UK Music Industry Stomps on Imported CD Seller

MungoBBQ writes "The Independent is one among the many news sources reporting that BPI, the British equivalent of RIAA, has made a large online retailer of CDs, DVDs and games, comply with their demands to raise prices by 2 pounds per CD sold on their website. The retailer, CD-WOW, based in Hong-Kong, agreed to raise their prices offered to their UK customers to avoid legal battles. CD-WOW caters to many other European countries, where people have been enjoying their cheaper CD prices. However, it can now be assumed that other national recording industry organizations will make CD-WOW and other online retailers jack up their prices to 'better compare' with the local prices in each country."

Comments

It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[ackthpt]

It's because they're selling to british and the british are meant to suffer. It's their lot. Stiff upper lip and all that!

Bloke: "I am really enjoying this CD I saved 2 quid on!"
BPI Barrister: "Stop that! Stop that right now! You're not supposed to be enjoying or saving on anything, and where is the rain? Bloody hell, can't we have some respectable english weather?!?"

Actually, I do buy books from the UK on occasion because they have better covers on the Terry Pratchett books and some things you just can't get in the USA (Meijers/Costco mentality, lots of what you oughta like at prices you can't refuse, but less variety all the time, because variety is meant to be a luxury and should be expensive or denied to peasants just for good measure.)

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[Alan Partridge]

It doesn't actually rain all that much in Britain.

Though it IS raining in London right now...

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[AllUsernamesAreGone]

And it has been raining in Manchester for the past week, I think I'm starting to develop webbing between my toes...

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[the real darkskye]

Webbing between the toes is quite normal in Manchester, its all the inbreeding between the 12 year olds thats doing it.

--
Can you smell burning? I think its my karma!

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[nicky_d]

It's because they're selling to british and the british are meant to suffer.

We surely are. As an example, I recently sought to nab the 3rd and 4th MST3K box sets. So to start with, not available in the UK. I shop around, find a good deal on Amazon for the pair, and send off. Now, importing into the UK is an absolutely random gamble - your package may or may not be checked and subjected to extra duty. Mine was - an extra 13 on top, split between Customs and the Royal Mail. But it's not all bad - the total price was still less than the other vendors, and way less than I would have been expected to pay if there was a UK release. Our prices are generally ridiculous for DVDs and CDs - there has been some improvement of late, but price cuts are generally led by major chains who can afford the risk, leaving smaller independent stores in an unfortunate position. If I think an independent store is worth supporting, I'll happily do so - but I won''t fork cash out to high-street chains when I can get the same product much cheaper online (though the online store is probably a subsidiary of the bricks-and-mortar one) and I won't buy British when I can buy American (or even better, Chinese) for far less. It's not like I'm helping kill off master British craftsmen - just a few corpulent CEOs. And while I might contribute to a salesperson begin surplus to requirements, I'll also be contributing to the demand for postal workers...

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[Fancia]

The Canadian editions of Pratchett's books are identical to the British editions; it might prove less expensive for you to purchase from Canada instead. ;3

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[Blue Stone]

As a general rule, you can import anything under the value of eighteen GB pounds, and be exempt from both VAT and import duty.

The thing that got me, when importing some CDs from Tower Records in the US, before I realised I would get slapped with an import tax bill, is that they add the duty to the price of the items, and then add the VAT to the items + duty price. A tax on the duty tax! Incredible.

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[ackthpt]

From my purchases from the UK, I'm well aware books and CD's in the UK have some additional margin worked in. Even back in the day I had a Commodore 64, I read some of the UK C64 magazines and was astounded the prices were at least double that in the USA, without even VAT or whatever worked in.

I wonder why eveything costs so much. Middleman taxes or what?

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course they do! You also pay tax on the money they take for NI contributions (another tax).

Bastards.

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[nicky_d]

As a general rule, you can import anything under the value of eighteen GB pounds, and be exempt from both VAT and import duty.

Oh, yeah, that is an important point to mention - where possible, order in small or single quantities to take advantage of this. If you do get caught out, the duty (and tax) will be a lot more than the extra postage required.

As far as I can make out, items over 18 are a lottery right now - I've only been caught out three times in scores of purchases, so overall I've saved a hell of a lot of money. I've always been caught around Xmas time, too - I guess they're more vigilant then, though you'd think they'd be too busy to pay much attention. I don't think having a great big branded Amazon box helped, either... red rag to a bull...

I've had nigh on a hundred DVDs shipped over from Hong Kong without any problems at all - sent in a plain envelope, tied with string(!) and marked as a 'gift' - though I don't think the gift/merchandise marking matters if the price barrier is broken, IIRC.

It just makes me even more determined to import, just out of spite... Before long, I'll be regularly paying more than UK prices, just to make a point. That's the real curse of being British...

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[wagemonkey]

The real curse of being British (English in my case) is moaning about how bad everything is here - Politicians, Roads (there should be a pothole tax on local councils to improve the roads), the trains, Politicians, the weather, politicians etc. - and then not doing anything about it!
Like leaving the the bloody mess behind.

And I'm as bad as everyone else. :-(

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[Simonetta]

The thing that got me, when importing some CDs from Tower Records in the US, before I realised I would get slapped with an import tax bill, is that they add the duty to the price of the items, and then add the VAT to the items + duty price. A tax on the duty tax! Incredible.

I have to agree that this tax-on-tax business is commonplace among governments and completely unjustifiable.

I suspect that in the long run that people in the UK will use e-mail to make person-to-person contacts with people (strangers in the sense that they have no contacts except an e-mail on an individual subject) in the 'colonies'.

People will upload lists of music that they are interested in. Someone who is planning a trip to the UK and the area where the person may live might either buy the actual CDs in their local country or copy the music i onto CD-Rs. Then the two parties can arrange to meet in person at a pub, coffeehouse, or whatever and exchange product for a pre-agreed price.

Before the internet this type of exchange could be done and had been done now-and-then but it was difficult to arrange the details.

It's not much, but it's an idea of how to approach the problem of music distribution across borders when the global music corporations aren't interested in developing the market that is there. They ignore the market by charging absurdly high prices when the potential customers can see how the markets and prices are in other places.

Thank you,

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[cayenne8]

Please pardon my ignorance, but, would like to ask from someone from Europe, which I'm guessing you ar, what exactly is the VAT tax I keep hearing about? My guess is it is a European wide sales tax on things? Does this take the place of all other taxes (income tax..etc.)? If not, what is this money targeted to?

I've been in favor of either a flat tax or national sales tax over here in the US, to replace the other federal and state taxation systems...and wondered if this VAT was comparable to this idea for the US?

Thanks in advance!

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[basingwerk]

I used to live in Montreal but I moved back to England in '98. I was shocked at how much money British people waste on high priced stuff. The British attitude is easy come, easy go, perhaps because when all the money's gone, they have the welfare state to bail them out (dole, NHS, national pension plan, income supplements etc.) So they don't have any incentive not to spend it all whatever the cost. What goes around comes around though. They don't organise their businesses particularly effectively and they don't work hard, so margins are less despite higher prices. Disorganisation is a British trait, and they are very proud of it. Also, although they don't work hard or effectively, they do put in a lot of hours, so they don't have a lot of time to quibble about a few quid when they go shopping. That's my guess, anyway. Good luck to them, though - it's a lot of fun to live here.

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[Anonymous Coward]

I must be the only person who likes the American covers. They are simple and classy compared to the British ones.

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[Tet]

I have to agree that this tax-on-tax business is commonplace among governments and completely unjustifiable.

It is at least logical. VAT is a tax on the value of goods. The value is the cost that the purchaser is prepared to pay, which includes P&P and import duty. If someone is prepared to pay that much for the goods, then that's their value, and hence that's the taxable amount. It still sucks, though, particularly on goods that aren't available locally, and have to be imported from elsewhere.

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[ackthpt]

I like the Kidby/Kirby covers very much. I also order from Amazon.co.uk the Discworld calendars, which adorn my kitchen wall. Only a few are Kidby works, but they're pretty good nonetheless.

Besides, can't find some of these works in the USA anymore, out of print or didn't cross the pond to a publisher.

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[Anonymous Coward]

VAT (or MOMS as it is called here in Sweden) is not europeanwide as in related to the EU but I don't know any country that does not have some form of it.

It is a sales tax nowadays levied on almost everything with some exceptions. Books are 0% in the UK and 6% or 12% here in Sweden. The normal rate here in Sweden is 25% so I have not bothered to remember the exact figure for books. I'm just happy it hade been lowered from 25%... Food is another exception with 12% or so.

The swedish version of the tax was originally intended to be applied to luxury goods which our glorious politicos interpreted as anything you buy anywhere.

Of course there are extra taxes on gas, electric energy, alcohol and others. The VAT is calculated on actual price + specific tax.

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[ackthpt]

VAT is, IIRC, Value Added Tax. Effectively a tariff (or like sales tax) on purchases. Canada has VAT, too, and Ontario at one time (maybe still has) had a PST (provincial sales tax) in addition. Small wonder hundreds of canadians bus over to Michigan stripmalls (outlet malls) just for shopping, when the tax in Ontario came out over 30% (when I last looked.)

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[Jaff]

in ontario we pay 8% PST on most goods(there are some exceptions). all of canada pays 7% GST on everything. not exactly 30% but it's enough to make you think twice about how much extra you have to pay on top of the advertised price. the majority of my elementary school mathematics dealt with figuring out the tax on a pound of back bacon.

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[Anonymous Coward]

And it has been raining in Manchester for the past week

Listen, I was just like you at one time, except I didn't wear makeup. That would get you a firm beating where I grew up. I'm happy to give you a sample of my course: Learn, Start, Doing. I promise you'll run out and buy some colored clothing, and listen to some music other than people droning on and on for half an hour about how much it rains in Manchester. Life is what you make of it.

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[Simonetta]

It is at least logical. VAT is a tax on the value of goods.

I'm afraid that I must disagree. VAT refers to a Value-Added tax.

There is no value added to a good by taxing it. Therefore the VAT can not logically be applied to taxes.

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[afp.matt]

VAT, Value Added Tax, is a tax added to almost everything you buy: in the UK it's 17.5%, I think the highest in the EU is about 19%, the EU want everywhere's tax to be about 17.5% (I can't remember the exact value) as at the moment each country has a different rate. If you but something from the EU, within the EU (i.e. a German buying a Greek thingy) then you don't pay any import taxes because you paid the VAT (I think, IANAL). In the UK, you don't pay VAT on: * Ordinary food (luxury food, like chocolate, biscuits (cookies), microwave-meals and so on is taxed though) * Books * Children's clothes and shoes VAT page from HMCE (Her Majesty's Customs and Excise) for more info.

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[Anonymous Coward]

25%? 12%? Wow, that's pretty bad. When I grew up in Pennsylvania tax was reasonably easy to figure out at 6%. Then I went to school in Delaware, where sales tax was extremely easy to figure out at 0%. Now that I live in New York, the sales tax depends on which city/county whatever you're in, and is something like 8.75%, so I don't even bother trying to calculate it. But much less than 25%, ouch.

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[cayenne8]

Sales tax here in NOLA (New Orleans) is about 9%...quite high. And, they catch you on the USE tax here...I'd bought a new C5 vette when I moved here. They gave me credit of 4% or so from the state I came from...had to cough up another 5% to get it registered here.

And its not like I can see where all that good tax money they get from you here goes...the streets are one big speed bump..schools (public) are the worst I've ever seen...etc.

But, is a fun place to live if single and party!!

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[xmedar]

Actually I have two words for you - Monopolistic Abuse, they should be instantly refered to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, but of course that isnt going to happen, I'm sure Blair and the boys will get paid to look the other way, you should be grateful, you're a CD buyer not an Iraqi / WMD expert / ITN newsnam , they kill those, if you're really lucky they wont make you pay taxes directly to the Blairs Backers / Blairs Cronies. Canada and Australia are looking like better options every day.

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[amorsen]

Danish VAT is 25%. So is Hungarian (but the Hungarian VAT depends on what you buy).

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[will_die]

I am currently in Belgium and they are at 21% VAT.

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[Viceice]

This is WWAAAYYYYYY off topic, but when you retire, you might consider moving to Asia.

Here in Kuala Lumpur, i know of a British couple at the recrational club where my parents are members. They are retired British civil servants and they say get about 2,500 odd pounds a month as pension.

When asked why they moved here, they said that with the cost of living in the UK, that 2,500 doesn't get them much, but over here, they live in luxuary.

See, the exchange rate is about 8 Malaysian Ringgit to the pound (and getting higher, due to it's peg to the us dollar) and that will get about rm20K a month. This is in a country where a bank manager would make something around 4K/mo. So, said british couple have a bunglow (about rm 600K, but you can finance it reasonably), 2 maids (rm 900/mo each, philipino or indonesian) and thanks to mostly sunny weather, a year long tan (priceless). Plus speciality shopping areas have sprung up and KL is very metropolitan, so they don't miss home.

Oh and did i mention that we have 90 odd golf courses in the country?

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[chaoaretasty]

www.dc-dvd.co.uk is a good place for region 1 discs especially because their prices are inclusive of tax and delivery (though there is a small surcharge for certain ypes of credit/debit cards). Saves on all the importing hassle and is usually quite well priced too.

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[GregWebb]

That drove me _mad_ when I was in Canada!

Over here, the price on the ticket is what you pay, period. I don't _care_ about some whiny shopkeeper wanting me to know that he's not getting the sales tax - that's utterly irrelevant to me. I _know_ I'm paying the VAT to the government and don't need to be reminded of it - I do want to know, though, that when I go into a shop with 5UKP in my pocket and see something marked as 4.99, I can buy it!

Really...

Re:It's their lot in life, they're made to suffer

[nicky_d]

Yeah, I've used them a few times (and they're only based a few miles away from my home) - they're generally more expensive than the higher profile importers, but as you say, they're not overpriced, and they do offer the security of an inclusive price, so at least you know exactly what you'll be paying. Worth it for expensive discs or sets where the duty would seriously do you some damage... and the service has always been great.

How about offering 2 pounds off to UK customers?

[MImeKillEr]

Or did they cover that already?

Sure, charge 'em 2 pounds more, then offer a 2 pound instant savings for customers in the UK.

F the BPI and the RIAA.

"Hong Kong-based"?!?

[fuzzybunny]

Err...what on god's green earth do British courts have to say about a Hong Kong enterprise?

Re:"Hong Kong-based"?!?

[Syowr]

Exactly what I was thinking.
Also the words Price fixing come to mind.
What happened to free enterprise and competition?? ....Oh wait, I forgot I was tallking in regards to a record company.

Re:"Hong Kong-based"?!?

[dave420]

They're undercutting the national institution's prices. The british courts can decide that someone needs to charge more for goods to make it fairer on the existing institution, or disallow them to import things to the UK. The british courts don't mind if the HK seller sells CDs for .29, as long as they're not for import in the UK. A sort of corn law type of thing, if you will.

Re:"Hong Kong-based"?!?

[fuzzybunny]

That's not my point.

What I'm trying to get at is that a court only has jurisdiction over a commercial enterprise which is a legal entity in the same country.

If WoW has a UK division, tough for them. But if they do their shopping in Hong Kong and send directly to customers in the UK, there's not much the BPI could do about it.

On the other hand, they probably ship in bulk to the UK and then distribute locally to safe on mailing costs.

Re:"Hong Kong-based"?!?

[philbowman]

It never went to court. This was an out-of-court settlement, presumably with the UK Arm of the company. Those of us who buy from CD-WOW are hoping the German (.net) and HK (.hk) sites don't get hit with the same restictions.

CD-Wow probably pissed off the BPI because they have a section "Unsigned - as yet" which sells CDs from as-yet-unknown bands, which doesn't make any money for the big labels. [Gratuitous plug - look at 'Bridgefield' in this section - they're friends of mine, and think CD-Wow are great for giving them a chance to get better known].

Re:"Hong Kong-based"?!?

[happyfrogcow]

right.

Re:"Hong Kong-based"?!?

[Alan Partridge]

Whatever happened to free trade, globalisation and all that bollocks.

I say to all British record buyers - fuck the BPI's risible Brit Awards and their immoral price fixing, and get sharing ASAP.

Re:"Hong Kong-based"?!?

[Doctor7]

If WoW has a UK division, tough for them. But if they do their shopping in Hong Kong and send directly to customers in the UK, there's not much the BPI could do about it.

They can lobby for any CD-shaped package from Hong Kong to be seized and destroyed by UK Customs, which seems to be what they are threatening.

Re:"Hong Kong-based"?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

play.com operate a similar scheme - bulk import to the Channel Islands, then ship *every* dvd/cd separately to avoid VAT. It seems stupid to send 5 parcels rather than 1, but VAT and import duty aren't charged on items 18UKP.

Re:"Hong Kong-based"?!?

[smcv]

From the article:

CD Wow! faced an injunction after the BPI claimed it was infringing the copyright of its members by sourcing its goods from outside Europe.

(I don't think that should be possible, though... how can CD Wow be infringing copyright if they have nothing to do with the copying process used to make the CDs, but just buy and resell them?)

Re:"Hong Kong-based"?!?

[timbloid]

It's going to be (AFAIK) a surcharge added for delivery to the UK...so I guess they will be hit by the same price hike.

Ahhh...the joys of living on an island...is there anything in the UK that's cheaper than mainland Europe?

Re:"Hong Kong-based"?!?

[dave420]

They're trying to allow the HK company to still import CDs to the UK, but without damaging the BPI's economy (false though it is).

I can understand why they're doing it, but the fact that it's come to this is still incredible.

They have jurisdiction, as that company is importing to the UK. That's the connection.

Re:"Hong Kong-based"?!?

[mikerich]

(I don't think that should be possible, though... how can CD Wow be infringing copyright if they have nothing to do with the copying process used to make the CDs, but just buy and resell them?)

I think it is because copyright law gives the holder final say over how their work may be distributed. For the first (and possibly last) time in my life - is there a lawyer in the house?

Best wishes,
Mike.

Re:"Hong Kong-based"?!?

[jovlinger]

complex.

[ob disclaimer: I had this explained convincingly to me by an EFF lawyer for the case of HKFlicks, which applies to US laws, not UK]

The law says that the copyright holder gets to control how copyrighted items are imported. You and I can still bring in for personal consumption, but not sale (tho we may need to pay duties on it if is new). Even if you bought the Kung Fu DVDs legally in Asia, you could not import them for resale into the US w/o asking the producers permission.

