After sticking their heads in the sand for years over the issue of music downloading and then screaming that to do so was a criminal offence and pushing for the prosecution of offenders; a Canadian court has ruled that the big four record labels – EMI, Warner Music Group, Universal and Sony – have to pay artists and composers a minimum of $45 million in compensation for their own copyright violation.
The ruling found that the labels sold CDs which contained songs that they hadn’t secured the rights for. It found that artists were placed on a “pending list” and many of those artists hadn’t been paid for years. For illegally using thousands of tracks, the record labels could have been liable for damages of up to $6 billion. A settlement has been agreed upon between the two parties for $45 million, which will be used to pay all the outstanding “pending list” claims by artists.
