Posted 2/26/2004 10:22:00 PM by Douglas

Did you buy a CD between January 1, 1995 and December 22, 2000? Well I did, and last spring I put my name in a website, www.MusicCDSettlement.com and promptly forgot about it. Well today was payday. I got something in the mail today that looked like junk mail, but I opened it anyway:

February, 2004

Dear Texas Music Purchaser:

As Attorney General of the State of Texas, I am please to enclose payment for your claim in the settlement of the Compact Disc Minimum Advertised Price Antitrust Litigation. This lawsuit was brought by the Attorneys General of 43 states and three territories and by counsel for Private Class Plaintiffs on behalf of purchasers of music CDs. In accordance with the terms of the court-approved settlement, payment is being made to music purchasers who filed a valid and timely claim.

Whether you filed your claim online at the settlement web site, www.MusicCDSettlement.com, or by mail, the attached payment represents full payment of your portion of the Settlement. Please note that the attached payment instrument must be cashed by May 20, 2004.

It is a pleasure to bring this matter to a satisfactory conclusion and to return value to consumers who purchased CDs while the challenged pricing policies were in effect.

Greg Abbott
Attorney General of Texas

Wow! I got money, a letter from the Attorney General, and all I did was fill in a website! Score!

The check was for the princely sum of $13.86 (American).

While my first question was how much did the scum-bag lawyers make off this deal? But I can't think about that. I got almost $14 for doing absolutely nothing but buying CDs.

The sad part is that it's not enough to go buy another CD.