloads

One of the significant controversies regarding the RIAA's P2P lawsuits have been over the damages they seek when suing someone. The RIAA has asked for $750 to $150,000 per infringing file shared in many of the lawsuits. This has been argued by many to be unconstitutionally excessive; it has been put forward that a much more reasonable amount of damages to seek would be the actual amount of a lost sale if the song were legally downloaded from a legitimate music service .
Wholesale costs of music downloads up to now have been a closely guarded secret of RIAA member companies, but is thought to be around 70 cents a song. Now in UMG v. Lindor, the judge has ordered the record labels suing her produce this mystery figure for the songs involved in her case. The lawyer for the defendant in this case has argued statutory damages not exceed 10 times the amount of actual damages, which would come to around $7 per infringing music file, not hundreds or thousands of dollars as has been awarded in previous cases.

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