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Australian Court Doubles CD Importers' Fines
anti-fsck writes "Australia's Full Federal Court today upheld a lower court's decision that music labels Warner Music and Universal Music had engaged in anti-competitive practices in the .au CD market by threatening retailers who imported cheaper CDs. The court also doubled the labels' fine - and the fines for senior label executives - to more than $A2 million. w00, cheap CDs at last? Now if we can only get US-zoned DVDs legalised as well ..." Another reader notes that the U.S. government is busy trying to get Australia to change its laws to increase the profits of U.S. record companies.
I think what this really should have mentioned more prominently is the second story. Talk about imperialist running dogs of the capitalist pig regime. - "Hey there, want a trade agreement? Not unless you bow down and worship the god of copyright exactly like we do"
U.S. government is busy trying to get Australia to change its laws to increase the profits of U.S. record companies.
Let the record companies deal with it, not the government of another country.
Yeah, globalization is a bitch. Deal.
This is just a battle slowing the seemingly inevitable unless changes that are more fundamental are made. It is just part of the trend like DRM, software patents making it into Europe and the like...
What's the real solution to the continual move of power to corporations? Or is it best we all just roll over and take it like good domestic livestock?
Second, although the Australian court decision is couched in the guise of "copyright law," it's no different in effect from protective tariffs or import taxes.
This raises the question why Australia didn't just enact an import tariff on compact discs equivalent to 100% of the price of an Australian-made CD.
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
IANAL, but executives can be held accountable, e.g. corporate manslaughter where AFAIK bosses can be held personally accountable for unsafe working conditions.
o rate_manslaug hter.htm
google'd:
http://www.mhcinternational.com/corp
CORPORATE MANSLAUGHTER
There is nothing new in the notion that industry and commerce have had hands in the deaths of customers, employees and their neighbours. Regardless of whether the reasons were driven by negligence or by incompetence, the net effect was that next to never were companies or their top managers held accountable by the courts.
Changes may well be on the way. The UK Government (May 2000) is now in consultation about the size and shape of corporate manslaughter or corporate killing charges. Prospectively unlimited fines are in view. There may be prison sentences for culpable directors. And the field of vision will cover all enterprises, to include public sector organizations, rather than the private sector only.
Enactment of legislation will take many months. The implications are clear even now. In addition to the moral responsibility which ought always to have been present, there are legal, cost and reputation reasons why managers should take action.
'Turnbull' requirements are already focussing attention on internal controls within the organization. Social audit and social reporting skills are increasingly needed by top managers. Above all, organizations will do well to look again at their values and their codes of conduct, whilst making sure that the needed educational processes are in place and working.
In the words of taco-man
"I haven't bought a cd since 1999. Not because I download songs, but quite frankly RIAA, your music sucks donkey balls.
Karma: -2^0.5 . Mainly due to the imbibing of dihydrogen monoxide
Get US-encoded DVD's? Does the submitter mean getting those DVD's in Australia, or does he mean getting them to legally play in Australia.
If the first, well....fat chance. The guys running those publishing companies have their heads in a tight, dark place.
If the second, just ax the region encoding on your DVD player.
Help find a cure for cancer. Join the [H]orde
$A2 million fine?
-- must be some computer friendly judge to pass the fine in hex notation.
Who took my tinfoil hat?
Is it me or is the U.S. the ONLY country not "Beating Back" the abusiveness of it's own corporations and government. (This should get me tag as a terrorist by saying this, in a country were supposedly we have a 1st amendment right to freedom of speech!).
Yes I do live in the U.S., yes I do think it is corrupt from the top levels of our goverment down to the corporations.
It seems just about every other country in the world is smacking the U.S. corporations that are trying to screw everyone, but for some strange reason WE CAN'T!
Look what kind of crap we are having to fight:
1) SCO - 'nuff said!
2) MPAA/RIAA - take away our rights to fair use, and to mayn other things to list.
