The figures reported here are suprising and unexpected, but welcome
http://p2pnet.net/story/6629Acting for its owners, Organized Music (EMI Group, Vivendi Universal, Warner Music and Sony BMG), the RIAA is championed by Mitch ‘The Don’ Bainwol and Cary ‘Scary’ Sherman, the ceo and president of the RIAA, respectively.
But undoing the evil wrought by the likes of 14-year-old Britanny Chan doesn’t come cheap and according to US Internal Revenue Service filings, the RIAA had an income of $46.4 million, but expenses of $51 million, leaving it in the hole to the tune of $4.6 million.
The MPAA (Motion Picture Association, of America) owned principally by the Big Seven studios, (Walt Disney, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures Corporation, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Universal City Studios LLLP; and Warner Bros), is also in the trenches.
It brought in $51.5 million and paid out $53.1 million, putting it nearly $1.6 million in the red for 2004, says its IRS filings.
It spent $8.4 million fighting the monster it created, dry-land piracy, and spent $5.8 million on lobbying efforts.
It looks like the folks standing up for their rights may well well help topple the evil empire of greed in the long run, so the message is clear, lobby you representative and fight any claims that are untrue, justice has never been cheap but in the end is usually done.
