Back on Feb. 5 of last year, as a few of you might vaguely recall, I wrote this entry:
Want to get back at the music industry for making you pay ridiculous prices for CDs of lousy music? There actually was a class action lawsuit filed last year (for the ridiculous prices, not the lousy music) and as part of the out of court settlement, $413 million in punitive damages are being split among anyone who files at the website below and bought a CD between 1995 and 2000 -- which has to be most people in this country. You will get somewhere between $20 and $5 depending on how many people file -- if enough people file to make everyone's share less than $5, the whole thing goes to charity. I consider this a win-win situation. It took me about 5 minutes to file a claim; you don't have to have proof of purchase at hand, although you do have to agree that should it be required later you will provide it. So go ahead and punish the fools who thought you could never have too many boy bands!!!

Today I received this letter:
Dear New York Music Purchaser:
As Attorney General for the State of New York, I am pleased to enclose payment for your claim in the settlement of the Compact Disc Minimum Advertised Price Antitrust Litigation. ...
(There's more but it's not that interesting.)

Now, don't start applying to me for loans or anything, because the check was only for $13.86 -- not even the maximum $20, and not even the price of one CD now that they are supposedly not falsely inflated. (Maybe someone should file another class action lawsuit.) But it's kind of gratifying to know that the little people win out every now and then.