So the copyright holder will typically negotiate an exclusive import relationship, thus denying you such permission. I'm guessing that this often involves giving the importer proxy powers to sue other illegal importers, as you saw Miramax, not the honglong production agency go after HKflicks.

So if CD Wow had a legal presence in the UK, their business model was based on illegal import: they were not allowed by the record companies to import into the UK. I had understood this to be the case.

If CD Wow was completely based in HK, I'm not sure what british courts would be able to do about it. I'd imagine that international trade agreements come into it; the sort of thing that regulates what can and cannot be sent internationally via mail.

Re:"Hong Kong-based"?!?

[slipgun]

No VAT on food, children's clothes, heating fuel.

A few other things are cheaper as well, plus we have a much better legal system.

But I'm still planning on moving to Spain when I can :-)

Re:"Hong Kong-based"?!?

[91degrees]

In the UK, and, I believe, all countries that have agreed to the Berne convention, copyright law also allows copyright holders to licence distribution rights to a limited territory.

A totaly out of date piece of legislation in my opinion, but I have no idea who you contact to get an international treaty reconsidered.

Re:"Hong Kong-based"?!?

[swv3752]

UK Law might be different though doubtful with US law being based on UK and all that.

In the US, the copyright holder has final say on initial copy. After that, doctrine of first sale holds. I can now resell it wherever I like to whomever I like.

Re:"Hong Kong-based"?!?

[surprise_audit]

It comes down to the question of "where does the transaction take place?", which will be meaningful all over the Internet.

If I'm in Florida and buy something over the Internet from a store whose sole physical presence is in Oregon, did the purchase take place in Oregon? My credit card was certainly charged in Oregon, as surely as if I were there in person to hand it over to be swiped... The same would be true if I were in the UK buying from an HK website. Once purchased, the CD is my property so, would I then be importing it for my personal consumption if I instructed the dealer to forward it to me?

Re:"Hong Kong-based"?!?

[Cederic]

That's bullshit. There's nothing illegal about me personally buying an item from Hong Kong, asking the retailer to post it to me, and paying any necessary import duty.

~Cederic

Re:"Hong Kong-based"?!?

[Cipster]

They are based in the Jersey Islands which is not part of the UK. I think they could have won in court but figured it was not worth the legal costs.

Re:"Hong Kong-based"?!?

[Cederic]

cd-wow send each item direct from HK, with the appropriate customs notice, description of contents, value, etc.

Nothing shady or underhand.

They also provide an excellent service.

~Stuart

Re:"Hong Kong-based"?!?

[Cedric C. Girouard]

The law says that the copyright holder gets to control how copyrighted items are imported. You and I can still bring in for personal consumption, but not sale

So what happens, say, if I sell an officialy licensed letterhead sheet of paper bearing the autograph of the corporation's CEO for 9.99$ and as a thank you gift to my esteemed customers, I include a CD or DVD of their choice ?

Re:"Hong Kong-based"?!?

[aidan folkes]

So if CD Wow had a legal presence in the UK, their business model was based on illegal import: they were not allowed by the record companies to import into the UK. I had understood this to be the case.
If CD Wow was completely based in HK, I'm not sure what british courts would be able to do about it.

Unfourtunately it's the things cd-wow have over overseas sites that are causing the problems.

They accept payment in sterling through Worldpay (including the Switch debit card, which is affiliated to the unusable most places Maestro scheme); they deliver for free to the UK; and they have a returns department in England. All things which make buying from them a lot more convenient than other sites.

Re:"Hong Kong-based"?!?

[jovlinger]

Lawyers are pretty smart people.

While I don't know the details, you can bet your last dollar that someone has already invented, and been slapped down, for this sort of dodge. "I wasn't selling liquor on a sunday! They bought a $30 lighter and I GAVE them a handle of vodka!"

Same thing for prostitution: "I freely gave her $50 and she freely decided to fellate me." (remember, you can't say blowjob in court)

I'd expect that to hold about a sieve's worth of water in court.

While I'm here, let me clarify the bit you quoted: once you've legally imported for personal use a CD, DVD, or whatever, you can then resell it. That's first sale, and holds true for individuals. It does not apply, however, when the REASON for import is resale.

AFAI understand, that is.

Re:"Hong Kong-based"?!?

[Zalgon 26 McGee]

remember, you can't say blowjob in court

I won't ask how you know this...

Re:"Hong Kong-based"?!?

[Cedric C. Girouard]

While I don't know the details, you can bet your last dollar that someone has already invented, and been slapped down, for this sort of dodge. "I wasn't selling liquor on a sunday! They bought a $30 lighter and I GAVE them a handle of vodka!"

I guess you're right... But still it would be SO FUN to just watch them make a case out of it... Take it to court, and have a judge laugh it right out.

These copyrights law are outdated, still, they're laws, and unless we start challenging them in court, they'll remain.

I do not know about UK laws, but here in Canada, judges have been known to reward originality in court. Especially when a "small business" goes agains one of the moguls.

Lately, we've even had judges rule in favor of large corps (phone company) opposed to the music Guido & Vincenzo Inc. that tried to impose a fee on high speed internet. I might be wrong tho... Went out for a couple of cold ones, and a couple turned into an orgy of cold ones, and last call was an hour ago. Anyways. My point is that you must fight it. Use a loophole, create one, but fight it. As long as corp will bow down to BPI, *IAA, and co. the law will stand in all it's glorious idiocy.

Nice one BPI!

[phaze3000]

Well done to the BPI for giving those who download music for free yet more reason to not feel guilty. Truly a great day for record companies..

Wow is right

[shystershep]

We're not acknowledging that we were in the wrong, but simply that the risk-reward ratio of spending months in court wasn't right for us.

Yay. Chalk up another win for the good guys. It is nice to see, however, that the US legal system isn't the only one where extortion is a valid tactic.

Re:Wow is right

[Anonymous Coward]

I fail to see how it is "nice" that we're not the only ones who have to deal with something like the RIAA. I understand your misery-loves-company line of thought, but is suffering all around really better for anyone??

Re:Wow is right

[glesga_kiss]

Yay. Chalk up another win for the good guys. It is nice to see, however, that the US legal system isn't the only one where extortion is a valid tactic.

Surely this would fall under RICO in the US?

IIRC, there was a similar battle between supermarkets and the music industry here in the UK a few years ago. They used to import CDs from European distributers and sell them in the UK for a cheaper price. The industry tried to combat this in two ways. First, they added "bonus" tracks to the UK one to make the versions they are selling different to the usual UK release. Japan seems to do this as well.

They also tried to stop them in the courts. IIRC, they lost. Other industries have done the same thing; some clothes companies went ballistic when they thought they might lose their rip-of-Britain sales.

Didn't some famous US founder once make a quote about the courts being involved in protecting business models? I tried to google for it, but no luck.

Re:Wow is right

[TCaptain]

Surely this would fall under RICO in the US?

Of course not, RICO only applies to people who DON'T contribute millions in campaign contributions and lobbying efforts. But then, that's true of most laws.

Re:Wow is right

[mikerich]

IIRC, there was a similar battle between supermarkets and the music industry here in the UK a few years ago. They used to import CDs from European distributers and sell them in the UK for a cheaper price. The industry tried to combat this in two ways. First, they added "bonus" tracks to the UK one to make the versions they are selling different to the usual UK release. Japan seems to do this as well.

They also tried to stop them in the courts. IIRC, they lost. Other industries have done the same thing; some clothes companies went ballistic when they thought they might lose their rip-of-Britain sales.

The company that tried it with clothes was Tesco sourcing Levis outside the UK and they lost the case.

Best wishes,
Mike.

Re:Wow is right

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't some famous US founder once make a quote about the courts being involved in protecting business models? I tried to google for it, but no luck.

Cue the obligatory quote from Heinlein's "Lifeline", published 1939:

"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or a corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years , the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped ,or turned back, for their private benefit."

Re:Wow is right

[shystershep]

Heres a link that may help.

It makes sense, though.

[Wingchild]

The nature of what's happened is bad, but it also makes sense. Being in Hong Kong, CD-WOW doesn't strictly have to play by the UK's rules and can, in theory, charge whatever they want for the media they are selling. It's the basis of free enterprise, which Hong Kong is sometimes good about. (And to the consternation of the MPAA, sometimes all too good about.)

So, CD-WOW could, in theory, ignore BPI. BPI, in turn, can make life very very difficult for them through the use of repeated lawsuits (which may fail, but will cost money to defend against), through harassment of people buying their services, and through the use of the same tactics the RIAA employs here against people who don't obtain music how they want you to obtain it.

It's difficult to fight a legal battle, even one you can win, against an opponent who has the resources of the government to draw on. CD-WOW is probably just protecting their interests by rolling with the punches. Hopefully it'll hurt their sales less than fighting with BPI would hurt their bottom line.

Re:It makes sense, though.

[mgs1000]

And, of course, the publicity they get can lead to an increase in sales that would mitigate the effect of the forced price hike.

Re:It makes sense, though.

[mhifoe]

CD-WOW are a small company and probably can't afford to defencd against these lawsuits.

The BPI are threatening to go after Play and Amazon next. It'll be interesting to see whether they win so easily against bigger companies who can afford lawyers.

I'll be particularly gutted if Play are forced to raise their prices. I buy all my DVDs from there.

Re:It makes sense, though.

[jandrese]

Being in Hong Kong, CD-WOW doesn't strictly have to play by the UK's rules and can, in theory, charge whatever they want for the media they are selling.

Is this another way of saying CD-WOW is a bunch of bootleggers? Being from Hong Kong, that would not be a surprise at all. If that is the case, I'm surprised that BPI even allows them in the country to start with. You should see the mess people get into over here in the States with bootlegs.

Re:It makes sense, though.

[glesga_kiss]

Is this another way of saying CD-WOW is a bunch of bootleggers? Being from Hong Kong, that would not be a surprise at all.

Nope, they are a legitimate online retailer like Amazon. I wonder however if they weren't the first to have this demand made to them. They aren't the only source of cheap CDs.

Re:It makes sense, though.

[Ian Pointer]

No. The product that CD-Wow sells is legal. It's just that they can buy it in Hong Kong, ship it across the globe, and still manage to charge a lower price than most UK retailers. The record company's Hong Kong division gets the money, rather than the UK division.

Re:It makes sense, though.

[Alan Partridge]

If they DO raise prices at Play and Amazon, then I won't be buying ANY CDs anymore, as those are the only places I buy from now - with the occasional exception of Warpmart.

Re:It makes sense, though.

[PhilHibbs]

Being in Hong Kong, CD-WOW doesn't strictly have to play by the UK's rules

They have to abide by international copyright law, and if they don't abide by UK copyright law, then their imports can probably be seized at customs. These CDs are infringing copies, according to CDPA 1988. See section 27, copies commercially imported into an area where an exclusive distribution licence exists are infringing. CD-WOW were claiming that they are private imports for personal use, and that the change of ownership happens abroad, but that wouldn't stand up in court.

Re:It makes sense, though.

[jez9999]

Amazon's an interesting one. I find the UK flavour of Amazon to be a complete ripoff anyway, compared to the US Amazon.com, which I always order from and have my stuff shipped from the US. If it's a DVD, my firmware-hacked DVD player will play it. Region encoding sucks, and I'll happily break the law to fight it.

Any particular reason why people buy from Amazon UK rather than Amazon US? The US Amazon's products typically have more bonuses included (eg. bonus CD), at a cheaper price (even with shipping included!) and they're usually released there before they are over here! Gotta love international trade.

Re:It makes sense, though.

[Frogg]

sure, publicity can lead to extra sales, but why would a hong-kong based company selling cds to the uk at the same price as everyone else do any better than the high-street stores, or other (uk-based) online retailers?

seems to be exactly what the bpi wants to do -- level the ground, not (gasp) by allowing a uk store to reduce its prices and compete fairly, but by telling cd-wow to up their prices.

after all: it's a it's totally plainly obvious price fixing racket, isn't it? ..and it's been going on for years.

Re:It makes sense, though.

[DuffMeister]

I vaguely recall that the reason that the UK is not as litigious as the states is because the loser of the lawsuit will not only need to pay for their own attorney's fee, but will also need to pay for winner's as well. If this is the case, the only sacrifice (given that BPI is obviously in the wrong) CD-WOW would need to consider is time.

Re:It makes sense, though.

[thogard]

If the game console copiers are any indication of how a HK business will react I see this happening:
1) CD_WOW says "Ok, Well add 2 pounds to the cost"
2) CD_WOW registers a new company name
3) people in the UK find out about the new lower cost option
4) repeat

Re:It makes sense, though.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think thats the reason. Aussies and Kiwis have to pay the losers atty fees as well and the Aussies are more sue happy than just about anyone on the planet except maybe Californians. One in 17 Aussies has sued to been sued according to the numbers on some of the .gov.au web sites.

Isn't Price fixing by the industry Illegal?

[Machina70]

At least in the US it is... but I thought that was a basic anti-monopoly legal concept.

Re:Isn't Price fixing by the industry Illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

...And threatening competitors to make them raise their prices to align with yours is IMHO (but IANAL) much worse!

Re:Isn't Price fixing by the industry Illegal?

[mobiux]

hehe, sure it is.
But as long as you admit you did nothing wrong (therefore blocking class action lawsuits) and offer a token settlement, you can price fix as much as you want.

Re:Isn't Price fixing by the industry Illegal?

[edwdig]

Yes, in the US price fixing is illegal. But if you read the article, in the scope of this story, it isn't price fixing.

CD-WOW was buying their CDs from Asia, where they are cheaper, and then selling them in Europe. BPI objected to this on the grounds that CD-WOW was violating their copyrights by not buying the CDs from Europe. Rather than fight a long legal battle over copyright issues, CD-WOW decided it would be easier to simply buy the CDs sold to Europeans in Europe than to fight it out. The price increase is due to increased costs for CD-WOW, not due to BPI insisting on them raising prices.

Yes, we all know that there is price fixing involved in CD sales, and that is what this *really* is about, but the actual case that was going to go to court was one of copyright infringement. CD-WOW was selling CDs for 9 pounds. You'd have to sell a huge number of CDs at that price to pay for lawyers to defend you against music industry lawsuits.

Re:Isn't Price fixing by the industry Illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well it was an American company "Levi Struass & Co" who set the precident for this kind of case a few years back in the UK when cheap "grey imports" of levi jeans sold in supermarkets were deemed to be devaluing the brand name of the product.

So now (in all European countries) the manufacturer has complete control of the distribution channels (and therefore pricing).

Re:Isn't Price fixing by the industry Illegal?

[gnu-generation-one]

"BPI objected to this on the grounds that CD-WOW was violating their copyrights by not buying the CDs from Europe."

How can you possibly violate a copyright by buying something?

Re:Isn't Price fixing by the industry Illegal?

[edwdig]

1) I think Europe has some restrictions on importing goods. These laws may not effect CD-WOW though, as they are based in Hong Kong and simply ship to Europe. The article didn't say if they actually have European offices.

2) A lawsuit doesn't have to be valid to file it. Even if BPI lost the suit, it would cost CD-WOW a lot of money defending themselves. Lawsuits are very expensive, and since CD-WOW specializes in selling really cheap CDs, it would really hurt them to have a long legal battle.

Re:Isn't Price fixing by the industry Illegal?

[localhost00]

If they had a large and loyal customer base, I would certainly hope such a loyal customer base would prepare to fight such a demand. Perhaps donate to a legal fight.

Re:Isn't Price fixing by the industry Illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

"A lawsuit doesn't have to be valid to file it. Even if BPI lost the suit, it would cost CD-WOW a lot of money defending themselves."

Shouldn't happen in the UK - if BPI loses, they pay for the court case, all the lawyers, and defendant's costs. It's at the discretion of the judge of course, but if they're acting to consolidate a price-fixing racket which has already been proven illegal, that shouldn't be a problem...

How about this?

[little alfalfa]

How about they LOWER their prices to COMPETE with CD-WOW? Isn't that what economics teaches us? WTF PEOPLE!

Re:How about this?

[NinjaPablo]

Because the RIAA and the BPI live in BIZARRO world, where no means yes, pissed means angry, and the rules of economics are inverted!

Re:How about this?

[Red_Deth]

Exactly! It is our (UK) prices that are too high. Still U can totally understand from the BPI point of view, they need to keep profits in the UK and keep them at their current levels to fund their fat cat wages and their gross expenses! Oh the filthy world of inequality we live in amazes me. Those money grabbing whores. God forbid that they should realise it is their 100% capitalist self centered busniess model that is fatally flawed rather than the rest of the world. :P

Re:How about this?

[ralmeida]

I thought it was in SOVIET RUSSIA!

Re:How about this?

[slipgun]

God forbid that they should realise it is their 100% capitalist self centered busniess model that is fatally flawed rather than the rest of the world.

Actually, this particular tactic is very anti-capitalist.

Re:How about this?

[Bigman]

Well, AFAICT there's not much difference between the two. Except we don't get parades outside the houses of parliment. Oh, and the Russians paid less taxes....

Re:How about this?

[fatgraham]

Maybe you should have studied closer, if you lower the price, your profit goes down!

Instead, you should go and cry to the authorities so people can't compete with you

Imports

[Godeke]

If the cost of shipping around the world doesn't offset the price charged, then I see no reason why any organization should be allowed to demand a price change. Surely the cost of shipping that CD isn't small. Under the "globalization" of the economy, if you can't produce it locally for a reasonable price, people will import it.

Why is it that only corporations are supposed to benefit from globalization?

Re:Imports

[DAldredge]

In case you haven't noticed is bad when normal people import cheeper things. Globalization is only ok if it increases company profits.

Re:Imports

[Mr. McGibby]

This is why I get so mad when I hear about jobs moving from the USA and Europe to India and other low-wage countries. We're told by supporters that we should simply do with less like those in India and we would get those jobs. But the truth is that the price of living is ARTIFICIALLY high in the USA and Europe. We don't require higher wages simply because we want more stuff, it's because the price of everything here is higher. And it's higher for no other reason than that companies can charge more here.

The labor movement in the USA and Europe created these powerful economies and fought for fair labor practices. We shouldn't be forced to overpay for everything simply because we fought the fight, and sweat shop countries haven't.

Re:Imports

[Gulik]

Why is it that only corporations are supposed to benefit from globalization?

