Cheap CDs? Not any more...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/3416437.stm

If anyone uses CD WOW to get cut-price CDs, on Sunday the prices are going
up. Thanks go to the efforts of the record companies for realising that
they'll reverse the downward trend in CD sales by this action.

 

Except it's even more stupid than that. Despite all the industry whinging
about how the internet will kill CD sales, music and ultimately all culture
on the planet, CD sales in the UK were up about 7% last year.

 

In uk.rec.motorcycles, Slider said:

How can bringing them in from outside Europe be copyright infringement?

They always did have their finger on the pulse.

 

Never mind, Play are still 8.99 delivered for most stuff.

 

I'd be really interested to see exactly which copyright law they are
infringing. I've just heard the guy in an interview on R5 where
he said that they've always bought from the proper record companies,
just not the European-based arms of them.

 

http://tinyurl.com/2knzp

Play are next on their agenda....

"The BPI is also investigating amazon.com, the world's largest online
retailer, and has issued legal proceedings against play.com, a Jersey-based
company, over parallel imports."

 

"It is not the consumer that will suffer, just CD Wow's profit margins."

Surely CD-Wow's margins are the same as they've passed on the full hit
to the consumer. So the BPI get to fill their coffers and only the
consumer loses.

 

In uk.rec.motorcycles, CT said:

But what's wrong with buying them from the European arm of them?

Surely they're all part of the same stock? A bit like buying a genuine
car part from a motor factors and then getting clobbered because you
didn't buy it from Ford (or wherever).

If the CDs are genuine and the artists have been paid and so have the
royalties, I don't see the problem.

 

I know. I was attemping irony.

 

In uk.rec.motorcycles, Whinging Courier said:

Sorry, I meant what's wrong with *not* bringing them in from Europe.

You can flagellate me with a broken bottle now.

 

AIUI, the BPI don't like it because the BPI don't get their
cut, although the record company and artist would get what's
due regardless of where the CDs are sourced.

 

And we thank you for it.

 

In uk.rec.motorcycles, CT said:

That's just it, if they're sourced from outside Europe then it really
should have nothing to do with the BPI?

My ISP doesn't go chasing me because I use a news server in Berlin for
instance.

The whole thing smells like a leper's armpit

 

Which takes us back to the original question of which copyright
law CD-Wow are breaching and on which the BPI is basing their
argument.

 

Sorry, I am so chronically depressed at their stupidity that my
irony-sensing ability has all but evaporated.

 

it is a bit grim, I'll grant you that.

 

Presumably more expensive CD's mean that CD Wow will sell less, so
whilst the margins remain the same, total profit would be lower.


Phil.

 

In uk.rec.motorcycles, CT said:

I gleefully await the outcome.

A bit like waiting for a fart bubble to come to the surface of bath
water

 

The outcome has already happened.

 

I think the argument is somehting along the lines of: The CDs produced
for the asian market (or wherever) are only licenced for use and sale
in that market. Ergo, selling them outside that market is a breach of
copyright
ICBW

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