DOJ goes after record industry for online price-fixing

First it was Eliot Spitzer. Now the Justice Department is following in the footsteps of the New York Attorney General, and is investigating the major labels for the price fixing of music downloads. While we don't necessarily think it's such a bad thing for the government to take a look at some of the record companies' practices, we'd sort of prefer that they look into some other activities first (things like rootkits come to mind). But the pricing of online music is one of those things that we tend to think the marketplace will sort out: if 99 cents per song is too much, consumers will go to subscription services, Russian sites or even -- perish the thought -- buy CDs instead.