I think it has to do with the ownership of work-for-hire products, and they did buy all those congressmen.

Globalization is entirely about having the least impediments to getting labor cheap and selling the results dear. I think Nike might have a handbook on it; you should ask.

Re:Imports

[slim]

If the cost of shipping around the world doesn't offset the price charged, then I see no reason why any organization should be allowed to demand a price change. Surely the cost of shipping that CD isn't small. Under the "globalization" of the economy, if you can't produce it locally for a reasonable price, people will import it.

Why is it that only corporations are supposed to benefit from globalization?


The argument (which I am merely repeating, not endorsing) is this:

The price of a CD is nothing to do with manufacture. Your money pays for all sorts of things, and a big chunk of that is marketing. TV, radio and press adverts in the UK are paid for by the UK record company, not a global body. Radio "pushers", TV appearances, freebies to reviewers, launch parties, etc. etc. etc. are all paid for by the local record company.

So if you hear a record on the radio in the UK, then buy the CD on import from Hong Kong, the Hong Kong record company benefits from the UK record company's marketing spend.

The argument continues that prices are set to suit the local market, and marketing spending is set accordingly.

So, if you're the BPI -- an organisation whos *remit* is to look after the interests of the British Phonographic Industry -- it's clear that imports are not fair, and toys should be thrown from prams.

The same argument is trotted out to justify game and DVD territory lockout, staggered movie releases, etc. etc.

---

A few other points:

(1) UK buyers used to get cheap (to us) CDs from the US Amazon site. That stopped when amazon.co.uk hit the scene, and Amazon US started refusing to ship overseas.

(2) Big name shops like Virgin Megastore, HMV etc. routinely sell import CDs in the UK, but the BPI have no problem with this because they are usually special editions, boxed sets, rarities etc. sold at a premium (20,30,$100,higher). It's when imports of the *same* product are cheaper that they start to complain

Re:Imports

[Godeke]

Actually, I can see how that argument could be supported, at least in part. However, I suspect what would be a more effective mechanism is simultanious worldwide release, as was done with Matrix Revolutioins. It has the dual benefit of allowing you to charge the local going rate for at least the initial few weeks... and you can prevent people from realizing that your product is substandard and warning off the "delayed release" markets from purchasing it.

If your product is good, it should drive simultanious worldwide "instant gratification" purchases in local stores. If it is bad, at least you got the inital sell-through. This does come with much higher risk if your product is realy bad however, due to extra production costs.

Re:Imports

[haploc]

In Japan, bands often release special editions with extra bonus tracks or material, to make the more-expensive domestic releases more interesting than the imported ones.

That also means that big fans around the world will want to have those special editions :-)

Chris.

Re:Imports

[jez9999]

(1) UK buyers used to get cheap (to us) CDs from the US Amazon site. That stopped when amazon.co.uk hit the scene, and Amazon US started refusing to ship overseas.

Huh? As someone living in the UK, my last few bargain purchases have been from Amazon.com US. I just went to Amazon.com and sure enough, they still offer me international shipping to the UK. Did you simply assume that Amazon.com US had refused to ship stuff internationally?

Re:Imports

[slim]

Huh? As someone living in the UK, my last few bargain purchases have been from Amazon.com US. I just went to Amazon.com and sure enough, they still offer me international shipping to the UK. Did you simply assume that Amazon.com US had refused to ship stuff internationally?

Interesting. They certainly refused to ship to the UK for a period. Maybe a change of policy?

Re:Imports

[kilonad]

We aren't being forced to "overpay" for anything. The price of everything here is higher so that (almost) everyone here can enjoy a decent standard of living and avoid a caste system where servants can never afford to escape servitude because they aren't paid enough. Everything costs less in third world countries for a reason. They don't care if the power goes out for an hour or two a week. They don't care about hot running water. They don't really care if the telephone goes out on a regular basis. There's a ton of reasons that everything costs more here. If you'd be willing to work in sweatshop conditions just so you can pay less for everything (but remember, you won't have any money to spend), by all means, move to India. Until then, shut up and enjoy your high standard of living. Don't have a job? Don't have any prospects for a job in the near future? Why don't you just take all the free time you have to learn something new that isn't being outsourced to India? It's not fair that they took jobs away, but it's still up to you to improve your station in life. That having been said, I highly recommend anything involving imaging. It's a growing industry and the money's still decent.

That having been said, corporate executives currently have the mindset of "profit at any cost." They just can't see past the dollar signs in their eyes.

Re:Imports

[Mr. McGibby]

Everything costs less in third world countries for a reason. They don't care if the power goes out for an hour or two a week. They don't care about hot running water. They don't really care if the telephone goes out on a regular basis. There's a ton of reasons that everything costs more here.

You totally missed my point, which was that the more often than not, the reason that things cost less in third world countries has NOTHING to do with the reasons you give. It has everything to do with the fact that companies can get away with charging more here and for NO OTHER REASON than that.

The problem with those jobs in India, is that Indians are not being paid by Indians to work on Indian projects. Their paycheck is coming from American companies, who make their money from Americans. Take America out of picture and India and the rest of the third world doesn't have anyone to work for anymore. The third world is living off the hard work of my grandparents who fought hard for labor rights.

Where was the country with the big money outsourcing to the USA when it was in the same state as the third world is now? There wasn't one. The USA worked hard to fight for labor rights and built this economy by its bootstraps. The third world is using the first world as a stepping stool.

Re:Imports

[Hoplite3]

If the argument above seems plausible, think of the following: It is cheaper for IBM to outsource labor to India then pay for it in the States. The different cost of living allows them to pay a lower wage. When the music promoter argues that the cost of a release is higher in the UK than in Hong Kong, he should remember that we're a global economy. If IBM can outsource to avoid the steep cost of labor in developed countries, why shouldn't the consumer "outsource" to avoid the steep cost of promotional crap?

I'd be more sympathetic to the BPI if there were more protections for domestic labor.

Re:Imports

[Anonymous Coward]

You are sure a little minded person, aren't you? And racist as I can see.

"(...) Take America out of picture and India and the
rest of the third world doesn't have anyone to work for anymore. (...)"

Take US out of picture and we wouldn't have children burned to the ashes on Hiroshima. Get may point, my arguments are as flawed as yours.

"(...) The third world is using the first world as a stepping stool. (...)"

And the "first world" used all the poor countries to get where it is now. Destroying eco systems, promoting wars for the sake of the capitalism....

If I remember right, this thread was about anything but what you stated here. If you have problems with yourself, keep them for your KKK meetings, would ya?

Excellent move...

[heironymouscoward]

When your product is available on a global basis through illicit channels at near-zero cost, and innovative retailers try to bring their prices down in order to attempt to win back legitimate customers, force them to raise prices artificially and drive customers away.

Way to go, BPI!

Re:Excellent move...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.zeropaid.com

Re:Excellent move...

[rabel]

Actually, the products are available through legal channels. They're just importing them from the third world where they are cheaper and selling them to the UK customers, passing on the savings. This is very similar to Canadian prescription drug prices vs USA drug prices. The price is artificially high in the USA and now it's becoming illegal to purchase drugs from Canada.

To me, this is outrageous in a so-called "global" economy. We've got protected pricing in some countries, or places where the normal, higher price just wouldn't fly (say, CD prices in Asia), but in our new "global economy" the "international companies" are restricting trade amongst the various countries. Huh?

Can someone please explain to me what it means to have a global economy again?

capitalism?

[the_rev_matt]

I just love the "free market" ideologues who suddenly want government intervention when someone manages to effectively compete with them. They have no problem shipping jobs to India to get the best prices, but dammit consumers shouldn't be allowed to SHOP in India to get the best prices! They should be forced to pay our prices and conform to our marketing plans so we can make more money!

Re:capitalism?

[tarranp]

The people you are railing against, by definition are not "free-market ideologues."

No, they are people who demand regulations that are most fovrouble to them in the short term, and allow them to "earn" money hand over fist without having to exert themselves or be efficient.

This is not and indictment of believers in allowing market forces to set prices for goods and labor, but rather an example of how counterproductive the distortion of markets can be.

I don't like the R.I.A.A. or analogous organizations outside the U.S., and as a free-market ideologue :-), I fight them by not buying their overpriced wares. I highly urge everyone to do the same. If it costs too much, don't buy it! But please, if you are unwilling to pay for it, don't download it and enjoy it without the copyright owners consent. Fair is fair. :-)

Re:capitalism?

[elefantstn]

Mod parent up. Corporate head != free-market ideologue.

Re:capitalism?

[R.Caley]

I just love the "free market" ideologues who suddenly want government intervention when someone manages to effectively compete with them.

The BPI are by definition not free market advocates. Like the RIAA, the MPAA and similar trade bodies, the whole purpose of their existance is to advance the interests of their members. Restricting trade is part of that. They are the equivalent to trades unions.

[In theory of course. In reality, any organisation only partially exists for what it is set up to achieve: always the continued existance of the organisation becomes a major, usually the main, reason for it's existance]

Re:capitalism?

[ratamacue]

I just love the "free market" ideologues who suddenly want government intervention when someone manages to effectively compete with them.

Nice try, but you're describing market interventionists, not free market "ideologues". Way to set up the straw man argument.

Re:capitalism?

[Psychotext]

Actually... it wouldn't be such a problem would it? I'd happily earn indian software engineering wages if I could pay what the indians pay for housing / food / whatever.

But lets face it, it's never going to happen because as you said - It's the same people shipping out the jobs that are throwing out lawsuits to stop consumers reaping the benefits of globalisation.

Re:capitalism?

[1in10]

But please, if you are unwilling to pay for it, don't download it and enjoy it without the copyright owners consent. Fair is fair. :-)

I fail to see why this matters. If you're already opting out of buying it, it makes absolutely no difference whether you download it or not.

Boycotting the RIAA's distribution model is what hurts them and sends them a message. Whether you boycott the actual product has no effect either way.

Now, you can argue whether it's a moral decision to make, but that's up to the individual to determine for themselves.

Re:capitalism?

[tarranp]

If I understand you correctly, you are arguing that you are not hurting anyone by downloading the copyrighted material without paying for it, because you would not under any circumstances pay for it.

I understand that a copyrighted item, particularly one stored in electronic form, is not a physical item like, for example, an automobile; if you download it, the original copy remains and the author is no poorer than before.

However, this argument is not only legally wrong, but morally wrong. The author, or those whom he or she sold the rights to, is making this work available on the condition that they will be reimbursed according to the terms they set out. You do not have a right to their work. They do not owe you a copy. If it is overpriced, you don't buy it, and they lose out on a potential sale. Not only is it illegal, but under any moral system respects property rights, no matter how minimally, it is absolutely immoral.

This concept of making works available for reimbursement is the central concept behind the GPL by the way - it need not be monetary.

You are correct in your comment that it is up to the individual to decide wether they should break the law or not. However, I have a perfect right to try to persuade them to do the right thing and I will exercise it. :-)

Re:capitalism?

[WNight]

Pfah, I do agree that just because you don't want to pay for something you can't ethically take it. However, I do believe that if you cheat I get to do so as well to even the field.

This copyright law is clearly unjustified and unfair. It prevents a product which is being sold worldwide from being bought worldwide. They're screwing the customers out of the right to shop for the best price. It's always been a natural right for me to buy a product when you offer it for sale at a discount and take it to where there is no discount and either use it, or sell it in competition with you. When you take this right away you basically guarantee the ability to price-fix with legal backing because nobody can undercut you.

I feel cheated, and as such, see no problem in cheating back. They want to seperate me from money they didn't earn, but instead demand because of unjust laws, so I'll seperate them from my money.

Call it a reverse-tariff if you wish, but they get just as much say and respect as they're offering me.

I don't believe that it's ethical to tolerate obviously unjust laws. You're just encouraging them to keep bribing politicians for worse laws. If everyone bands together and ignores the unjust laws (and the therefore unjust enforcement of them) they lose power.

It boils down to you losing your right to complain about your treatment when you set out to cheat others. If a con man gets cheated we see it as poetic justice.

Re:capitalism?

[tarranp]

If I understand you correctly:

1) If someone cheats you, it's OK to cheat back.

2) Demanding too high a price for something you want = cheating you.

3) Therefore it's OK to take/copy the ware.

Umm, that's an interesting bit of ratioanlization.

Nobody owes you a song or a written work. You may want it, but the copyright holder is not obligated to make it available to you, just as you may want my car, but I am not obligated to sell it to you.

You say it is unethical to tolerate unjust laws, but how are copyright laws unjust ?!?

Certainly as Eldred proved in Eldred vs. Ashcroft the U.S. copyright law in its later incarnation does not promote the creation of new works as well as the law it replaced, so I would not argue that it is an optimal law, but unjust?

Nobody is stealing anything from you. There is no leveling of the playing field required. They want more money than you are willing to pay. Fine, don't buy the damn thing.

It seems to me that you want your music cheaply, just as I do. However, your arguments that you are being cheated are absolutley specious. They are no more cheating you than Microsoft is cheating me when they demand $500 (or whatever it is, I don't care) for a copy of MS Office. I don't pirate it, I use an alternative or do without.

It's the right thing to do, and believe me, it hasn't been that hard or painful, even in the days before Open Office.

Re:capitalism?

[WNight]

Point 2 is where you misread.

They aren't cheating by demaning a high price, they're cheating by refusing to let me buy for a price that someone else is willing to sell at, because it would cut into their high-priced market.

It's like you selling cars, then suing the owners for selling them used and cutting into your market.

There are a bunch of lawyerly reasons of why this is legal, but they're crap. Selling person A a cheap product and then suing them for undercutting your high price to person B is just downright dishonest.

I do agree with #3 though - if you cheated me out of either the ability to buy a car from someone else at a price lower than yours, or cheated me when I tried to buy the car, I'd feel perfectly justified in cheating you, either for getting my money back, or simply taking away your ill-gotten gains.

If laws didn't support this kind of cheating, I'd be more concerned about using the courts as a recourse, but from what I understand, the BPI's actions are technically legal... Fucking unfair laws.

Re:capitalism?

[tarranp]

I stand corrected. You are right that the BPI are immorally restraining trade, and that any laws that would allow them to do this would be unjust.

I still disagree with you concerning the morality of dowloading a song without reimbursing the copyright holder. Guess we'll have to agree to disagree...

Market forces

[tiled_rainbows]

Don't worry. Because, as we all know, the Free Market will always end up providing the best solution for everybody, where consumers can choose the best product at the best price and everything sorts itself out, magically, until we're all rich and free and happy. Or something.

Honestly, though; first DVD regionalisation, then this. Yeah, maybe the free market would be a good idea, if it actually existed.

What people refer to as the "free market" currently is better described as a global welfare state for fat guys in suits.

Self interest

[CGP314]

We're not acknowledging that we were in the wrong, but simply that the risk-reward ratio of spending months in court wasn't right for us.

And there you have it, the real thought behind every business decision.


--
In London? Need a Physics Tutor?

American Weblog in London

CD's from Hong Kong

[AlphaPB]

I'm in the US, and I've ordered from CD-WOW before. Thought they were based in the UK, but turns out they were shipping out from Hong Kong (my other home). I think they can get their CD's at cheaper prices from Hong Kong CD manufacturers. In these cases there might be very small differences in CD packaging (e.g. slightly different serial numbers, different label, etc.).

Beware

[IAmRenegadeX]

You're forgetting, companies are now able to impose "tarriffs" of their own, controlling how expensive just about ANY import is, in almost ANY country. We're moving towards (publically-admitted) company-controlled nations, day-by-day...if we're not already there

play.com next?

[KingDaveRa]

CDWow were buying CDs from outside of the EU, which is what the BPI didn't like. Makes me wonder what they think about play.com? They're based in Jersey, and by the looks import their music from Canada. Their prices are the same as CDWow were, so could go up a few pounds also. If they do, the difference in price between play.com/CDWow and HMV or Virgin will be negligible, and play.com and CDWow are going to suffer as a result. I can understand why the BPI are doing it, seeing as its copyrighted works being transferred in and out of licence areas, but it seems a bit wierd. Its a 'cut off the nose to spite the face' thing. On the one hand they're trying to make us buy more albums, and on the other they're making it more expensive. Maybe they should try making the high-street retailers cut prices a bit more. HMV seem to have two broad price ranges - 5-10 and 15-20. You'll sometimes find the same CD in both price ranges, on opposite sides of the shop. At least the online shops are consistant in their prices, and keep them low no matter what.

This just strikes me as being a silly idea, considering the current circumstances.

Re:play.com next?

[BenjyD]

The BPI are already going after play.com and looking at initiaing proceedings against Amazon, although I imagine that they might think twice about taking on a company like amazon - I mean, anyone that can patent storing a reference to a credit card number in a text file must have some kind of magical legal powers.

story at Yahoo

Re:play.com next?

[Arathrael]

Yes, play.com next. And Amazon.com too possibly. The Guardian articles on this had this to say:

The BPI has also launched proceedings against Play.com, a Jersey-based online retailer of CDs, DVDs and video games, which operates on a similar basis. And Amazon.com could be drawn into the row because it sells CDs to UK customers that are not available in this country, undercutting traditional high street retailers. The BPI could argue that they are acting without the consent of UK record companies.

It's one thing to argue that cheap imports that undercut the existing local releases are bad, it's another to say that imports of CDs that aren't even available here are. Yeesh. The hope for the UK consumer is that the UK Consumers Association does take the major record labels to court, as it's reported to be considering doing, over the price difference between CDs here and elsewhere in the world. It really shouldn't be cheaper to buy CDs from Hong Kong/Canada/the US/etc. in the first place.

Re:play.com next?

[Zocalo]

It looks like Play has already tried to prevent any potential suits by the BPI. I was looking to get an R1 DVD from them and they no longer provide R1 DVDs directly from the www.play.com site, although their US arm based at the www.playusa.com site will apparently still ship to the UK. I assume they have adopted a similar position for music imports too. Whether this will stop the BPI starting a similar action against Play remains to be seen though.

Way to go BPI! Push even more of your customers into the murky waters of ever greyer imports and P2P!

Re:play.com next?

[dave420]

They already had a go at play.com for doing exactly that.

Re:play.com next?

[Anonymous Coward]

www.playusa.com (Play's R1 site) will no longer ship CDs to the UK.

Re:play.com next?

[samadhi]

Just out of interest how much does a CD cost in local currency from retail outlets around the world at the moment?

