People have complained about the price of recorded music for decades. It's always seemed a little fishy that there was no price competition between the labels, and that CDs have always remained more expensive than cassettes, even though the discs are now dirt cheap to make. When music went digital, why did we see so few price points for individual tracks? Today, why are all the major labels simultaneously making noise about wanting Apple to offer variable pricing? The whole situation fueled paranoid claims about industry collusion and price-fixing that later turned out to be totally justified.

You may remember that the industry was busted for off-line price-fixing a few years back. It was also outed (again) for a major payola scandal last year. This year, the industry is under the microscope for its pricing practices related to digital music. The feds have already launched an investigation and New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer is making his own inquiries.

Like a shark smelling blood in the water, the latest round of investigations has attracted the lawyers. Prominent California attorney William Lerach has now launched a class action suit against the labels on behalf of consumers who have allegedly been overcharged for music. This in itself is not particularly surprising given the ongoing federal investigation into the same topic, but the lawsuit does contain some interesting tidbits. For instance, the suit claims that the music labels fought tooth and nail against the arrival of online music stores, and that they did so by launching their own poorly-conceived (on purpose) online ventures.

The suit also alleges that the record labels sought to shut down online music pioneer Napster at the same time they were introducing their own joint ventures to sell online music. MusicNet and pressplay "were not serious commercial ventures, but rather attempts to occupy the market with frustrating and ineffectual services in order to head off viable Online Music competitors from forming and gaining popularity after Napster's demise," according to the suit.

If this lawsuit gains any traction, it could be a major headache for the music industry, because similar suits could wind up being filed in countries all over the world. Given that many of the price-fixing allegations center on Apple's iTunes Music Store, the labels could find themselves in trouble in more than twenty countries. After all, intense dislike of getting screwed is not just an American phenomenon.