3) Our Goverment - Took away our 4th amendment with the Patiriot act and allow law enforcement agencies free reign in what they do. All in the name of "terrorism".
What they don't want you to know is that our damn goverment KNEW about 911 on August 20th. THe Israil (sp?) Massad warned our governemt about a terrorist threat and of massive amounts of terrorists (about 200 I belive) comming into this country. There was even an article about it in the Jeruselum Post's website not long after 911. (Any of our Israli brothers want to confirm this?)
That's right your own government let it happen, why you say??? Think about what they have been able to do with that "terrorist threat" that they are using to try and scare us with. The patriot act, now talk of the patriot act II. Patriot Act - that is a damn slap in the face to the TRUE patriots that gave their lives for this country to be what it is today! I being former military am ASHAMED of our government right now!
The Truth is a Virus!!!
Who'd have thought? CDs honor the traditional price elacticity of demand for commodity goods: don't rip off your punters and they'll buy your product.
5 8767.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/31
Not a lawyer. At least as far as US law goes, if it can be shown that the execs acted in a deliberately illegal way and used the corporation to hide that activity, then the "corporate veil" can be pierced. This would open the door to all sorts of measures directly against the holdings of the individuals involved. The hard part seems to be proving that intentional illegal activity was taking place.
I could write something witty for my sig, but instead wrote this...
2 gouge consumers
3 coerce competitors
4 ???
5 coerce governments
6 PROFIT!!!!
Subverting governments is a typically anglo-saxon way of doing "business". In the late 1700's, a britshit brewer named Molson moved into newly-conquered France, and upon seeing that the cider-drinking french natives were eschewing his beet, simply had the governor outlaw cider-making.
Being too stupid to adapt to the market by making cider, he had the market adapt to him.
200 years later, his beer still tastes like horse-piss.
In my opinion, a thriving gray market -- where consumers seek out cheaper products/services in other districts/countries -- is evidence of a healthy, competitive global economy.
Sincerely,
Vergil
Insects and Grafitti Photos
You know they're serious when they have to make up new numbers to describe the amount of the fine!
Either that or they fined them in hex dollars (works out to $162 million).
The WTO is supposed to support free trade and globalization. All sorts of countries are behind it, yet it hasn't bestirred itself to do anything about the most blantant anti-world market move ever made: region encoding on DVDs and videogames. Why can studios divide market? Why can't I buy Japanese games and play them in the US?
Well, I guess the answer is obvious. But it irks me that everyone bought into international trade organizations that are so clearly biased.
By the way, does this price-fixing crap remind anyone else of a similar US case? Did members of the industry get personally fined, or were they protected behind the corporate veil? Good thing Australia's got its act together. At least someone does.
Use the Firehose to mod down Second Life stories!
It's not mistyped. It's 2 Million AUD, austrialian dollars.
One of the Big Deals in Australian politics is what is called "Free Trade". John Howard (Our Prime Minister) seems prepared to sell his soul to get "free trade" with the US.
What does free trade mean?
Basically having the US not protect its own farmers and let Aussie produce compete on an even footing with US produce.
Problem is. The US government will never play in the important markets. Beef. No chance. Wheat, yeah right.
Lamb. (The US has no real lamb market or demand) OK Free trade on Lamb. Oh and by the way. To get that you need to strengthen your Intellectual Property laws.
Well Mr Howard being Bush fanboy #2 thinks that's a great idea.
Aussie farmers are pretty ambivalent to the whole deal. No free trade basically means we now have one of the best performing farm systems there is.
Oh check this out:
http://www.austa.net/pdf/chapter4.pdf
From within:
US Interest in Australias position:
- Restrict parallel importing of recorded music and branded goods
- Concern about laws concerning decompilation of software
- Concern about the adequacy of test data for pharamcueticals.
- Concern that civil rather than criminal remedies are favoured for abuse of copyright or music.
And we are going to sell that to sell a few friggin' sheep that Americans don't eat anyway.
