No Rock And Roll Fun

THE MONEY WAS ONLY RESTING IN MY ACCOUNT: The record companies are always keen to make it seem like they're not pursuing file-sharers for themselves, but for the good of the artists. Which makes it kind of funny they somehow had neglected to hand over USD 50 Million in royalties. The record companies had to be forced by New York State Attorney to actually pass this money on to the people it belonged to. Hey, isn't not handing cash over to the people it belongs to, you know, like stealing? Wouldn't that be having the same effect on the artist as if we'd just gone into a store and stolen a CD?

The record companies, of course, have a plausible explanation - they'd have loved not to have sat on the fifty million bucks, earning interest (we reckon even if they'd stuck it in a current account, it would have pulled in a couple of million a year), but they'd lost track of the artists it was meant to be going to. The artists included Dolly Parton (clue: she's got a bloody great theme park named after her - we're sure they'd have been able to forward a cheque) and Sean Combs (ask any attorney in the States, perhaps?).