As KingDaveRa mentions in the parent post the majority of new retail CDs in Britain fall into the 15 - 20 region, which if you translate that into US$ works out to $27.65 - $36.87.

Just curious as to if we are getting ripped off in the UK or whether it is just us Brits feeling sorry for ourselves again.

Re:play.com next?

[Eivind]

You've drunk the Kool-Aid. Sorry, but it's true.

You see, there exist this doctrine known as "First sale", which basically says that even for copyrigthed works, the moment you bougth a copy, that single copy is yours (what a concept!).

Thus attempts at restricting what a legal buyer can do with his property, such as claiming it's illegal for him to resell that property at any price he choose, to anyone, anywhere in the world, are moot.

I have no idea what you mean by "being transferred in and out of licence areas", fact is, copyrigth-law doesn't contain provisions for anything like "licence-areas", nor does any other law offer backing for such an idea.

It is true that the recording-industry would like to be able to sell a CD for cheap in a poor country, and still be shielded from the possibility that someone will buy it there, import it to a rich country, and undersell the much higher prices the record company wishes to charge there.

However, the fact that certain people wish something to be, doesn't by itself make it so.

Instead, it should be argued that artifical divisions like this are attempts to destroy the free market and screw over the consumers in the process. The recent ps2-modchip case from Italy was illustrative in this regard.

That the legal system has degenerated to such a degree that the richer/bigger part can pretty much use it as a threat and essentially claim: "Either you do as we say, or we're going to cost you more in legal bills", even when they don't actually have any hope or intention of winning those cases is just sad.

Which law precisely do you propose I may be breaking if I start a business based on buying legal, copyrigthed music somewhere in the world and "transferring it in and out of licence areas" ?

Re:play.com next?

[Anonymous Coward]

1) We pay 17.5% VAT. 2) The US-GBP and US-Euro exchange rate is majorly fcked up atm. Of course, this doesn't really make the US$ worth any less -- as long as you are inside the US. Keep that in mind when converting prices.

Re:play.com next?

[Bigman]

I'd say it's nearer to 12.99 - 14.99 for chart releases, rarities can be more expensive, sometimes if a record is being promoted you'll see it being sold for 8.99 - 12.99 (like when the record companies trying to hype it into the charts...)
So ordinarily I'd say 12.99 - 14.99 for an album in the UK.

I don't care

[rhadamanthus]

I'm really unconcerned about this. I don't buy CDs anymore. I don't download them from kazaa either. I'm tired of giving a shit about people being screwed by RIAA (et. al.), artists being screwed even worse, etc.

I'm not getting ripped off anymore. I tell everyone I know to do the same, for all the usual reasons, as I've been doing since I started to get informed on these greedy leeches. But if people wanna keep getting screwed, and the artists don't demand better conditions, I don't feel bad or angry anymore. Only justified in my newfound (albeit limited) apathy.

---rhad, who is a little cynical today

Re:I don't care

[BarryJacobsen]

the artists don't demand better conditions

Very few artists are signed when they are in a position to demand something from the record company, usually they're given the option "Accept our contract and eat, or don't and starve".

Re:I don't care

[Anonymous Coward]

You are wrong. It's precisely on topic.

The record companies are telling consumers, "You will listen to what we want you to hear and pay the prices we demand. If you don't like it, pound sand." If that were the attitude of, say, a local store owner, they'd be out of business in very short order. So it seems only fair that we exercise our rights to not give them any of our money. Let the bastards starve to death!

I really do think that driving the big record labels out of business would be a fun project for the geek community. It's a tall order, I'll admit, but perhaps it's time to plot the destruction of these companies.

Re:I don't care

[Perky_Goth]

That's great, but i can't live without music. Yeah, i could probably live with a cd collection the size of mine, but unfortunatly it has a lot of things i don't care that much afterall... (Thanks Audiogalaxy)

I foresee a day where some combination of hardware and software will produce low budget producers selling mp3 that will kick RIAA's ass. Well, i can dream...

Re:I don't care

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you can live without music. I have for years.

What's wrong with the world?

[pointzero]

So somebody offers a cheaper alternative to store bought CD's. This allows the artists to actually make money (note sarcasme). AND THEY'RE COMPLAINING.

Yet another reason not to feel guilty for downloading. I wonder how long this stupidity is going to go on.

Ok now off to my Professional Practices class. Where I get to argue with the teacher that downloading music isn't as ethically bad as he tells us.

Re:What's wrong with the world?

[Anonymous Coward]

You've already bought in to a possibly flawed premise.

Isn't there a valid argument that downloading music is ethically GOOD? I can make several such arguments, and I bet you could, too, if you put your mind to it.

Large Online Retailer

[CaptainAlbert]

From the BBC's coverage:

[...] the company had decided to settle because they were "a small business" and it would be financially "imprudent" for them to try and take the case to the Court of Appeal or the European Court.

(snip)

CD-Wow! has more than one million users a month worldwide.

So are they big, or are they small?

Re:Large Online Retailer

[pkey]

You have to look at it in the correct perspective. In comparison to the BPI, they are a small business, in comparison to Bo-Joe's House of Chicken and Waffles, they aren't.

Big deal

[Anonymous Coward]

I download any music I want through Kazaa, and CD-Wow's DVD prices are unaffected by the change. This doesn't affect me in the slightest.

Re:How about offering 2 pounds off to UK customers

[eggoeater]

Or a form for a 3 pound rebate.

Ridiculous

[savagedome]

If this is not bullying, then I am not sure what is.

RIAA, BPI and all the other recording ASSociations need to realize that Internet is spelled g-l-o-b-a-l-i-z-a-t-i-o-n.

Re:Ridiculous

[Bendebecker]

I thought the Internet was spelled I-n-t-e-r-n-e-t...

What CDWOW should do.

[jotaeleemeese]

COntact their local authority complaining about price gauging from the part of the EU.

Let China raise a complaint in the WTO.

Small companies, and individuals should try top leverage the weight of their goverments in this kind of disputes, specially when clearly the BPI is in the wrong (UK people should not the dissatisfaction with them and perhaps with the corresponding branch of the goverment. This stinks of monopolistic behaviour).

Re:What CDWOW should do.

[Anonymous Coward]

IANAL but write like a drunk one.

Look, man... we don't need to know your sexual preference. Who really cares if you're ANAL?

Re:What CDWOW should do.

[Asprin]

I'd say it stinks of oligopolistic behavior, but that's a lot of syllables.

Re:How about offering 2 pounds off to UK customers

[andrewscraig]

They are putting the prices up because they told the BPI that they would purchase the CD's inside the EEA (European Economic Area), rather than from Hong Kong, and that costs more.
Their argument all along was "ownership changes hands in Hong Kong," which was argued against saying using cdwow.ie and cdwow.co.uk showed they were deliberately targeting Irish/British people. My solution to this would be simply set redirects on those to the site cdwow.com.hk, and then show look we're just an international Hong Kong business?

WTF - MOD PARENT UP !!!

[maharg]

If I understand what phaze3000 is saying, why the hell should people feel that downloading music for free is wrong when the legal system allows a large institution like BPI/**AA to *force* (read "bully") legit cd retailers into anti-competitive price rises. Anyone agree ?

Re:WTF - MOD PARENT UP !!!

[scrytch]

Anyone agree ?

It doesn't take a college education or anything more than the old saw of "two wrongs don't make a right" to shoot down the obvious flaw in your reasoning. That said, fallacy and all, I still don't (never did) have any sympathy for the record companies who wage war against their own customers.

This was more of a an import tariff than a tax, coerced through extralegislative channels regardless (hey I just coined a new word). Either way mind you, all this will do is simply chase more people into using iTunes and the like.

Re:WTF - MOD PARENT UP !!!

[GoofyBoy]

When people see the "system" is unfair then they feel the need to rise against that system.

"Why should I follow a corrupt and unfair system?"

Re:WTF - MOD PARENT UP !!!

[pubjames]

Anyone agree?

Absolutely. People discuss these issues in moral terms, but from my point of view there is no morality about it. The record companies are as much in the wrong as the "file swappers" are.

Re:WTF - MOD PARENT UP !!!

[shark72]

I do not agree. Two wrongs still do not make a right.

You're in the UK, so this doesn't apply to you so much, but on a larger scale, a lot of this is ultimately self-serving excuse-making: "I read on /. that a British outfit had a dispute with a retailer. Therefore, here in the United States, I shall commence guilt-free piracy based on this anecdote."

The fact is that lots of industries have these sorts of disputes with retailers. There's a concept called a MAP -- a "minimum advertised price" -- that just about every retail industry in the US uses, to the chagrin of retailers who could otherwise make more money by selling at a lower price than the other guys. Saturn, and to a degree Porsche and perhaps other car makers, effectively engage in price fixing in the United States. Italy uses tariffs on all sorts of industries to protect their home market. And so on.

I acknowledge that typical /. readers can't be expected to have a deep understanding of the vagaries of the retail channel -- they are (and I don't mean this perjoratively) geeks, not salesguys. Nonetheless, it's intellectually dishonest to selectively use a feature of the CD industry which applies to countless other industries as an excuse to break the law.

Re:WTF - MOD PARENT UP !!!

[Blue Stone]

"Absolutely. People discuss these issues in moral terms, but from my point of view there is no morality about it. The record companies are as much in the wrong as the "file swappers" are."

You contradict yourself in saying that no morality is involved, and then define the issue in moral terms.

Moving on; I find myself asking if you consider people who share their record collections with their friends, 'in the wrong'?
Is copying music allowed within families, even? (Each copy even here is a potential lost sale, and a definite 'copyright violation'.
Mix CDs for your significant other ... wrong too?

And this is the reason an overly simplistic view on copyright infringement is a pointless waste of time; even these innocuous, friendly acts are actually illegal.

I use p2p systems, and breach copyrights. But I buy plenty of CDs as a direct result, but the record companies here are punishing me for actually following through and buying the CD of the mp3 I sampled and liked.

My contempt for them increases.

Re:WTF - MOD PARENT UP !!!

[sogoodsofarsowhat]

Yes but as a counter point...and this is what you miss is that if i dont like Saturns pricing (which i DONT) i have choices of other makes of vehicles to choose from..... in music i do not... the RIAA and BPI have iron clad grips on the industry and are continuing to grip them. I myself am a manufacturer of Audio systems and find it unbelieveable that i would set a minimum price. In fact, MSRP Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price is just that A SUGGESTED retail price...in the end if you choose to sell it below cost and make it up in volume thats your business not mine. Once i sell the item to another it is theirs to resell as they choose unless we have a written prior agreement. Without this agreement (which i dont believe there is in this case) i have no legal grounds to prevent them from selling it as they see fit. Also while 2 wrongs dont make a right....3 lefts do :P

Re:WTF - MOD PARENT UP !!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Two wrongs still do not make a right.

They can.

If someone is cheating me at cards, they are doing wrong (disobeying the rules of the game, which are set up to give all players an even chance). If I then cheat on them, I am also committing a wrong. But I have evened up the chances again (which is a right).

Re:WTF - MOD PARENT UP !!!

[shark72]

As a quick aside, there's a difference between MAPs and MSRPs... for the most part, in the US retailers are, naturally, allowed to sell at any price they like. But in certain industries in which the big retailers engage in massive advertising, a MAP can be a real problem for any retailer with the notion of competing on price. If you can afford to sell a product at $10, while your big competitor is selling it at $12 and plastering the newspapers with enormous advertisements, you might be in trouble. Selling the product for two bucks less than everybody else is one of those tree-falls-in-the-forest things if you can't get customers into your store to actually purchase it.

At any rate, the average retail price in the US of a new CD has fallen to $13.50. The great thing about our free market economy is that anybody with the means and the talent can get into any business. This is no different in the recording industry: there are hundreds, if not thousands, of indie labels. Starting an indie label and making it successful is very hard, but so is starting a restaurant. So is starting a retail store. And so on.

These hundreds of indie labels typically sell their wares at retail for not much less than $13.50. Why is that? To your "just don't buy a Saturn" point, if the labels are truly independent, and if the big players are truly a cartel, wouldn't it make sense of these indie labels to sell CDs in the brick-and-mortar retail channel at a price that makes more sense to slashdotters, like $4.99? Two theories come to mind:

1. All of these tiny indie labels are actually part of the vast evil cartel and are, too, reaping enormous profits at the expense of consumers and artists (this theory is favored by the "A CD only costs $0.25 to make so it should be sold for $1.00" crowd here on /., who presumably do not have MBAs or masters' degrees in economics).
2. $13.50, more or less, is about the price that is necessary to cover the expenses of creating, distributing, promoting and selling a CD.

Which theory holds more truth is, as the math textbooks say, left to the reader!

Re:WTF - MOD PARENT UP !!!

[CrazyDuke]

I think I agree with you here.

The problem I am seeing here is who's wrongs and who's rights? If the Industry is engineering dictating what is "right" and "wrong" legally at the expense of the governed, why should the people take these on as their own personal morals? Think about it, SCO says you are using linux, therefor you owe them $699 for a licence or they will sue you. Now lets say thanks to their lobbying efforts, it becomes officially illegal to use linux without paying SCO. Is your or anyone elses use of linux without having a SCO licence now wrong?

*braces for the technicality trolls*

Re:WTF - MOD PARENT UP !!!

[CantGetAUserName]

They don't break the laws because they make the laws. They are never wrong because they are bigger and have more money than you. When was the last time the word 'fair' came anywhere near a discussion involving the RIAA or any one of it's subsidiaries?

Re:WTF - MOD PARENT UP !!!

[Coniptor]

DAMN STRAIT!!! =)

Re:WTF - MOD PARENT UP !!!

[sogoodsofarsowhat]

It does not cost $13.50 to make/market/profit from a CD. Sorry that just doesnt work. Take a look at say a DVD player at Wal-mart for $39. It has way more cost of goods in it...and it sells for a lot less margin. For your information i own a manufacturing company and do extensive work in AUDIO. I can tell you it does not cost anywhere near the $13.50 to make a CD and market it. Another point that shoots yours down is TAPES...they are sold at lower prices then CD's ... yet cost more to produce...explain that one SHERLOCK....you cant can you...dont defend the big record labels to me....you will not win. And no CD's shouldnt be a $1 how about $5-$10 somewhere in there.

music industry is not allowed to regulate prices

[formalS]

If the European Commission knows about this 'regulation', the RIAA can get a huge fine for their behavior.

Free trade, but only for those who can afford it.

[CarrionBird]

They're all about free trade when it makes money for them. As soon as it threatens thier profts... here come the lawyers.

Since when did anyone have a "right" to not being darwined out of the marketplace.

Feh.

Theft

[pubjames]

Personally, I think this extra two pounds we have to pay is theft. How do they justify it? This is cartel price fixing.

How many millions are the music industry going to rob off UK customers as a result of this action?

The music industry are theiving b******s, which is why they are so obsessed with telling everyone that it's the public that are the thieves.

Re:Theft

[tr0llb4rt0]

Applause!

The worldwide (especially the UK) music industry wants us all to bend over and take it like goatse.

The consumer has been robbed blind for the last two decades and now they have a chance to fight back.

I've bought 2 cd's in the last 2 years (and I hope the Chilli Peppers and Coldplay thank me :-D).

Don't pander to these crooks. Just stop buying the shite they try and dump on the consumer.

Re:Theft

[Tamor]

A guilty system recognizes no innocents. Can't remember who said that.

To be ultra-cynical

[Anonymous Coward]

CD-Wow just had a few months of free publicity, appearances on television and general good advertising. They've now capitulated, their profile considerably raised.

Anyway, it's irrelevant. CD singles are cheaper in Australia (and better) even after shipping. CD albums are cheaper in Canada and the US. Let's see the BPI take down HMV Australia or Amazon US.

Re:What kind of nerd are you ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mom's pancakes. What's it all about? Is it good, or is it whack?

allofmp3.com

[Anonymous Coward]

On a related note, is it legal to import allofmp3.com music into the UK? I can't see why not, as the sale is legal in Russia, and digital music isn't a restricted item like drugs..

Re:How about offering 2 pounds off to UK customers

[edwdig]

The reason the CDs were cheaper was because of where they were being bought from. The CDs were being bought from Asia, where they sell cheaper, and then being sold in Europe. The music industry wanted them to buy the CDs from Europe. Rather than fight it out in court, the store agreed with the music industry's demands and started buying the CDs from Europe. The 2 pound increase in price is simply passing along the increased costs to the customers.

Clarification

[slim]

CD-Wow's business model was to sell CDs to the UK market. A typical price for a chart CD in the UK is 15.. 12 if you shop around, 10 if you get one of the special offers from a discount shop such as (my favourite) Fopp.

CD-Wow was able to undercut these prices to (typically) 8, by importing from Hong Kong or mainland Europe, depending on the product.

The BPI have alleged that importing from outside the EU is illegal, and decided to prosecute CD-Wow.

CD-Wow decided to settle out of court, despite maintaining that they were in the right. This is not unusual: small companies can't afford months or years in court. Their agreement was to cease importing from Hong Kong, and only import from the EU.

My understanding is that their agreement with the BPI is *not* to hike prices by 2 -- their agreement is to only import from the EU, and CD-Wow have stated that this will increase their costs by 2, which will be passed on to the customer.

I think this could hurt CD-Wow quite badly. At 8, this was the cheapest place a Brit could get new CDs (i.e. recent releases). There's a bricks and mortar music shop on my local high street where I can buy the very latest releases for 10, and have luxuries like browsing the packaging, having the product immediately, eyeing up the hot shop assistant, etc.

Erm, sorry about that last bit.

Re:Clarification

[Anonymous Coward]

This doesn't explain their decision to raise the price by 2 on their Hong Kong site when shipping to the UK - www.cd-wow.com.hk as reported elsewhere

Those products are sold in Hong Kong and are presumably Hong Kong discs. So why are CD-Wow adding 2?

There's been a deal done somewhere, here.

Re:Clarification

[Rob Parkhill]

Wow, I would never buy a CD at those prices. I can pick up most CDs locally for under CAD$20, most for under CAD$18 (or about 7.50 to 8.50 pounds.)

Even at the "we never discount" places in the mall, you hardly ever see a CD over CAD$25.

15 pounds (CAD$36) for a CD is insane. Then again, people in the UK are used to getting screwed by high prices.

Maybe you should start ordering from Canadian stores. (absound.ca, amazon.ca, chapters.ca, futureshop.ca to name a few big ones...)