Idiots.
2000000 Australian Dollars = 1300300 United States Dollars 1 AUD = 0.65015 USD 1 USD = 1.53811 AUD Taken from ozforex
[ Don't reply to this ]
"Damn, now we have to buy off ANOTHER government, time to sue more file sharers and blame it on them"
Let's get one thing perfectly clear, I did not vote for George W Bush, and I do not endorse what he does or says.
"
Hardly.
More expensive CDs to pay for the fine, I'd have thought.
In the United States of Avarice, evil execs are protected by the artificial entity the hide behind: A corporation. THey usually get away with anything. Ken Lay of Enron is still a free man, as are Bernie Ebbers and Scott Sullivan of Worldcom. Australia, on the other hand, holds execs accountable. After all, they committed these misdeeds. Hooray for Australia!
How ya like dat?
Forget the total cost of ownership here, anyone ever take a look at the total cost of production of cd's and dvd's and the markups on them. While cassettes can be rather costly, and often sell for like typically 7.99 - 14.99, cd's and dvd's are made for peanuts
Personally I could care less what one court says since another will go back and reverse and vice versa, but some of the record companies should tone down their bitching considering they're sticking it to the consumer %99 of the times. It's about time P2P came to bite them in the ass and give them a wake up call, and now hopefully some of the courts will too
MoFscker
I say, if it weren't for Australian justice and anti-trust regulations, those two corporations would still be ripping off consumers. Yet, most of our countries are engaged in WTO negotiations which compell countries to get rid of those "embarrassing regulations" in the name of so-called "competition" and "fairness". I'm not saying we need more regulations; just that the existing ones need to be upheld.
Do you see where "competition" stands when corporations agree on pricing to rip off their consumers? What about "fairness" if the existing regulations are cancelled ?
(Robot slams door open:)
IP droid: `By using the words "fairness" and "competition", you just infringed on Trademark #AE6521 by corporation SueMyAss Inc. We'll see you in court, sir.'
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
Did you see what the Samba team said about SCO? They said that they stand behind the meaning of free software, even when it hurts (==is used by SCO)
This is my point; the Samba team says one thing and they mean it -- they have principles and they obey them -- while the US says one thing and then go on and show that they don't really mean it at all. If "you" truly believe in capitalism and a free market, why can't you stand up for its principles? Show the world that it's right?
The US government is helping US companies all over the world, including pressuring political change in a country just so that the mass media, food- or IT industries can cut new markets.
Parallel imports are forbidden under US Customs regulations as well, with an exemption for travelers returning with single items that may infringe on a US trademark or copyright.
A lot of small time record distributors routinely ignore this regulation and get cease-and-desist orders or worse when the US record company catches up with them.
To legally make an commercial importation of a sound recording that is already owned or licensed in the USA you must have the permission of the company that currently holds the rights in the USA.
The only thing we have to be proud of is our judicial system, the guys who blocked the Gordon below Franklin damn even though blocking it was COMPLETELY unconstitutional it was just right, the guys who locked up Pauline Hanson, the guys who fined those record labels, the guys who don't give a DAMN about what the big guys say about what you can and can't do with your own stuff. They make me proud to be an Australian,
Even though in Australia it is unpatriotic to be patriotic (or at least you are judged to be a weeny if you are). It is times like this when I would like to press my hand to my chest, salute our crappy, halfarsely designed flag, scull my VB (not Fosters, YUCK!) and sing "Advance Australia Fair" at the top of my voice (even though it was written by white supremists, at least it is not about a suicidal sheep duffer).
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
(As Emily Litella would have said, "That's quite different, isn't it?")
I am a U.S. Citizen, and I would like nothing more than to see all members of the RIAA and the MPAA dry up and blow away. I am certainly not alone in this view.
I look upon the recent financial woes of many of these corporations with schadenfreude - pleasure at the woes of another.
These organizations are making the US into a police state. They have orchistrated a coordinated attack upon our Bill of Rights, and they make a mockery of copyright law.
