Check it out
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.
Folks, as far as I can tell, this is entirely and completely valid; the Urban Legends Reference Pages verify it, and that's usually good enough for me, but I've checked a few other resources and everything seems to bear out.
Apparently what's going on is this: everybody's been complaining for years that CDs are so expensive compared to vinyl records, especially since to all indications CDs are cheaper to produce. Allegations of price fixing have been thrown around, and finally 41 states took up the cause and filed suit against several distributors and retailers, charging a conspiracy to fix minimum prices for CDs. This settlement is the result of that lawsuit. As the suit was filed in the United States, it appears that only United States citizens can claim a part of the settlement; also, claims must be filed before March 3, 2003.
I'm sort of committing a faux pas by posting this; see, the nature of these settlements is such that the fewer people file a claim, the more each person gets from the settlement. (The maximum payment is $20; the minimum is $5. If more than 8.8 million people sign up (only 30,000 had at the end of December '02), and the per-person claim drops below $5, the money will instead be donated to public entities and non-profit organizations.
(Partially paraphrased from http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/cdrefund.asp.)
Folks, as far as I can tell, this is entirely and completely valid; the Urban Legends Reference Pages verify it, and that's usually good enough for me, but I've checked a few other resources and everything seems to bear out.
Apparently what's going on is this: everybody's been complaining for years that CDs are so expensive compared to vinyl records, especially since to all indications CDs are cheaper to produce. Allegations of price fixing have been thrown around, and finally 41 states took up the cause and filed suit against several distributors and retailers, charging a conspiracy to fix minimum prices for CDs. This settlement is the result of that lawsuit. As the suit was filed in the United States, it appears that only United States citizens can claim a part of the settlement; also, claims must be filed before March 3, 2003.
I'm sort of committing a faux pas by posting this; see, the nature of these settlements is such that the fewer people file a claim, the more each person gets from the settlement. (The maximum payment is $20; the minimum is $5. If more than 8.8 million people sign up (only 30,000 had at the end of December '02), and the per-person claim drops below $5, the money will instead be donated to public entities and non-profit organizations.
(Partially paraphrased from http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/cdrefund.asp.)
