The Grand and Glorious Protector of the Artiste has done it again. They have moved on from suing teenagers and grandmothers to suing Russian companies. Of course they sued the Russian company in a New York court because it is apparently acknowledged by all sides that the Russian company is in compliance with Russian law and therefore could not be successfully sued there. And such a nice realistic sum they sued for too! A mere $1.65 trillion in damages. Now according to a New York Times article annual music industry sales for the US are about $75 billion including concerts, merchandising and all other revenue streams. So I guess suing one Russian company for 22 years of music industry gross income is reasonable. Not!!!
And apparently the Russian site has deposited all the royalties with the Russian royalty collection body and the RIAA has not accepted the money, perhaps because it would weaken their claim of “not one penny paid” in royalties. I have no idea if the Russian company has actually deposited proper royalties and it may well be that they are not being “good industry citizens” but one thing I am sure of: For an organization that makes its money off the backs of artists to waste its money on lawsuits it can't win, for ridiculous sums of money, in the name of 'protecting' its clients is unconscionable.
The RIAA needs to reconstituted, but given the distressingly purchasable politician of this day and age I suspect that the best we can hope for is that it is soon relegated to irrelevancy by its own greed and stupidity as demonstrated by the above action.