Then again, you'll probably just get a 150% duty/tax slapped on it at the border.

Re:Clarification

[slim]

Maybe you should start ordering from Canadian stores.

You'd better believe it. When I last visited Canada I had to buy an extra suitcase for all the DVDs, CDs, and the Gamecube I bought... and I know a few Canadian games shops that ship to the UK: including shipping, video games from Canada still work out way cheaper than buying at home, and they usually get released earlier too.

If you're physically visiting Canada, you can queue up, show your passport and receipts, and get all your Canadian sales tax refunded. Nice :)

Re:Clarification

[iNetRunner]

Well, don't ever come to Finland the standard price for new cds is 21.95 / 21.99 euros (15.12 - 15.15 GBP) in brick and mortar stores (though a lot can be bought at slightly less*; still highway robbery..*). Now THAT is bad! Where are the price cuts for Finns!!

Re:Two words for BPI, RIAA etc.

[samadhi]

Seems to me that the government bodies are more interested in sucking up to the music industry than they are investigating the price fixing which is rampant in the UK in the first place.

I seem to remember about 5 years ago the British governmet started an investigation into Record Industry price fixing in the UK (to much public fanfare) as at the time we were paying approx twice as much per CD.

Strangely enough the entire initative fizzled into nothing and the British people are still being ripped off every time we walk into a record store!

Why music?

[natefanaro]

Why do music industries have to be so bullyish? Why couldn't it be an industry that we don't care about? Like interior design.

Re:Why music?

[shark72]

I know you were joking, but margins in the designer furniture business (and, I suspect, the furniture trade in general) are much higher than the CD business. As are many other businesses. Those who understand the difference between gross margin and net margin get what the analysts say when they point out that the recording industry as a whole operates on low margins.

Re:Why music?

[alib001]

It's not just the music industry. Up until recently UK consumers got a very raw deal on car prices too, which led car buyers to purchasing cars from Continental Europe.

Why do the companies do it? Because they can. Because nobody's really doing anything about it.

You'd think they'd try not to upset the people that still actually pay for their music but I'm sure somebody sitting at a desk somewhere has worked out that these tactics lead to step 3, profit!

Re:music industry is not allowed to regulate price

[goldspider]

But then of course this has nothing to do with the RIAA. ;)

Completely inaccurate story summary...

[WIAKywbfatw]

What the agreement (that avoided a court case) stated was that CD-Wow would source products that they are selling in the EU from within the EU, not from elsewhere (eg, Asia).

Unfortunately, because manufacturers charge more for the EU versions of their CDs (or, to put it another way, because they aren't discounted as much as CDs intended for Asian consumers) this means that CD-Wow will have to pay more for its stock in future. To reflect that increased cost, CD-Wow is putting up the prices of its CDs by 2 pounds.

The reason for this is that (ridiculously) buying goods from cheaper sources outside the EU without the permission of the vendor is illegal. Other companies, such as Levi Strauss, have taken supermarkets and other discount retailers to court over grey (non-EU sourced) imports in the past, so CD-Wow would almost have certainly lost the court case that was avoided. Clearly, this is one law that EU consumers would love to see changed.

Other online vendors who the BPI believes are selling grey imports in the UK are also being considered for legal action. These include Amazon.co.uk (which is based in the UK) and Play.com (which is based in the Channel Islands).

Why the crackdown? Well, I'm sure the BPI is being pressurised by traditional retailers complaining about losing sales to etailers undercutting them at every opportunity. It's not a coincidence that since the likes of CD-Wow, Play.com, etc appeared the average cost of an album in the UK has dropped to 10 pounds. And it's also not a coincidence that cheaper CDs (on the high street and online) led to a 30 percent rise in UK album sales last year.

As a regular CD-Wow customer, I'm disappointed by the BPI's stance, the agreement and and the law that forced it, but I'll continue to shop at CD-Wow because, for the most part, they'll still be cheaper than many of the alternatives. Not only that, but they somehow manage to ship from Hong Kong to the UK faster than most their rivals shipping from one part of the UK to another! Their customer services are friendly and helpful too.

Hopefully the consumer-hostile legislation that led to this agreement will soon be repealed. When that day comes, I'm sure CD-Wow will drop its prices again.

Re:Completely inaccurate story summary...

[timeOday]

How does anything you said contradict the story summary? Only insofar as forcing CD-Wow to pay an extra 2 pounds per disc is different than forcing CD-Wow to charge consumers an extra 2 pounds per disc. In other words, scarcely different at all.

Re:Completely inaccurate story summary...

[WIAKywbfatw]

The story summary says that the BPI demanded that CD-Wow raise its prices by 2 pounds per CD. What they actually demanded was that CD-Wow stopped sourcing CDs that it was selling in the EU from outside the EU.

The end result is that CD-Wow will be raising its prices by 2 pounds per CD, but it wasn't because the BPI walked up to them and said "Raise prices by 2 pounds or else!" If that were true, they could equally have demanded a price hike of more than 2 pounds, or hit CD-Wow with the same demand in a year's time ("Hey, we want another 2 pounds per CD!") but, clearly, that's not the case.

And, as I pointed out, if the law on grey importing is lifted, then CD-Wow can go back to sourcing CDs from wherever it wants, and drop its prices back down accordingly. The way the story summary put it, CD-Wow was eternally bound to do the BPI's will. Again, that's not the case.

There's a difference between the story summary and the reality of the situation. Perhaps not a difference that you appreciate, but a difference nevertheless. Either way though, I and other CD-Wow customers are going to be paying more for our music in the near future.

Re:Completely inaccurate story summary...

[misterpies]

This case is a simple matter of commercial rights and is pretty clear cut, simple stuff. There's really nothing for slashdotters to get outraged about. Imagine for a minute that it wasn't CDs but, say, Apple computers at stake. Say some company is buying Macs in the US (where they are far cheaper than the UK) and importing and selling them in the UK, undercutting Apple's own prices.

Now there's a good argument that this should be perfectly legal - after all, the computers were bought legit from Apple, why shouldn't you be able to take advantage of differential pricing? On the other hand, there's a good argument the other way: Apple is free to choose its own business strategy, and its brand is one of its main assets. People selling cut-price Macs on street corners, with foreign manuals (and probably without a locally valid warranty) would have an adverse impact on Apple's high-value brand.

So far in court, the second argument has won - basically the unofficial importer is potentially undermining the brand strength and goodwill of the supplier. But note that all the big cases so far have come from major "lifestyle" brands, such as Levis. I doubt that some Korean company shipping nameless PC grey boxes would get very far with it.

Besides the fact that music is probably THE lifestyle industry, BPI also has another strong point in its favour: it (or its members) own the UK rights to the music being sold by CD-WOW, and by selling in the UK without permission CD-WOW is infringing those rights. You might say, so what, the music was bought once so the copyright was paid for -- but copyrights are regional in nature. If I own the UK rights to a song and you own the US rights, then for someone to buy CDs from you in the US and sell them in the UK is depriving me of my income.

So overall, this is a no-story, unless you have an ideological problem with copyright and trademarks in th first place. Yes, in some ways it sucks for the consumer. But if you want cheap stuff from abroad, you're free to either go there or order it direct from stores in that country (but be ready to pay import taxes)

Re:Completely inaccurate story summary...

[Anonymous Coward]

10 quid? Tell me where, all the CDs I have tried to buy were at least 16 quid (of course, I haven't bought any of those, I refuse to pay 50% more that what I'd pay somewhere else).

Re:Completely inaccurate story summary...

[radish]

But if you want cheap stuff from abroad, you're free to either go there or order it direct from stores in that country (but be ready to pay import taxes)


But that's the whole point. CD-WOW is in another country - it's in Hong Kong. I am ordering direct from them, and I am liable for any import duties (which are actually waived under 30GBP value). So this is what I have a problem with - CDWOW bought a legitimate product from their local supplier. They then decided to sell it to me, who happens to be in a different country. This is somehow deemed "wrong". That's crap, and it flies right in the face of any notion of free trade.

Re:Completely inaccurate story summary...

[WIAKywbfatw]

HMV, Virgin, WH Smith and Woolworths all will have some chart stuff at around 10 pounds, although not all of it. New releases tend to have offers on them as well. Supermarkets also discount CDs. Tesco, Sainsburys and Asda all stock chart CDs at around 10 pounds too.

But if you're going to buy CDs on the high street then buy them from a smaller independent music retailer. Their prices are usually more reasonable than those of the big boys and you're likely to receive better service. Depending on how you feel about large corporations you might even get a warm fuzzy feeling when you're walking out with your new purchases.

Of course, if you're looking to fill out your collection, the regular sales held by Virgin and HMV to clear out excess stock are great. The 5 CDs for 30 pounds deals that Virgin run is brilliant and it runs to DVDs too: just before Christmas I bought a stack of great stuff and I could have easily have bought a lot more if the self-restraint hadn't kicked in.

Re:Completely inaccurate story summary...

[Anonymous Coward]

That '30GBP' is actually 18GBP, IIRC...
It was the last time I checked the relevant (and labyrinthine) regulations at the Customs and Excise web page, and I think that figure is set EU-wide.
UK importation laws are in dire need of being re-written, preferably by someone with a clue.

The Corporate View

[johnos]

There are lots of morons in suits that think this bit of news is a good thing. However, the smart ones will think just about the same as the /. crowd. This is a huge admission of weakness by the UK music industry. Sure its easy to crush some dotcom, but they've just raised a huge flag that will attract attention from those not so easily intimidated. The legal basis for the threatened action against CD-Wow is thin at best. Amazon or someone else who can afford the legal bickering can now swoop in and do exactly what CD-Wow is backing off of.

This is, IMHO, another example of the record company's desperation. Cooler heads would have ignored CD-Wow. Realistically, how much could an HK based dotcom change the UK market? Not much in my estimation. But by taking this action, the BPI suggests to retailers that they might be able to get a leg up by importing CDs. The BPI just fucked its members. I hope they are enjoying their "victory" today. A few more like this will kill them.

Re:The Corporate View

[Hieronymus Howard]

Except that Tesco, with their huge legal resources, lost a similar case against Levi's. As a result, Levi jeans are twice the price in the UK, as they are in the US. I like Levi 501's because they fit me well, but am boycotting them because I don't like to be ripped off in the manner. I'm now planning to do the same with cd's.

HH
--

The hypocrisy of big business

[GreenCrackBaby]

This is what gets my blood boiling about corporations today.

"Well, this guy in India/China/Mexico is willing to work for less than you. Can't compete with those wages? Oh, too bad!"

Compare to:

"Well, this CD costs much less in India/China/Mexico. We can't compete with those prices. STOP! THIEF! SUE! BLOODY MURDER!!!!"

Re:The hypocrisy of big business

[Anonymous Coward]

Due to excessive bad posting from this IP or Subnet, comment posting has temporarily been disabled. If it's you, consider this a chance to sit in the timeout corner. If it's someone else, this is a chance to hunt them down. If you think this is unfair, please email modeeration@slashdot.org with your MD5'd IPID and SubnetID.

Re:The hypocrisy of big business

[forkboy]

Man, you fucking nailed it. I don't think it can be said any clearer.

Re:The hypocrisy of big business

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention all the Indian outsourcing which I'm sure some people here have experienced first hand

Re:The hypocrisy of big business

[KingOfBLASH]

It's human nature to maximize what you can get for yourself. It's just a shame that the goverment (which is supposed to be a buffer between human greed and society) was perverted a long time ago and is now helping organizations and corporations like the RIAA and the BIB (or whatever it's called)

Re:The hypocrisy of big business

[computational super]

... and I wonder... where were the CDs actually manufactured? I'm sure that the CDs that the BPI-approved CDs that British citizens are allowed to buy were manufactured in a CD-manufacturing plant right in the middle of downtown London, and certainly not in a sweatshop in Indonesia...

Re:The hypocrisy of big business

[cyril3]

Actually that's what gets me pissed off at worker/consumers sometimes.

"Well, this guy in India/China/Mexico is willing to work for less than you. Can't compete with those wages? Oh, too bad! STOP! THIEF! SUE! BLOODY MURDER. YOU MUST HIRE ME NOT THE BLOODY FOREIGNERS!!!!"

until

"Well, this CD costs much less in India/China/Mexico. Can't compete with those prices. Too bad man you're just A CAPITALIST PIGOPOLIST tryin to rip me off."

Re:The hypocrisy of big business

[Anonymous Coward]

The government is supposed to represent us, the people, who have voting rights.

How is it possible that the government passes laws that give free reign to companies, who have no votings rights?

We've been sold out.

Re:How about offering 2 pounds off to UK customers

[ePhil_One]

And this sort of behavior is exactly why the music industry is suffering so; it has little to do with P2P and other things.

In 1995, the music industry decided to combat price wars in CD sales by setting MAP (minimum advertised prices). Within 6 months, CD sales flattened and began to fall, a did not recover until Napster, MP3 players, etc, revived the industry. The music industry attempts to control the consumer like no other industry, and as a result has missed out on the growth that similar industries have seen, such as Movies and video games. They pay for placement on the radio, pay for placement on store shelves, pay to create videos that they likely pay to have MTV play (all 10 that get played in a 24 hour period). And then they bitch that it cost too much money to create, and thats why they are losing money selling 50 cents worth of metalized plastic for $20.

Speaking as a Brit

[Fr33z0r]

We really do get bent over by everybody when it comes to our cash.

Looking at my own economic situation (I'll convert prices to dollars :), I smoke and drink alcohol, both of which are heavily taxed so I probably wind up paying about $100 a week on the tax on those, then I've got road tax, council tax, x tay, y tax and z tax, and to top it all off I pay V.A.T on everything I buy - that's 17.5 percent added on *after* taxes, shit we even pay VAT on delivery when we buy our [overpriced] stuff.

In a regular week with no cash spent on toys, I probably pay about $200 on sales taxes, my wages are even better, with upward of $700 getting taken off my wages every week.

that's close to $1000 a week I pay the government, I'm really curious as to what the fuck the government does with all that money.

Now I'm going to be taxed up the ass for, uhh... well, going by the article, *nothing at all* - it's just some greedy assholes who want money for doing zero.

I used to buy CDs, not any more, I refuse to piss away any more money on money-grabbing fucking middlemen without the skills or talent to produce something worthwhile on their own. I'll support the artists I like by going to their concerts, buying stuff off their sites, or even just *giving them cash* ffs. The music industry is a total farce and I think I've been a total dumbass for continuing to support it financially all this time.

No more CDs for me, not until the industry is fixed.

And seriously, would it kill the government to *not* take so much money from us? :D

Re:Speaking as a Brit

[trout_fish]

What does the government do with the money? - Hospitals - Schools - Public Transport - State Pension - Rubbish collection - Subsidies to farmers (to keep food prices down) - Social secruity (for when you can't work) - Police - Courts - Fire brigade - Sports facilities Loads more stuff I have missed out... Just wasted all that money isn't it! (Of course there is wastage, but you did ask what was done with the money.)

Re:Speaking as a Brit

[BenjyD]

Where's the money going? Well, of course the socialist government we elected is spending it on:
- High quality medical care - now only two years for a hip replacement!
- A fast, efficient and punctual train system - only three times the price of BR!
- A world-class police force - now with 15% more mugging!
- An excellent education system - with added Lifetime Debt(TM) feature

Re:Speaking as a Brit

[slim]

In a regular week with no cash spent on toys, I probably pay about $200 on sales taxes, my wages are even better, with upward of $700 getting taken off my wages every week.

that's close to $1000 a week I pay the government, I'm really curious as to what the fuck the government does with all that money.

You're very welcome to your views on tax, but know that it's completely off topic. High CD prices have nothing to do with tax and everything to do with price-fixing.

CD-Wow's prices included VAT -- they did the importing themselves, and it was above board.

If you order directly from abroad, you stand a chance of customs inspecting your incoming shipments and charging you UK VAT on them -- and usually it will STILL work out cheaper than buying in the UK.

If you care to take a look, the government's budget is there for you to examine. I believe at present we're spending more than we raise in tax.

Re:Speaking as a Brit

[albionsoft]

CD-Wow's prices included VAT

No, they don't. Buy anything over 18 and you'll get stung for the VAT, plus a hefty royal mail clearance fee, when it enters the country.

Re:Speaking as a Brit

[albionsoft]

In a regular week with no cash spent on toys, I probably pay about $200 on sales taxes

$200 in VAT means you're spending something of the order of $1200 a week. After food, which is VAT free.

upward of $700 getting taken off my wages every week.

Which gives you a pre-tax income of about two grand a week, or a cool $100,000 a year.

What, are we supposed to feel sorry for you?

I refuse to piss away any more money on money-grabbing fucking middlemen ... I'll support the artists I like by going to their concerts

Yeah, because the artists get every penny from a gig. By the time the promoters, roadies, ticket agents, venue, hotels, transport, etc. have all had a bite of the pie most artists get very little from gigs. Only time most artists get money is when someone buys a t-shirt.

Sad really.

Re:Speaking as a Brit

[Fr33z0r]

$200 in VAT means you're spending something of the order of $1200 a week. After food, which is VAT free.

Well, no, that is factoring in cigarettes and alcohol as well as odds and ends I buy through the week.

Which gives you a pre-tax income of about two grand a week, or a cool $100,000 a year.

With the dollar the way it is today that number is probably a little on the low side, but close enough.

What, are we supposed to feel sorry for you?

That would be nice, yes. And would it kill you to tell me I look good once in a while? :D

Yeah, because the artists get every penny from a gig. By the time the promoters, roadies, ticket agents, venue, hotels, transport, etc. have all had a bite of the pie most artists get very little from gigs. Only time most artists get money is when someone buys a t-shirt. Sad really.

Very, and admittedly I'm just spouting off what I've heard - "support the artists by going to their concerts!", the reality is I don't know how much more (or less) they get for a live appearance as opposed to through CD sales, I'll still go to the concerts either way though, if nothing else it's a good way of showing your [non-financial] support - just being there when you could be somewhere else and enjoying the beauty of what they've created.

Re:Speaking as a Brit

[Anonymous Coward]

to be fair, if you are paying ~400 UKP (shit the dollar is weak) in income tax a week (~20000 UKP per annum) then u are rich. so quit complaining. the average wage is less than your income tax bill.

