CDRLabs.com

A friend told me about this website. Basically its stating that anyone who bought music CD's, cassette tapes, or vinyl albums between January 1, 1995 and December 22, 2000 in the United States, could be entitled to $5-$20 based on the sum of money won from the settlement. The retail stores were accused of price fixing music CD's and etc. and were prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney General and lost. Now the case is in the settlement phase. The more people that sign up to receive a cash settlement, the lower the payout will be.

This Web site was established to provide information about a proposed Settlement of lawsuits brought by Attorneys General of 43 states, Commonwealths and Territories, and by counsel for the Plaintiff Settlement Class entitled In re: Compact Disc Minimum Advertised Price Antitrust Litigation.

The lawsuits, which are currently pending in the United States District Court for the District of Maine, relate to the retail pricing of prerecorded music compact discs, cassettes or vinyl albums (collectively known as prerecorded Music Products).

You may be a member of the Settlement Group and your rights against Defendants may be affected if you are a person or entity that purchased these prerecorded Music Products from a retail store during the period of January 1, 1995 through December 22, 2000.

Here's the website where you can read up more on this settlement and fill out a claim form for your cash settlement.
http://www.musiccdsettlement.com/english/default.htm

Thanks for the heads-up, BuddhaTB. I checked it out, and it appears to be legitimate. (Not that I don't trust you, BuddhaTB, it's just that I get a little nervous when a web site asks for my social security number, even if only the last four digits.) I haven't signed up yet, since I want to wait for a reply from my state's attorney general's office regarding my question about whether there is a way to make a claim without providing any social security number information.

In the meantime, I will just add a little rant, as I am often wont to do:

Supposedly only about 30,000 people have signed up so far. A maximum of 8.8 million can sign up at which point they won't give out any cash to anyone. Instead "the money will go to public entities and nonprofit organizations in each state to promote music programs."

Have you ever noticed how these settlements are inevitably paltry sums by the time they trickle down to the consumers, having already been bled dry by the lawyers, middlemen and other shysters? And have you noticed that the settlements always take a form that ends up benefiting the malefactors? Stripped of the fancy verbiage, it usually boils down to something like "We ripped you off, so here is a coupon for 5% off if you buy something else from us and allow us to cheat you again" or "We ripped you off, so we are going spend the money we cheated you out of to promote our product". Of course, they try to pretend it is really for the consumers/public good.

GRRRR!!!!!!

cfitz

Is it really worth it to get on this list?

On the form, they even ask for your date of birth. If anyone gets this detailed personal information, they can do a lot of harm with it as well. Most class action suits take years to settle and I think it's only $20 they are giving back...

For some people, it may be worth it, but I don't know if it is for everyone.