28–7. Price Fixing About 80 percent of the digital music purchased in the United States was controlled by several companies that produce, license, and distribute music sold as digital fi les over the Internet or on compact discs.

The companies formed joint ventures called MusicNet and Duet to sell music to consumers. Through these ventures, the music sellers could communicate about pricing, terms, and use restrictions. Because the prices were so high, however, most consumers avoided them.

Instead, song-by-song distribution over the Internet became more common. As a result, the music companies were forced to lower prices, but most sales were still done through MusicNet as the distributor. Eventually, the music companies agreed to a price of 70 cents wholesale for songs distributed on the Internet, but they refused to sell through another distributor, eMusic, which charged 25 cents per song. A group of consumers, including Kevin Starr, brought a lawsuit alleging that the music companies engaged in a conspiracy to restrain the distribution of Internet music and to fi x and maintain artifi cially high prices. Do the consumers have a credible antitrust case to pursue in this situation? Discuss. [Starr v. Sony BMG Music Entertainment, 592 F.3d 314 (2d Cir. 2010)]