Re:Speaking as a Brit

[Mr Syd]

I agree with the rest, but farm subsidies do NOT keep prices down: Economist.com

Re:Speaking as a Brit

[Alan Partridge]

"Subsidies to farmers (to keep food prices down)"

I think you'll find that those subsidies keep food prices UP.

Re:Speaking as a Brit

[autophile]

I smoke and drink alcohol, both of which are heavily taxed so I probably wind up paying about $100 a week on the tax on those

Ummm... stop drinking and smoking?

Here in the U.S. we have "trailer trash" -- people with ultra-cheap housing (basically a small tin box with electricity and plumbing hookups). They complain a lot about how they can't make ends meet even working two jobs.... as they light up yet another cancer stick and down another beer.

--Rob

Re:Speaking as a Brit

[Anonymous Coward]

thats complete bollocks and you know it.

public transport *is* paid for by our taxes, although its all now privatised, which is just wrong. I don't see the government paying for all of my companies infrastructure, so why the fuck do I have to pay for some cheap-ass train companies? they charge enough as it is! if they can't make thier business model work then screw them - let them fail and move over so somebody who knows what they are doing can take over instead!

Police are mostly funded by speeding fines... and I've never, ever, seen any FREE sporting facilities - so, the same argument as trains applies to these.

its all toss - bastards.

Re:Speaking as a Brit

[91degrees]

He said sales taxes, rather than VAT, which I guess would include cigarettes, alcohol and fuel taxes. These add up if you're a smoker, drinker and driver.

Re:Speaking as a Brit

[JamiexJamie]

Since when do we have a socialist government? Labour scrapped Clause 4 (the clause which stated their socialist aims) before coming to power. Hence 'New' Labour. Not that this is some sort of apology for Tony Blair, but one thing you most definately can't accuse him of being is a socialist.

Re:Speaking as a Brit

[Oddly_Drac]

"They complain a lot about how they can't make ends meet even working two jobs"

Over here we call them 'MPs'

Re:Speaking as a Brit

[Oddly_Drac]

"Hospitals"

Run by health authorities who bring in the majority of cash through the PFI and private medical insurance rather than public funding which *contributes*.

"Public Transport"

Only in the cities. Outside of the M25 orbital you'd be hard pressed to find a rural or semi-rural route that operates. These have been privately operated for years, BTW.

"State Pension"

Disappearing by the time you retire, if you're in the 20-30 demographic. Pension funds have been performing extremely badly for the past decade or so.

"Rubbish collection"

About to be charged for directly in some boroughs because they can't afford it. I shit ye not.

"Subsidies to farmers"

They're actually falling quite a bit too, but they aren't to keep prices down, they're to keep prices up. Subsidised crop is pulped or otherwise destroyed. Note that the average farmer cannot sell goods through supermarkets because of the stringent requirements of conformity and 'quality' that mean that foodstuffs grown and delivered can be turned away.

"Social secruity"

50/week to be patronised by a civil servant. woohoo. I've signed on once. I'll sell a kidney before I give some partially skilled, braindead coprolite the satisfaction of asking if 'I've been actively seeking work'. No, fifty pounds a week is all I need.

"Police"

Violent crime is up 18%. They're doing a grand job, as you can tell from the gun crime statistics which have _slowed_ from last years 34% increase. If I'm ever being robbed, they're at least third or fourth on my list of alternatives, the first being a big hammer.

"Courts"

The CPS or legal aid? In the case of the CPS there was a judicial review saying they were jailing too many petty crooks. Go figure.

"Sports facilities"

CF. Private Finance Initiative.

"Just wasted all that money isn't it?"

You'd be surprised. In the nineties, several million pounds was spend refitting trident submarines a couple of weeks before they were scrapped, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. The biggest amount goes on maintaining one of the largest standing armies in the world, and you'll find those spending levels haven't changed from the end of the cold war. Likewise with intelligence gathering.

The thing is that tax is not spent well, simply because of the complexity of the system. Local council tax is spent alarmingly badly, as I've just started running oversight on my local council to find out why they feel it necessary to raise council tax by ~20% to provide a _lower_ level of service.

PS, you may have noticed the MoD whistleblower recently talking about there being no need for the Royal Navy to have new frigates...go check how much they cost, then compare it with social services the like of which you've mentioned.

It's bad, and I got pissed off

Re:Speaking as a Brit

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, guess, that's why brits like to travel so much ...

Re:Speaking as a Brit

[trout_fish]

Sorry, but most of this is rubbish. "Hospitals" - Primarily funded by the tax payer with only some money for new facilities coming from PFIs. "Public Transport" - There are government and local council subsidies to bus and train operators. "State Pension" - Still here now and paid for by the government. "Social secruity" - It may not be great but it is a large bill to the tax payer. It is not just the JSA, but many other benefits to different people. "Police" - They are there and paid for by the tax payer. "Courts" - The CPS, legal aid, judges, all the administration etc. Again, it may not be perfect, but our courts do overall do a pretty good job. "Sports facilities" - No, PFIs do not provide the majority of funding. Local councils and central government provide large amounts of money providing, maintaining and running sports facilities.

What's good for the Goose is good for the Gander

[dsk052]

This is no diffrent than what some slashdotters want the US Government to do with offshoring of IT jobs. The only diffrence would be that the US Government would be the ones raising the prices through taxes, tariffs, etc.

Don't get me wrong I still disagree with it, but you can't have you're cake and eat it too.

Re:How about offering 2 pounds off to UK customers

[BiggerIsBetter]

What's to fight out? There's nothing wrong with parallel importing. The worst the Evil Empire could do is threaten to stop supplying them in Hong Kong.

Funnily enough, that's exactly what happened here in New Zealand with DVDs and independant DVD rental outlets...

Re:music industry is not allowed to regulate price

[formalS]

I'm sorry, its the BPI, the British counterpart of the RIAA. Its about European companies (directly or through a higher body) which force a company to change its price in favor of market stability. This is one of the areas where EC doesn't joke with.

Re:Free trade, but only for those who can afford i

[BenjyD]

AFAICS, the 'free'(as in not-free) trade movement exists to lower barriers against rich western countries flooding developing economies with the products of our highly automated and heavily subsidised agricultural industry. Got to keep those darkies poor and hungry or who knows what they might get up to ;)

Re:How about offering 2 pounds off to UK customers

[Alan Partridge]

CDs cost more like 5 cents than 50.

Re:What's good for the Goose is good for the Gande

[Carrot007]

There are really no grounds for comparison here.

Offshoring labour makes PEOPLE poorer.

Letting big companies price fix makes the COMPANIES richer.

Sure sounds the same to me.

Dumbass.

Irish music buyers are also being screwed!!

[Da_man]

Discovered CD WOW just before christmas, and it saved me a packet. Normal, if you want to call it that, price for a CD here is in the region of 17.50 Euro+ or about $22.25 per cd. CD-WOW were selling for 13.95 Euro including postage.

The local RIAA, IRMA, www.irma.ie, took CD-wow.ie to court as well. The public is not pleased, as we are already the most expensive country in Europe, and the culture of the fast buck, and ripoff is prevalent everywhere. They are forcing CD-WOW to add 3 Euro.

I for one will never buy a cd from an Irish shop that I can get in www.cd-wow.com.hk... just watch those little packets fly!!

Re:Irish music buyers are also being screwed!!

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that you can't. www.cdtimes.co.uk reports that the extra charge will be added no matter which CD-Wow site you use.

Re:Irish music buyers are also being screwed!!

[Da_man]

Damn, and double damn!! It's a pain being screwed continuously...

BPI statements

[rokzy]

BPI release statement on CDWOW!

and just in case you might start using your brain and realise the isn't a good thing:

Music Buyers Enjoy Lower Than Ever Prices

Re:BPI statements

[jimmi_bob]

this seems to me quite similar to dvds and region codes. can they not make up their minds about globalisation? it should mean that the consumer has the power to choose when and where they can purchase an item - not that industry can control who can buy an item and at what price.

I Wonder...

[minasoko]

Most of the music I buy is not released domestically in my country (UK), and I don't use CD-WOW, so this doesn't affect me directly. However, I'd like to know why the relevant organisations haven't jumped on companies like CD-WOW and Play.com for R1 DVD sales? It's the same situation, is it not?

It seems to me to just be a way for the music industry to protect their artificially high prices. I presume also, the only reason I've not been stopped from importing Japanese music CDs, is because there's no bloated UK market for me to damage.

Re:What's good for the Goose is good for the Gande

[Anonymous Coward]

We'd rather have the US government keep our jobs in th US than have companies ship jobs to India, higher paid or not.

For further info...

[SimianOverlord]

You can visit the British Phonographic Institutes homepage (obviously) here.

But if you'd rather not be annoyed by the overly gratuitous flash webmash, just send them an e-mail, on general@bpi.co.uk.

I'm disgusted this is spun as a "copyright" issue.

An end around?

[JasonBigham]

To get around it, CDWOW can give their customers a $2 "reward" -shipping not included of course- for every cd purchase to be used towards future purchases...

Re:Two words for BPI, RIAA etc.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems like the BPI are campaigning to have VAT reduced on CD's. Now this is a real case of trying to make more money. What possible justification can the record industry have for VAT being a special case on what is essentially a luxury item.

Now let's see the pattern here, lower VAT and increase prices = more profit. Do they think we are stupid.

European musicians add voice to VAT lobby : 13:10:2003

Pop composer Jean-Michel Jarre and Belgian crooner Helmut Lotti have added their voice to the pan-European music industry lobby urging European Union lawmakers to press for cuts in sales tax on CDs.

EU-wide laws allow a reduced rate of sales tax for cultural products such as books and cinema tickets, but not sound recordings. EU finance ministers have been meeting in Luxembourg to discuss possible changes in VAT.

Over 140,000 people have signed a petition, presented to EU ministers last Tuesday at a press conference in Brussels.

Re:music industry is not allowed to regulate price

[johnmrowe]

On the contrary, it's actually European law that says a brand-owner can stop you from importing branded goods from outside the EU.

John

Do you really mean that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Twat?

Re:Do you really mean that?

[Alan Partridge]

Yes.

It's a quote, you see.

Re:Do you really mean that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. It's about the size of a panatello cigar.

Re:Do you really mean that?

[Alan Partridge]

Shouldn't that be "a slim panatella"...

Re:How about offering 2 pounds off to UK customers

[malfunct]

Isn't setting a minimum price called "price fixing"? I thought we didn't allow that in the US.

Hang on

[beelsebob]

Hmm... I there are only two words I can think of for this...

1) Price Fixing
2)Price Fixing.

I'm fairly sure that they're both illegal.

Bob

Bizarrely, they're using Copyright Law

[carou]

According to the BBC's story, the BPI are taking action on the basis that Cd-Wow have somehow violated copyright law. Even though there is no allegation that unauthorized duplication ever took place (all the stock is bought indirectly from the same record companies, albeit their overseas branches). I have no idea why copyright law applies here? I'm yet to be convinced that Cd-Wow have done anything remotely illegal.

But of course, the musiconglomeratopoly has more money to spend on lawyers, and even if there's no case they can get it to drag out for months or years. Meanwhile the defendant pays huge legal fees until it runs out of money. BPI seems to be trying to use lawsuits to disable the smaller companies who can't afford to stand up to them and get justice.

Re:Bizarrely, they're using Copyright Law

[kellererik]

Not only that, they can afford to buy themselves the legislation they like, see the latest EU laws regarding copyrights.
Write the EU Ombudsman, supposedly the one to talk to if the EU abuses its power.

Not just about BPI

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't just about the BPI, and there is a prior case they can reference regarding importing from non-eu based countries.
I am sure many of you who still live in the UK (thankfully I escaped), will remember the Tesco's (large supermarket chain) cases from a few years back, where they were importing perfumes, and Levi's on the "grey" (thats "gray" to those of you across the pond) market from places like Turkey.
If a large company like Tesco's can't win a case like that http://www.ananova.com/business/story/sm_640811.ht ml?menu= what chance does a company like this have ?

Re:Not just about BPI

[__aaarnh3813]

Bah! Would help if I remembered my new password before posting.

Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the rest

[swb]

Yay, I'm supposed to work for less money so I can be competitive with guys living in India, China and other third world countries. It's good for business, I'm told.

But if I try to turn the tables and expand my purchasing power and buy from those same countries I'm not allowed to because its not good for business.

What the *fuck*? Why they hell can't I "compete" globally where it benefits me? Why is only business and its fat-cat corporate honchos allowed to exploit global discounts, but the rest of are forced to pay sky-high local prices but get paid third-world wages?

Tell the BPI what you think of them:

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not email the BPI and explain that by taking out lawsuits against the likes of cd-wow.com, play.com and amazon.co.uk they're only going to raise the price of music CDs, gain a lot of bad press and probably incite more people in the UK to take up piracy?

Their contact details taken from (www.bpi.co.uk) are here:

Address:

BPI
Riverside Building, County Hall
Westminster Bridge Road
London
England
SE1 7JA

Their contact details are:

Tel: 020 7803 1300
Fax: 020 7803 1310

General Enquiries
general@bpi.co.uk

APU
antipiracy@bpi.co.uk

Press, PR & Events
events@bpi.co.uk

Legal Enquiries
legal@bpi.co.uk

Research & Information
research@bpi.co.uk

Not An Isolated case

[R.Caley]

They are also chasing Amazon for the same thing.

They are in the right in so far as they have a perfect right to put whatever stupid restrictions they like on what they sell, but I think it is a seriously bad move from a public relations POV.

There was a similar case a few years ago when a supermarket was importing Levis products from the US and selling them at half the normal UK price. Levis argued up to the European Court that they had the right to take the suckers for every penny they could, and won. Can't say I dissagree.

The difference is that while Levis are a clearly foriegn product and so the idiot market segment can be expected to swallow a silly price (just as when I was in the US last year I saw Tetley tea being sold as if it was special), CDs per-se are just commodity items, people don't aspire to own a CD of a particulr type, so they are going to have much more trouble arguing that there is something worth paying a premium for.

Re:Not An Isolated case

[kraut]

Obviously Levi's were legally right; but morally the restrictions against grey importers are wrong.

If sell you a widget, you are free to do with it what you like - throw it off a bridge, wrap it in clingfilm, sell it in a different country - nothing to do with me anymore.

I really fail to see why that should be any different for Jeans or CDs.

Re:Not An Isolated case

[R.Caley]

Obviously Levi's were legally right; but morally the restrictions against grey importers are wrong.

Why?

All Levis are selling is their name. The clothes come more or less free. This business model depends on the laws that make names property.

While it may be silly that this business model exists, it harms no one who does not volunteer to be harmed, so I can't see there is a moral problem with it.

Indeed, the people who might buy the grey import Levis are only doing so because the name is protected by the laws, and so has cachet. Otherwise they would just buy the even cheaper generic trousers on the next rack. So, removing the restriction would destroy what they want to buy rather than making it more available.

Weird, but true.

Re:Not An Isolated case

[kraut]

So does that mean if you buy, say, a mercedes, which equally depends largely on branding for its value, that DaimlerChrysler now has a right to tell you what to do with that car after you've paid for it?

Does the situation change if you buy two, five, ten, or a hundred cars?

Re:Not An Isolated case

[R.Caley]

So does that mean if you buy, say, a mercedes, which equally depends largely on branding for its value, that DaimlerChrysler now has a right to tell you what to do with that car after you've paid for it?

If they sell it to me with conditions, and I know what those condition are, yes. Why not? If I don't like the conditions I can buy something else.

So long as we are only talking about fripperies, like labels on trouses and names on cars, I don't see there is any morarl issue at all.

If there was a law preventing supermarkets selling trousers per-se that would be different.

BPI and RIAA are Cartels

[Anonymous Coward]

The record industry seems to be running a nice little cartel, fixing prices, and trying to destroy competetion. In the UK, people should visit the Office of Fair Trading and complain about the music industry being a cartel.

With apologies to Samuel L. Clemens,

[Snork Asaurus]

Everyone complains about the these bastards, but no one does anything constructive about it.

Damn it, when will people get the message and do something about it? The recording industry cabal will never mend their ways and no-one not advances the cause by stealing from them. It's time to write them off, get rid of them and move on.

The way to get rid of them is not to steal from them, it is to boycott them. Starve the f***ers out of their coke and mansions and out of existence.

I have been boycotting for 10+ years (sic), turned to alternate sources of music and have found a wealth of fantastic material, none of which feeds the pigopolists. The bonus is that I have found much better and more varied material. And I don't have to look over my shoulder constantly. Yes, it has taken a little more work to find, but I'm not accepting the spoon-fed (or is it force-fed) price-fixed crap that the recording industry cabal tries to pass off as music (or "product" in their vernacular). I have to work at it and look for it, but it has been more than worth it.

What is needed is a movement, so please get moving. Put some effort into it and you'll find tons of music that doesn't feed the pigopolists. All it takes is a little work and the rewards far outweigh the effort spent.

Fair Trade not Free Trade

[Anonymous Coward]

It nice to see at least one country protecting fair trade. Shipping cds from China was not fair to local merchants who were not allowed to get their stock from China.

Not Just UK

[milamber.net]

This doesn't just apply to the UK. The e3 (2) per cd hike also applies to Ireland... grr!

More info

Italian judge's decision applies here?

[Anonymous Coward]

A previous slashdot story on Sony's Playstation case should apply here, too.
The judge said that corporations have the right to globally find the cheapest manufacturers, therefore customers should have the same right, they should be able to buy products globally, whereever it's the cheapest. Corporations can't have it both ways, by maintaining liberal outsourced production and protectionist price control on local markets.

Re:Italian judge's decision applies here?

[__aaarnh3813]

Unfortunately in the case of Tesco's vs Levi's in the European court "The European Court had ruled that retailers could not sell trademarked goods from outside Europe without the consent of the trademark owner. It said the trademark owner had the right to control the distribution of its products within the European Economic Area."

Re:Italian judge's decision applies here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlike Tesco, though, the product isn't being sold within the EEC. It's being sold in Hong Kong.

Why?

[f0rtytw0]

Why are people still buying CDs from the likes of the BPI and the RIAA?

Coincedence?

[seamonster]

Shortly before Christmas, I'd ordered a truck load of CDs from CD WOW, and I'm guessing many other Brits did likewise. Mysteriously, HMV dropped their prices on many chart CDs to 8.99 also. Back up again now as far as I can see. To be honest though, it's the lack of choice in high street shops that makes me shop online rather than a few pounds here and there. Plenty of stock, but not much choice in the average store.

