(UPDATED) The U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York has reinstated an antitrust lawsuit accusing all four major record labels of conspiring to fix prices for music downloads. The lawsuits accuse the labels of agreeing to an online wholesale price of about $.70 per song even though their cost for each sale is far lower than when sold in a brick and mortar record store.
While not ruling on the case, the appeals court agreed that the plaintiffs' allegations were "sufficient to plausibly suggest" a conspiracy. Lawyers for the plaintiffs plan to seek class-action status consolidating 28 state and federal cases. "There was uncertainty in the law over the standards for pleading a price-fixing conspiracy," said the plaintiff's lawyer Christopher Lovell. "This decision goes a long way toward clarifying what the standard requires in a way that helps people who paid allegedly conspiratorial prices for digital music."
