Continuing to call the music industry a "business" is to fly in the face of reality. They've already been convicted of collusion and price-fixing (has anyone gotten their settlement check yet? I haven't.) and now they're accused of blacklisting. These are the classic actions of a cartel (drugs, crime, oil) that seeks to retain its stranglehold on its chosen domain.

In this case, the alleged blacklisting is aimed at preventing companies like RealNetworks from doing business with companies that run P2P networks. As I've noted, a few innovators are trying to use these networks to promote themselves and develop new business models. Meanwhile, the Cartel continues to fight for its antiquated business models and to strangle in the cradle anything else.

In order for the Cartel to continue to maintain that the P2P nets are illegitimate, they have to prevent those networks/companies from having any arrangements with legitimate companies. It's a lovely Catch-22 you see - since we won't let you have our music legally, any music on your net must ipso facto be illegitimate. Roll out the next round of lawsuits, boys!

My favorite quote:

"If the last names of the CEOs of most major record labels ended in a vowel they'd be calling this behaviour racketeering," said former Grokster president Wayne Rosso.

Calling Elliot Spitzer...

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/040715/80/ey4fj.html

So, in attempting to research the question of "has anyone gotten their settlement CDs" I discover that some places have, and nobody's happy about it. The Cartel has taken this opportunity to unload its warehouses of such detritus as dozens of duplicates, unusable CDs, and so on. The recipients, usually libraries, are peeved. At best they can play swap games with other libraries to spread some of the copies around. At worst they have to spend dozens of hours to weed out unusable trash.

Other problems include CDs with adult lyrics being sent to children's libraries, and the likelihood that the Cartel has violated some of the specific terms of the settlement. The CDs that were specified were supposed to be ones that scored well on industry charts (on industry charts for 26 weeks or have peaked in the top half of the charts). It appears that in some cases, over half the CDs the Cartel sent out don't meet these criteria.

boston.com
CNN
Seattle Times