Re:How about offering 2 pounds off to UK customers

[PCBman!]

Well, given the costs of producing the record and spreading the price of that over the number of units possibly sold over several years, it is probably closer (if not higher than) 50 cents per CD.

Now if you're talking blank disks, the fab house for those is probably making them for under a penny each depending on what kind of volume they have and what kinds of losses they have associated with production.

Don't be hatin' / Stereotyping

[LookSharp]

global welfare state for fat guys in suits.


Most of the suits at MY corporation appear pretty fit; a couple of fatties but most aren't. :)

(We don't screw people, but we also don't care much about our "consumers" as people either. Lets me sleep at night, anyway.)

misleading description - clarification

[ultrafunkula]

CD-WOW were not ordered to increase their price, they were ordered to stop importing from Asia. They have increased their prices as a consequence of the higher cost of buying their stock from Europe.

A petition against unfair competition ...

[gerddie]

The british courts can decide that someone needs to charge more for goods to make it fairer on the existing institution, or disallow them to import things to the UK.
They should make windows and other means to let the light of the sun into a house illegal because of unfair competition!

interesting

[H8X55]

so... what the conversion rate pounds to u.s. dollars?

Re:How about offering 2 pounds off to UK customers

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason the CDs were cheaper was because of where they were being bought from.

I don't understand; the BPI is saying that it costs more money for them to sell in Europe?

I can understand if they're manufactured in Asia, but the cost to ship them to Europe isn't gonna be 2 UKP per disc - and even if it was, CDWow would have to pay that anyway to get the disks from Asia to Europe (it doesn't matter who does the importing, shipping and duties have to be paid anyway.)

Uh?

[OpenSourced]

Uh? You mean blank CD's? 2 Pounds apiece seems an awful lot. Is there any other kind of CD's?

b******s???

[M. Baranczak]

Dude, this is the Internet. God won't smite you for using widely known English words like "bitches", "bastards", "bollocks" or whatever the fuck it is you were trying to say.

Re:b******s???

[cyril3]

Oh yes i fuckin will.

BAM BAM BAM BAM

Iz 'at smote enough for ya.

If you want to tell the BPI what you think of this

[Andy_R]

Their contact details are:

BPI
Riverside Building
County Hall
Westminster Bridge Road
London SE1 7JA

Tel: 020 7803 1300 (+44 instead of the leading 0 if you are outside the UK)

Fax: 020 7803 1310 (+44 instead of the leading 0 if you are outside the UK)

Email: general@bpi.co.uk

Re:How about offering 2 pounds off to UK customers

[Anonymous Coward]

"50 cents worth of metalized plastic" is a particularly stupid statement - without wishing to sound like a troll.

It might cost 50 cents to manufacture, but it certainly didn't cost 50 cents to record, to market, to have the artwork produced, to pay everybody.

Now, I quite agree that the industry is in need of an overhaul, particularly of the kind practicsed by www.cdbaby.com - where I can buy the Gary Jules record (for example) and know that $10 of my payment is going to him - if I buy it on the UK high street it'll be a whole lot less.

I want to see re-structuring, but claiming that a CD is "50 cents worth" is to ignore everything apart from the manufacturing costs - precisely why bootleggers can sell CDs so cheaply - they've had none of the costs of producing the material to put on the metalized plastic and therefore don't have to recoup those in addition to the medica costs.

Every humans are equal, but...

[borjam]

This is the nice part of globalization. Companies can outsource manufacturing to foreign countries with lower wages to lower costs, destroying employment in their countries, but consumers cannot benefit of those price reductions buying directly to those cheaper countries.

Yet another reason not to buy CDs anymore.

[Darth23]

I thought 'globalism' was supposed to benefit people by giving them more choices. Surely this anti-competitive action violates some Global Trade Agreement....

The real threat here

[geeklawyer]

What I've told people in the past about this case is that it is not a real threat. Your right to directly import music for personal & private use is unaffected by this action and such behaviour remains lawful and authorised by UK legislation. Any /.'er in the UK can ring up Johnny Wu's CD shop in Hong Kong give a credit card number and import a CD. Thats legal - no if's no but's, legal - period.

This action relates to commercial entities importing and reselling works, "issuing infringing works to the public" in the legal lexicon, that are exclusively licenced to other UK companies - i.e. the grey market. What is worrying however is that CDWOW, if their version is correct, were not importing themselves. They were acting as a brokers on behalf of customers: gathering their orders via web site and forwarding them to a legally seperate CDWOW in Hong Kong for processing.
The Hong Kong and UK companies were legally distinct and it was the Hong Kong company doing the exporting and transacting with the UK clients. The BPI's case is, I presume, that this was a charade and that the UK company was in effect the importer not a mere broker. It may be that the day to day operation was less clearly drawn between CDWOW UK and CDWOW HK than it should have been and it was this that gave the BPI 'wiggle' room for their lawsuit. Dunno.

Clearly a company like Amazon with deeper pockets should be able to see off the intimidation of the BPI. If they have their operational and legal structure audited by an IP lawyer (please call me Amazon :) I would think that they would be OK.

Any entrepreneurs should not be put off of this idea. Conceptually it is fine and it could work. You just need the balls and the money. You provide the balls I'll take the money. Just as long as the BPI gets screwed rather than the UK consumer - it would make a nice change.

Let them know your thoughts...

[lga]

I have just sent an email to CD Wow to tell them that they have lost my custom until they reverse this decision and tell the BPI where to get off. Let them know what you think, there's a feedback form on their website.

Re:Let them know your thoughts...

[kaschei]

This is probably one of the better ways to protest this sort of action. Still, try to find as good a price as you can, but if the price fixing is working help out the poor bastards...

Copy protected CDs - this is fscking awful

[Zog The Undeniable]

It's not the higher prices that are the only problem - it's the copy-protected CDs that are foisted on UK customers by the likes of BMG. I managed to get an unprotected version of the Dido album (for my wife, I hasten to add) from play.com, because they source the Arista version from Canada. The UK version is crippled. If I didn't have the choice I would not have bought the album and would have downloaded and burned it instead - I am not buying ANY copy protected crap, and that's final.

Unfortunately the EFF campaign hasn't had much impact here - the Dido album was the biggest selling of the year despite being corrupted.

Re:Copy protected CDs - this is fscking awful

[jimmi_bob]

did you see the story about the american student who found a way around the copy protection ... he held the shift key down. laughed? I almost wet my self when it knocked millions off the companies share price. :D

Don't know about the UK...

[FooAtWFU]

but in the US, wouldn't the authorities soon be all over you for conspiring to fix prices if you did that sort of thing?

Re:How about offering 2 pounds off to UK customers

[MikeX]

I believe the MAP (price fixing) issue was addressed in that class action lawsuit a while ago. If you entered your name on the suit you got $12 or something. ...and 50 cents worth of metalized plastic? At their volume, I'm sure the cost per CD is far less than 50 cents (even including the inserts and cases).

Re:How about offering 2 pounds off to UK customers

[slipgun]

I believe that, in the UK, parallel importing of trademarked products is illegal, unless it's from the European Economic Area.

In NZ, it's now legal to do parallel imports.
The Americans were pretty pissed off when your government allowed it, I seem to remember.

Two Wrongs Can Make A Right

[FreeUser]

It doesn't take a college education or anything more than the old saw of "two wrongs don't make a right" to shoot down the obvious flaw in your reasoning.

Two wrongs can most certainly make a right.

If someone is attempting to kill you and your family (a wrong), you are certainly justified in killing them (a second wrong), resulting in the survival of you and your family (a right).

In this case, the recording companies have been screwing artists and engaging in anti-competative trade practices like the one outlined in this article (a plethora of wrongs). If file swappers can put the recording companies out of business by illegally downloading music (another wrong), then a new mechanism for artists to reach their fans will have to emerge. It is very unlikely such a mechanism will be any worse for the artist than what currently exists, and a strong liklihood it will in fact be much better (this would be a "right").

All of that having been said, I really wish people didn't trade files illegally. P2P technology is IMHO critical to the future of the internet in terms of scalability. The internet itself is fundamentally P2P in its design, and when it comes to downloading Linux ISOs, or legitimate, free media (home movies, machinima animations, popular slashdot stories) having a P2P infrastructure in place will be invaluable. Every illegal download puts amunition in the guns of those who would ban such technologies and change the Internet from a fundamentally P2P medium, where we are all equally empowered to server content as well as consume it, to a top down glorified shopping network/cable channel.

And that is a disservice to all of us who value our freedom of expression.

So, ironically, while I disagree with your reasoning, I share your desire for this illegal file trading to stop, so that the rest of us don't have our rights and ability to trade files legally crippled and perhaps one day even revoked altogether ("trusted computing," "palladiium", super-DMCA, SCO-Law, etc. ad nauseum).

Re:Two Wrongs Can Make A Right

[Ieshan]

Complete bullshit.

While I certainly don't think you should let your family die, someone has still been killed, which is a wrong.

Just because you've put the killing in a different context doesn't make it less of a killing. Killing is killing, for reason X or reason Y, and is wrong.

Re:Two Wrongs Can Make A Right

[scrytch]

> If someone is attempting to kill you and your family (a wrong), you are certainly justified in killing them (a second wrong), resulting in the survival of you and your family (a right).

Since when is killing in self-defense a wrong? I see where you're going with this, but absolution of an act that is otherwise a crime almost always comes down to the doctrine of defense (of yourself or others). Other circumstances mitigate but don't absolve. There's also accident, though then it's more a problem of placing the blame for the wrong, not a problem in the moral judgement itself.

Regardless, I'm not sure the moral terpitude of of the complainant (the RIAA) has much bearing on the morality of the act (property "dilution", best term I can come up with for theft of an unlimited commodity). That's my detatched philosophical side talking. The rest of me says "anything that brings these bastards down"... Unfortunately I think it's just giving them ammunition.

Re:Two Wrongs Can Make A Right

[Grishnakh]

What kind of passifist bullshit is this? You're saying it's wrong to kill someone who is attempting to kill your family? According to whom?

Killing is not wrong when the person being killed deserved it.

Re:Two Wrongs Can Make A Right

[Paul Slocum]

The RIAA is not threatening our survival! They're offering an entertainment product that is overpriced. Not like you HAVE to have it and therefore stealing is justified, just don't buy it. Buy from one of the many reasonably priced indie labels with great music that give artists fair contracts. I've managed to survive pretty well the last few years on music almost exclusively from indies.

Maybe in some cases two wrongs kinda make a right, but not this one.

-paul

Re:Two Wrongs Can Make A Right

[Ieshan]

Killing. It's wrong. No matter who or what is doing the killing.

Just because you've "justified" the killing doesn't make it less "the act of killing".

Yes, it's still a *wrong* to kill someone who's going to kill your family, whether or not it's the lesser of two wrongs (your family dying) from your point of view.

Actions are right and wrong, not contexts.

Re:Two Wrongs Can Make A Right

[Grishnakh]

So you'd just stand by and let someone commit atrocities because it's "wrong" to kill? You're a fool. I guess you also wouldn't bother to defend yourself if attacked?

Re:Two Wrongs Can Make A Right

[Anonymous Coward]

Killing. It's wrong. No matter who or what is doing the killing.

According to whom? What is right and wrong? It depends on your point of view, doesn't it? Is it wrong to pay someone else to kill someone? What if some of the money you pay in taxes is used by your government to buy weapons/soldiers to kill people in another country during wartime? If so, then lots of people have bloody hands. Even the Bible is confused on this one. It's "Thou shalt not kill" then it's "Dash the brains of the children". Well, which is it? There's no absolute right or wrong here. Some people deserve to die.

Re:Two Wrongs Can Make A Right

[Ieshan]

No! Jesus christ! Read my post!

KILLING IS WRONG! That doesn't mean I wouldn't choose it as the lesser of two evils (being killed myself).

That doesn't change the fact that killing is wrong.

Read it this time?

Re:Two Wrongs Can Make A Right

[Grishnakh]

Ok, but this still doesn't make any sense. Why would you do something that's wrong at all? Committing a morally wrong act is evil. However, I don't see protecting yourself from harm (caused by a person intent on committing a serious wrong) as wrong; it's actually a right since it saves the innocent. Therefore, if it's not wrong to protect yourself, even if that means having to kill some criminal, then killing the criminal isn't wrong. Unfortunate maybe, but not wrong.

Therefore, killing is not wrong all the time.

I think you have the meaning of the term "wrong" confused.

Re:Two Wrongs Can Make A Right

[Ieshan]

Wrong. Killing is wrong.

Working from that standpoint, any death by killing is wrong, because it shouldn't have happened. It doesn't suddenly justify the killing to be doing it in the name of something good, it simply makes it less subjectively bad than the alternative, which is presumably some other evil.

You seem to look at right and wrong as a contexual problem rather than an absolute, and therefore can define two-wrongs-make-a-right by justifying one wrong with another. This is a logical fallacy - one cannot justify a wrong action with another wrong action.

Re:Two Wrongs Can Make A Right

[Grishnakh]

Huh? Right and wrong are contextual problems; how can they be absolute? That would imply that there is some external non-human "truth" defining what is right and wrong, which is silly. Right and wrong are whatever society agrees upon as a normal standard, and can be argued about in finer terms by members of the society attempting to more narrowly define it. Of course, everyone isn't going to agree completely on what constitutes right and wrong, but most societies can usually come to a consensus at a broad scope (in fact, I'm not sure how a society would function without some agreement).

Re:Two Wrongs Can Make A Right

[ingenuus]

First, it seems ridiculous to start with the assumption that "Killing is wrong," when that is exactly what is being debated... i.e. that perhaps there are cases where "killing is right"; where "right" is defined as "proper moral conduct".

Second, logically, it appears you are using "wrong" as the baseline for everyone, in which no one can be "right". Previously, you have named the following options both "wrong", though to varying degrees:
1) To kill the murderer (assuming subduing is not an option), OR
2) To (by inaction) allow the murderer to continue killing.

You have previously said that (1) is "less wrong" (the lesser of two evils), therefore, everyone else who does nothing is "more wrong". Hence, in this case, according to you, the moral spectrum of choices extends from "wrong" to "more wrong". I would argue that to be "wrong" in any situation requires the possibility of being "right". i.e. In any situation, "the least wrong thing to do" defines "the right thing to do".

Because of your implicit opinion that there is no "right" course of action in this case, I would suggest that you are actually trying to make a comment on the situation (created by the original murderer) rather than on proper moral conduct (what is "right") in response to the situation.

Note that by its very nature, being moral is dictated by your choices. If others (e.g. murderers) have the power to make you immoral (having no options, except "wrong", immoral ones), then morality ("right" and "wrong") loses all meaning.

Also, the original poster's comment that "Two Wrongs Can Make A Right" may be a bit misleading because he was actually arguing that the second "wrong" isn't really wrong, but is rather justified ("right" / proper moral action) in response to the first "wrong".

Good News for Hong Kong and Bad News for Europe

[SmilingBoy]

Before starting to blame the BPI too much, you should consider that these parallel imports of CDs into the UK would, if they account for a significant part of total sales, lead an equalisation of prices in Hong Kong and the UK. This implies that prices in Hong Kong would become higher and prices in the UK would become lower. Overall, most economic models would predict that less CDs would be sold overall. This, however, implies that under the current situation of price discrimination, profits of the record companies are higher and overall consumer welfare is higher as well. If CD-Wow were to be allowed to sell the CDs in the UK, the welfare of the consumers in the UK would increase to a lesser extent than the welfare of customers in Hong Kong would decrease. So, I dare say: What the record companies are doing, is fair and good to consumers.

Re:Good News for Hong Kong and Bad News for Europe

[kraut]

The only way free trade would lead to an increas in price in HK would be if the supply was restricted. So the argument MAY apply to natural commodities, or even physical products, but CDs and software can be reproduced at (virtually) no cost.

So I contend that the record companies are still screwing consumers.

Re:Good News for Hong Kong and Bad News for Europe

[SmilingBoy]

I don't think so. The fact that there are different prices in the UK and HK shows that the record companies have a certain degree of market power. Hence, Schmalensee's model is applicable. See Schmalensee, R., 1981, 'Output and Welfare Implications of monopolistic Third-Degree Price Discrimination', American Economic Review, 71, pp.242-247.

The crux is that you have different demand curves in HK and UK, which lead to different profit-maximising prices, if you are able to price discriminate. If you can't price discriminate, you only face one combined demand curve, the combined demand of the UK and HK - if you work through the maths, you will see that the resulting profit-maximising price will necessarily be inbetween the other two prices. Also, in most cases (though not all), output will be higher in a situation with price discrimination than without it. And I believe that Schmalensee shows in his paper that if output goes up, welfare goes up as well.

File swapping != Fewer album sales...

[Oxygen99]

And yet despite all this rampant piracy, UK album sales are actually up 7.6% to a record 121 million sales in 2003.

So which side is winning again? Is it the pirates or the record companies? God I'm confused...

Re:File swapping != Fewer album sales...

[jimmi_bob]

what the record industry doesn't understand is that a lot (not all admittedly) of people who download music _also_ buy albums ... shock horror. but I hear you say, surely these people are criminals, the lowest of scum why would they ever buy something that they could get for FREE. some people just like to try before they buy, some people actually want to support the artists, others just like collecting albums. another thing they don't understand is that ten downloaded albums is not the same as ten stolen albums ... many people would download albums that they would never even consider buying. why would you spend ten pounds on an album you're not sure about, or only think one or two tracks are any good. now I'm not saying that piracy is great and everyone should do it ... I just think that the execs in their ivory towers just don't understand their consumers and need to start looking at smarter and cheaper means of distribution. forcing a retailer to charge 2 more is never going to ingratiate them to the consumer.

Re:music industry is not allowed to regulate price

[Blue Stone]

As one of the stories on this news item says, this does indeed apply to trademarked goods, and happened in a similar situation where Levis prevented parallel importing of its jeans, under the trademark law, but it hasn't been determined that this applies to copyright material yet.

If Amazon has the balls to fight this in court, we may find out.

Revenue neutral answer

[Revek]

I am unfamiliar with this service but if their shipping cost 2 pounds or more why not just make up the difference by reducing it by those 2 pounds

Gnutella

[Anonymous Coward]

Try this instead. http://www.gnutelliums.com

oh yeah?

