RIAA's Copyright Lawsuit Budget Drastically Reduced

News
By Wolfgang Gruener
published

The music industry may be losing its interest in suing people for illegally downloading music.

Payments made to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) amounted to almost $50 million in 2008. Two years later in 2010, it was only $28 million.

The numbers, published in the most recent tax returns, reveals that RIAA has been paying far less to law firms. Attorneys received $16.5 million in 2008, but only $2.4 million in 2010. According to heise.de, the practice of Holme, Robert and Owen was hit especially hard with payments declining from $9.4 million to just $788,000. The 113-year old law firm, which employs 50 lawyers, was recently forced to merge with another firm to contain costs.

RIAA's expenses for lobbying decreased from $6.8 million to $6.3 million from 2008 to 2010. The staff was reduced from 117 to 72 employees and cost for its employees was reduced from $9 million to about $6 million. However, nine second level executives received a salary increase to a total of $4.2 million, even if they are now required to work 50 hours per week, instead of just 40. Former CEO Mitch Bainwol received a salary of $1.9 million, down from $2.0 million.

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Wolfgang Gruener
30 Comments Comment from the forums
  • theLiminator
    Still too high, but an improvement!
    Reply
  • hotroderx
    As much as I hate the RIAA I find this just so wrong.

    Mitch Bainwol received a salary of $1.9 million, down from $2.0 million.

    While people lose there jobs the CEO had to take a 100k dollar pay cut omg how will he continue to live off such meager wages.

    I bet half the people working for the RIAA doing grunt work (not lawyers and the such) are doing it because there just arnt any jobs around right now. Any grown up will tell you might hate your job you might loath your job but if it feeds the wife in kids then u gotta do it.
    Reply
  • sun-devil99
    While people lose there jobs the CEO had to take a 100k dollar pay cut omg how will he continue to live off such meager wages.

    He may have to resort to downloading his music illegally with that big of a pay cut...
    Reply
  • sliem
    Former CE)? I'm assuming CEO.
    So he got a 100k/yr cut and he quit the company. Nice move, I mean how can you live with just $1.9mil/yr right?
    Reply
  • house70
    Oh, RIAA, cry me a river....
    These would be the only people I will be happy to lose their jobs. Not being mean or anything, but that might actually give them a chance to pick up something decent for a living.
    Reply
  • dark_lord69
    sun-devil99He may have to resort to downloading his music illegally with that big of a pay cut...LOL!!
    Reply
  • falchard
    Tells me just how dirty they are. Fired 40 people so 9 people can earn half of what the company pays in employees. Its like a cut and run strategy, they definetly are not in it for the long haul or to "protect" ip holders.
    Reply
  • -Fran-
    So they're starting to realize that the lawyers are the real robbers in the big picture?

    I mean, all that money put into emerging bands as a campaign and/or concerts money could have a big ROI and such. Even more, investing that in educative campaigns might even pay more in the long run.

    Hope people in the big suing corporations could understand that /sigh

    Cheers!
    Reply
  • sykozis
    It was never about protecting IP. It was always about money, power and fear. You don't file $1mill+ lawsuits against people just barely "making ends meet" if you actually intend to "protect IP".... The RIAA is nothing but a legitimized terrorist group. They use high figure lawsuits as an attempt to scare people into bowing down to them. Now they're losing money because it's not working.

    @Toms....can you give HotRoderx 2 thumbs up to make up for my misclick? Wasn't paying attention and clicked the wrong (thumbs down) button. Was supposed to be a thumbs up.

    @HotRoderx, sorry man I didn't mean to click thumbs down on you. Hopefully they'll be nice and fix it.
    Reply
  • dark_knight33
    falchardTells me just how dirty they are. Fired 40 people so 9 people can earn half of what the company pays in employees. Its like a cut and run strategy, they definetly are not in it for the long haul or to "protect" ip holders.
    Man, every corporation is *that* dirty, not just the RIAA.

    It's okay, CEOs are making the sacrifice of getting an absurd salary for you own good. You work harder for it, because one day it might be you too. *facepalm*

    See the ridiculous reasoning behind the justification of America's gross income inequity here:

    http://positivesharing.com/2006/08/overpaid-executives/
    Reply