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None of the estimated $400 million that the RIAA received in settlements with Napster, KaZaA, and Bolt over allegations of copyright infringement has gone to the artists whose copyrights were allegedly infringed. Now the artists are considering suing the RIAA.

Lawyers who have represented artists such as The Rolling Stones, Van Halen, and Christina Aguilera say artists and managers are upset that they haven't seen any of the settlement money the RIAA received after suing the popular file-sharing services. According to the New York Post, the artists are "girding for battle with their music overlords," who respond that they have "started the process" of figuring out how to share the money, most of which was received seven years ago in a settlement with Napster. The RIAA also claims that there isn't actually that much money available after subtracting legal fees. Whoops.

i have been wondering when this was going to happen took em long enough to figure it out.

I am shocked and alarmed! The RIAA not dealing fairly? What a revelation!

Yeah, and you can safely presume that legal fees and other expenses will be padded to the max; anything to get the artists' share decreased.

Hmph! Sitting on all that money they got seven years ago and claiming they they couldn't figure out how to share some of! If push hadn't come to shove with a threat of litigation against them, I wonder how many more years it would have taken for them to try to, er, figure it out. :neer::
Probably as long as it's taken for them to "figure out" how to pay the Bay City Rollers, or even some overdue royalty to the Beatles. Heck, for a big part of the time, they claimed they didn't know how to contact a various number of previously popular artists to give them money they had coming; I recall reading about that several years ago. Poor things; I'm sure the little darlings tried SO HARD. Bless their black hearts.

Go, pessimist!

My response to this posting is disappointment. I thought it was an update.

The headline is wrong. The artists aren't suing the RIAA. They're thinking about it. They've been thinking about it for a while.

But they haven't done a damn thing.

Any 'artist' still with the RIAA deserves what they get. Painfully boned.

I don't want to "hurt" any artist, but if the artist refuses to leave the RIAA ...I'm afraid I must.

Yeah, and you can safely presume that legal fees and other expenses will be padded to the max; anything to get the artists' share decreased.

well, the riaa is a child of the major labels. it only makes sense they would do unto the artists as the artists' pimps would do. i'll bet out of $400-mil, there will only be about 25% left to divvy out once "expenses" are counted.

25% that figure seems a bit high to me i figure not more than 10% if that.

"Way to go, pessimist!"

Thanks, George.
And you are right on track about how the artists are merely considering action. As you say,"They've been thinking about it for awhile. But they haven't done a damn thing."

I'm wondering if and when they will actually go ahead and follow through.
I almost want to say I'm somewhat, uh, pessimistic.