That they are suffering now is no great surprise. May it continue.
but sometimes a softer approach works, the less this is "news" the better.
A few weeks ago I heard that they (ie the American government) were trying to get the Australian content quotas on our radio stations reduced under the banner of "free trade".
Of course that's total garbage. Our airwaves are a national resource and it is entirely reasonable to ensure they are exploited for the national good. People can't just waltz in from anywhere and exploit our mineral or land and the airwaves shouldn't be any different.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Americans only like free markets and capitalism when it works in their favor.
The fact is some of us yanks like to see the these goons get sorted out. There's stuff that costs absurd amounts, or you can't even get in the US, thanks to restrictions on importing bought to us by the very same sphere of influence. They like to get money whether things are coming or going.
Some people like to refer to them as F.O.B. (friends of Bush), but they actually manage to get strings pulled their way no matter who the Prez is.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I've never seen anyone adequately explain why but there are indeed cases where people get done for parallel importing DVDs for resale.
I can understand why it might be a breach of the Classification act as what you are selling may not have passed through the required rating procedure.
But I can't understand how the sale of something can be a breach of copyright.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Yeah right. It's the private property of the government, not you. If the people really were the government in Britain, Britain probably would not have gone into Iraq. Face it, your "we are the democracy, we are the government" bullshit is nothing more than wishful thinking.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
If you like classical, and want to support a record company that "gets it," check out Naxos (www.naxos.com). They cover both standard and exotic repertoire; many pieces in their catalog are not available anywhere else. The website has full-length streams of their recordings (WMP format, unfortunately). Best of all, they are unaffiliated with the RIAA and all their CDs are $7.99USD or lower. I'm not affiliated in any way with them, just a satisfied customer who wants to see them flourish.
Journey onward.
The headline says the opposite of what the article says.
Let me guess, we have people who are PAID to edit here?
I have a positive modifier on Troll. When I mod someone Troll their karma should go UP!
The ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Comission) http://www.accc.gov.au has been lobbying for the right of DVD and Sony Playstation owners to import discs from other regions, see: ACCC Defends the Rights of Playstation Owners
I know that in the case of Playstation discs, Sony won a case recently that basically has made modding Playstations in Australia for playing any kind of disc (pirate or import) illegal.
But the DVD Region code issue has been in the press here alot, IANAL but I believe due to the actions of the ACCC, Multi region DVD players here are quite common in the retail market to give consumers choice, I guess its up to the DVD Player manifacturer weather they include the feature or not.
Personally my PHILIPS DVD-707 is modded All region from the remote and I own a number of Region 1 titles that just arent available locally here.
I'm all for import CD's too, alot of Japanese releases come with extra tracks and collectors packaging that if imports were banned, we'd never get to see (legally).
To a point as a consumer, I dont mind if the disc costs me the same as here or even a bit extra, but we should get the choice to buy the product we want, expecially if the product offers features not included on the domestic release.
Jim.
-- If at first you don't succeed, lie!
I find it rather odd that imported CDs are cheaper in Australia.
I run an independent record label and I get my CDs manufactured in Australia precisely because it is CHEAPER for me to do so!
"Mr Aldonis' comments came despite the US raising concerns about parallel importation legislation in its 2003 Foreign Trade Barriers report. Parallel importation permits the importation of a product by a person other than the local authorised distributor.
The US Trade Representative warned parallel importation had led to increasing piracy of DVDs and VCDs."
The US maintains that importing identical commerical copies of music or video from another country is equivalent to piracy? What balderdash.
To put this is perspective, if a company in China found a better deal on wheat in the Ukraine than what their "authorised distrubutor" of American wheat in China could offer them, then that company engaged in wheat piracy?
I am of the mistaken belief that free trade was meant to foster GLOBAL trade, not regional cartels.
Authorised Distributor is now another term for MONOPOLY. What a hypocrital nation the US has become.