Criminal Records

The RIAA conglomerate of record companies who have managed to claw back revenue from a string of websites, don't appear to be sharing it out to the artists they were supposed to be compensating.
Most of the money was claimed from Napster around 7 years ago as compensation for copyright infringement by the site. However the artists in whose name Napster was decimated have yet to receive a penny.

The story which has been mostly overlooked in the UK press was reported across the US.

The more I read on this subject the more I am becoming convinced (rather than just suspicious) that the record companies are acting under the banner of supporting artists' rights but are in fact trying to claw back money for themselves. They have been threatening ISPs that they had better co-ooperate to combat internet piracy and seem to be spinning the issue in such a way as to suggest that the ISPs are somehow reliant on them. It is becoming painfully obvious that the record industry has no idea how to deal with online piracy and P2P filesharing.

Universal Music, Warner Music and EMI - either collectively or individually - settled claims with Napster, Kazaa and Bolt.com. Napster alone had to cough up $270 million.

NY Post, Feb 28th 2008

It also seems that the politicians charged with sorting out this issue in the UK are woefully out of touch with technology and with music industry practices.
Who is advising the politicians? I'm going to do a bit of digging and see what we come up with.

Will ISPs policing piracy work?
Lord Triesman says yes! Cory Doctorow says no!