[oohp]

Then I might burn my own CDs from files downloaded over P2P instead of buying from the labels. And they claim pirating music is illegal?

Price Fixing!

[Robmonster]

This amounts to Price Fixing, which I thought was illegal in the UK and vehemently denied by all the large corporations.....

Go to sleep Britain ...

[jimmi_bob]

sleep and dream ... it's all alright now. Remember, you are free - free to do what we tell you. Moooooooo. Chew your cud, shop at Virgin, buy at HMV, drink Coke, eat McDonalds -You'll feel much better in the morning.

Re:Go to sleep Britain ...

[pandrijeczko]

I chew gum, window shop at Virgin, buy at Play247 or Amazon, drink water and coffee, eat good home-cooked food prepared from raw ingredients... and can write original comments without a need to plagiarise (the late and great) Bill Hicks.

Don't tar us all with the same brush - their are mindless consumers in every country in the Western World...

Re:Go to sleep Britain ...

[jimmi_bob]

the word is paraphrase, not plagarise (which would imply that I did not add anything to it and just did ctrl-c ctrl-v) ... every time I refer to what someone was saying do I need to point out in BIG TYPE who it was?? most slashdotters know who Bill Hicks was and what he said and I think it is particularly appropriate here. clearly the British music industry believe that they can con the people who pay there wages, or should I say pay for cheap rubbish pop acts like the mindless filth that come out of popid*l.

Re:Go to sleep Britain ...

[pandrijeczko]

Okay, I accept the differende between "plagiarise" and "paraphrase" although I could levy criticism at yourself for not using capital letters at the beginning of sentences. :-)

Yes, gullible British public indeed but please remember there is now "American Idol", "German Idol" and at least about 8 others so there are a lot of stupid gullible people all over the place, not just Britain.

The British Music Industry does not con me because I refuse to pay HMV / Virgin / High Street prices for any CD and I don't buy copy protected CDs so please stop making these global statements.

Very bad move on BPI's part

[j44]

I buy CD's, particularly if they're below the 10 quid price point. Adding another 2 quid to protect UK retailers sucks. The net result is I will buy fewer CD's - which can't be good for the artists, or even those money-grabbing shysters, the record companies themselves. Up until now I was not of the mind to download and share MP3 files. Now I'm not so sure.

Forced out of the game by MPI

[POPE Mad Mitch]

My first reaction to reading this was that the MPI have now pretty much put cd-wow out of business.

The supermarkets have been forcing the prices of CD's down for quite a while now, as a result album sales in the UK are at record levels, yet people like the MPI are bitching because the total value of retail sales is down (they still get the same fixed price per cd so their profits are actually up).

Its typical to see prices of 9.99 or less in the supermarkets (like Tesco and Asda) for new chart albums, so cd-wow have just been priced out of the market.

The same kind of thing is also happening with DVDs, the supermarkets have far more muscle than your normal highstreet retailer, and theyre not afraid to annoy the producers of the goods in the search for better prices.

"Good news for consumers" - honest

[ader]

More reporting at The Register, The Guardian and, best of all, No Rock 'n' Roll Fun. Here's the key quote, from a BPI insider:

"It is not the consumer that will suffer, just CD Wow's profit margins. They made a lot of money out of cheap CDs"

Woo-hoo, we get to pay two quid more to support fat pig record company execs drowning in coke and whores! Thank you BPI for ending our pain!

Of course, if CD Wow can make a lot of money from cheap CDs, why are record companies struggling to make any money from hugely expensive ones?

Ade_
/

Lets hear it for fair competition

[nurb432]

Isn't this a prime example of a monopoly exerting unfair control over the market?

Isn't anyone in the government going to wake the hell up?

They went after ATT, Microsoft.. why are they afraid of the RIAA?

But, can you individually do anything about it?

[Svartalf]

Don't think for a moment that you Brits have a monopoly on that one- people in the States seem to have our fair share of the same thing going on lately. It's part of why in the Hell our government has gone so far astray of late. Apathy knows no countries and knows no race.

Anyhow, I think I know what causes the moaning and groaning about things being so bad and doing nothing about it... It's a sense of not being able to do anything about it yourself. It's hard to gather up and bitch about something being wrong when you tell yourself that you can't make a difference- and individually, for the large picture, you can't. But enough of you get together, you can force changes- the problem is convincing enough people that you have enough people that think alike and have a valid complaint about something.

Can't change the weather though... That one you're stuck with- nature of where you are and all. I can remember going to Scotland for my second honeymoon and the fog in Edinburgh being so thick that you really could barely see your hand in front of your face not more than a yard distant. And rain... Well, it off and on rained on us- about once a day except for the day we went to Iona we had to deal with drizzle or outright rain for at least half the day.

Re:But, can you individually do anything about it?

[nicky_d]

Can't change the weather though... That one you're stuck with- nature of where you are and all.

Ah, but you can use sunglasses or an umbrella, just to muddy up any metaphors that might be in play.

Apathy is certainly an issue, but people with a little online savvy in the UK have the advantage of sites such as STAND to keep them informed and services like Fax Your MP to encourage them to participate. It's never been easier to keep yourself informed and active; you still need the motivation and some sense of hope, of course. Where you'd look for those, I have no idea...

Text of email from CD WOW

[blorg]

It's a surcharge added depending on delivery address - so unfortunately, ordering off the .com.hk site won't help.

Dear Member,

The UK Major record companies through their mouth piece the BPI* have unfortunately restricted the UK and Irish consumers right to enjoy the freedom of the World Wide Web.

As from this weekend, any CD ordered for delivery to the UK and Ireland will incur a surcharge as we are only able to deliver CDs manufactured within the EU (more expensive).

Delivery to the rest of the world will not be affected.

You only have a few days left - so order now!

Be quick to make the best of our current low low prices while you can still exercise your right to choose.

We will of course still be supplying UK and Irish customers but as of Sunday 25th January 2004 a surcharge of 3.00 Euros (2.00) per CD will apply.

Please Note - our prices of DVDs and Games will remain unaffected

Warmest Regards,
CD WOW!

BPI

[ms1234]

Am I the only one who read the article and thought "What the hell is British Pornographic Industry doing?"

Re:BPI

[jimmi_bob]

you've got to admit that 2 off every CD is a great sideline for the British Pornographic Industry. hats off to them :)

Globalization isn't for you, foolish consumers

[ChaosDiscord]

Foolish consumers, you seem to have misunderstood globalization. Large corporations looking overseas for low cost labor, even at the expense of destroying local livelihoods, is good. Individual consumers seeking to harness international competition to save a few bucks on music is bad.

Next Week: Why taxing the pay you receive for your labor is good, but taxing the dividends I receive for my stock investments is double taxation and a crime against humanity.

Re:Globalization isn't for you, foolish consumers

[Anonymous Coward]

Wish I had points. You'd get modded up for that one!

Re:Globalization isn't for you, foolish consumers

[Tiny Elvis]

someone mod up the parent please

Re:How about offering 2 pounds off to UK customers

[Alan Partridge]

Here's an interesting one for you. I did some work on a White Stripes video middle of last year (Seven Nation Army) - a fantastic piece directed by Michel Gondry. The budget for the video promo for that sigle track was OVER 375000 UKP, the cost of recording the ENTIRE ALBUM it was taken from was UNDER 15000 UKP.

Explain to me again about the cost of producing records?

Link to BPI website

[ectoraige]

For those of you wanting to learn more about the organisation, here's the British Phonographic Industry website.

Re:How about offering 2 pounds off to UK customers

[Anonymous Coward]

They pay for placement on the radio

Not in the UK. Here, the radio stations pay royalties (I'm not sure if they're to the artists or the record companies, but I'd assume the latter).

Not quite right - Levi case was trademark law

[blorg]

Levi-Strauss vs Tesco was decided under trademark law, which has a specific provision against grey imports. BPI, however, were pursuing CD Wow under copyright law. There is no precedent in copyright law that what CD Wow was doing was illegal.

Indeed CD Wow don't AFAIK even have a base in Europe, so it is the consumer who is doing the importing, not CD Wow - and a CD is below the amount liable for import duty, (EUR25 for most "commerial shipments" into Ireland from outside the EU) no-one is breaking any laws.

See this Register article, and this follow-up.

Re:Not quite right - Levi case was trademark law

[Anonymous Coward]

In my books 'grey imports' reads as 'healthy competition'. It is very sad that laws are used to stiffle free enterprise and lock people into purchasing monopoly-priced goods. That sucks.

Globalization should mean free markets for everybody, not just corporations.

It is not right that a corporation is free to manufacture their goods where it best fits them, that is where they can do it for the least cost, but consumers must pay what the corporation wants for the same goods. THIS IS NOT RIGHT.

We, the people, the consumers, are not cows to be milked.

Re:How about offering 2 pounds off to UK customers

[cayenne8]

"The reason the CDs were cheaper was because of where they were being bought from. The CDs were being bought from Asia, where they sell cheaper, and then being sold in Europe."

Ok...so, companies/corporations don't like it when 'globalization' bites them in the ass, eh? Its perfectly ok for them to move jobs from higher paying countries to lower paying ones...leaving the previous workers high at dry..

But, let someone start selling products (CD's) from the cheaper parts of the world....and they don't like that?? They shouldn't be able to have it 'both ways'...

Re:If you want to tell the BPI what you think of t

[Cederic]

Or better yet, do what I did and fax your MP.

If you're in the UK, visit www.faxyourmp.com - one of the few truly great sites on the internet.

~Cederic

Image

[Zardul]

I'm not a big fan of the recording industry but consider this...
Record companies spend money creating a prodcut. The product consists of the actual CD, and the "image" attached to it. The image your buying into maybe "I young hip and cool" or "I'm a rebel". This image costs companies money to develop.

So in this case the record companies have invested money in the UK and Ireland to develop said image, while they may not have in Hong Kong.
Should the customer be charged for the cost of developing "image "?

What were seeing with CDWow here is the record indusrty trying to mantain this system. Without the sales in the UK to finace the "image" the "image" will tarnish and sales will go down and the "image" will tarnish...

Should the companies jack up the prices world wide to cover this? Would the market in Hong Kong support this higher price?

Great way to create black markets and arbitrage!

[JGski]

They only succeed in creating more black markets (aka file sharing) and more arbitraging "middlemen" (file sharers). The economic demand will always be met, no matter what price-fixers wish or pretend would happen. And there will always be collateral damage (DMCA, DRM, etc.). The same economics applies to illegal drugs (with collateral damage of Asset Seizure laws, private citizens' planes shotdown in jungles, etc).

Do these people never learn from history? Haven't they noticed that fixed exchange rates/prices and draconian attempts to control those goods (like the Soviet Union had or the US War on Drugs (WOD)) always create black markets that try to bring prices to the actually demand price? It's abundantly clear that absolutely no one in Music Industry management has ever taken a single economics course! If they did nothing seeped in. Perhaps that's a forbidden subject.

WOD price goal: set price of drugs to infinity to eliminate demand/use; civil rights are largely irrelevant compared to moral and social control of "incorrent and dangerous" goods (moral monopoly)
Blackmarket response: offer drugs supply and price at increasingly lower prices to meet demand

Soviet price goal: control economic system for ideological purity and assure party control of country: both use 10-year plans on production without appropriate feedback basic as actual economic demand is largely irrelevant compared to ideology/party control (political monopoly)
Blackmarket response: offer illegal foreign currency that can buy goods or goods themselves that are actually wanted/needed

RIAA price goal: set price to maximize profits; music quality and customer satisfaction are largely irrelevant (market monopoly). Microsoft, SCO and similar also qualify on goals and tactics.
Blackmarket response: offer music, for free by file sharing, or at a reasonable market price, which people actually want; if an arbitrager can get RIAA price > offered price > free, someone would try; perhaps Apple Music Store is an example, where price includes opportunity cost savings due to choice of individual song vs. buying the whole album.

In other words, you can see the kind of historic friends and company the RIAA keeps - the goals and methods are essentially identical. No wonder everyone hates them. No wonder the pattern of failure and doom pervades all three.

Re:How about offering 2 pounds off to UK customers

[rifter]

It might cost 50 cents to manufacture, but it certainly didn't cost 50 cents to record, to market, to have the artwork produced, to pay everybody.

Sadly, it probably did. There have been real numbers published that included all that and the poster is not far off. As another poster pointed out, the cost of pressing the actual CD was probably a few cents, and that's being pretty conservative. Even in very small runs you can hit your $0.50 mark for pressing CDs, but the RIAA CDs get pressed in runs of millions, so the cost is much much less and the money spent on promotion is divided that much more.

Simple solution

[Alomex]

Stop buying commercial CDs. Most of it is crap anyways (Britney Spears anyone?).

this is more complicated than most people think

[Metaldsa]

I took an economics class which explained this situation. You see the UK has their music industry which pays for ads, marketing, and other markups to put it in stores. They spend money in the UK so you will buy it in a UK store. If everyone buys it from China after getting the promos in the UK the industry loses a lot of money.

I saw the same scenerios brought up with cars, vacuum cleaners, etc. Imagine if a company needs a salesperson to sell a vacuum cleaner (to show off all the cool parts). So a store has someone trained to show off the vacuum cleaner but raises the price. People may go to that store to learn about the vacuum cleaner but then go to a discount store where its marked down because no salesperson exists. What does the vacuum cleaner company do to stop their good retailers from being driven out by bad retailers? They have to stop allowing the discount retailer to sell at a marked down price or they risk losing the salesperson and future sales in the long run.

I see the same scenerio in the UK. If advertising, marketing, and all the other costs aren't recouped in the UK because they are buying cheap imports then the artists from that company won't be promoted anymore. Thus, in the long run it will cause less sales. In this scenerio however people can argue that the radio and Internet is enough free promotion for an artist. I think the music industry knows best how to promote an artist (ie britney and other crap) since its their business.

Hope that helps people understand the situation a little more. I am in the crowd 99% of the time that screams MUSIC INDUSTRY IS EVIL! but this time I see the economics of it all.

Re:this is more complicated than most people think

[lxs]

So, if people import stuff from China, they get it cheaper AND we all get less advertising shoved down our throats? That sounds like a win-win situation to me.

Re:this is more complicated than most people think

[Metaldsa]

Yes until that company goes out of business and than there is one less company promoting music. So you get less artists and less choices. I never even hear when my favorite artists have a new cd coming out. Sevendust, Incubus, Counting Crows. There are no promotion dollars for them and so I don't buy their cds when they come out.

So if you like consilidation of music and the least creative artist out there (think more backstreet boys, britney spears, dance/pop combos for easy money) then wish for every music company to go out of business.

I am not saying I agree with this price raise but I am just trying to let people here see the other side of the story so they don't just yell "EVIL!" and go on to the next news story. This issue isn't black and white.

Re:this is more complicated than most people think

[lxs]

You're thinking in terms of product, not in terms of art. If you care about the band, you keep up by visiting a website, subscribing to newsletters etc. If the band cares about the music they make they will do so regardless of the money. Yes, it may mean that they have to play in bars or get a day-job, but that's ok. This was standard practice for many musicians before the 1950's, even the really famous ones, and it's standard practice today for many garage bands. When you remove the whole promotion machine, artists have to rely on talent alone. I think that will eliminate plenty of manufactured bands. Perhaps the music industry in the second half of the 20th century will be seen in the future as a passing phenomenon, and I don't think I'll miss it if it happens to disappear in the coming years.

Re:this is more complicated than most people think

[Metaldsa]

That would be one hell of a shake up. I support my bands by going to their concert (no way would I buy a cd and give money to the riaa). But I don't subscribe to their newsletters or visit their sites. And I imagine most people don't either. That means even though I may like 20+ bands I will only keep up with so many of them with less promotions. However, it would certainly be nice to have less manufactured bands out there.

Re:How about offering 2 pounds off to UK customers

[PCBman!]

^_^ Well I was just making commentary on cost per unit given total cost. Where I work in the semiconductor industry, we can spend millions to develop a product and then sell it for under a quarter each. That's factored for number of units sold over a set period of time (5+ years for some parts and under 3 for others). However, if we don't expect to sell much in the way of volume, the cost per unit (to the customer AND for us) quickly rises. Quite frankly, I'm fascinated by how fast cost per unit drops towards zero as volume scales.

your sig

[Qrlx]

it's impressions chosen from another time. Not taken.

Re:your sig

[Blue Stone]

" it's impressions chosen from another time. Not taken."

Right you are. Thanks. :)

Re:How about offering 2 pounds off to UK customers

[ePhil_One]

Not in the UK. Here, the radio stations pay royalties

Since the "Payola" scandals, "Not here" in the US either. The actually pay "promotional agents" who in turn pay radio stations, who in turn pay royalties. Its a vicious circle they have created whereby the agents make money, the radio stations make money, and the consumer gets fed what the record companies want in the hopes that something might stick enough to make them go into a store.

And now they are afraid to step off because the other companies will stay on and "divy up" the peice of the pie they had.

Re:How about offering 2 pounds off to UK customers

[Leynos]

No. The CDs are sold to the retailers by the record companies for more in Europe than in Asia. The price difference is so great, that even after shipping the CDs from Asia, and paying the requisite taxes, they can still sell them for UKP2 less than a company sourcing the CDs in Europe could.

Horseshit

[gosand]

The price of a CD is nothing to do with manufacture. Your money pays for all sorts of things, and a big chunk of that is marketing. TV, radio and press adverts in the UK are paid for by the UK record company, not a global body. Radio "pushers", TV appearances, freebies to reviewers, launch parties, etc. etc. etc. are all paid for by the local record company.

So by that logic, any CD that is not being actively marketed should be sold at manufacturing cost.

Does it work like that? Hell no. If anything, the price of a new CD is lower than one that is a year old, because all they are interested in is pumping the sales numbers and moving on. CD prices are simply set because they are the only game in town. Record companies are f'n stupid for not embracing the "digital file" model and keeping control of the market. They still are not embracing it, even though there is a 100% proven market for it. What is even more ignorant is that they offer backdoor support by manufacturing MP3 players while suing those who download MP3s.

Paralllel Imports - the argument against.

[Slashamatic]

When Levi Strauss targetted UK supermarket chains that were parallel importing jeans, they won. Their argument was that Levi Strauss's European arm was paying to market the jeans in Europe and that the supermarket was benefiting from the marketing that the official importer was doing. Each country's Levi subsidiary did its own marketingUnfortunately the EU court agreed so parallel imports from outside are not permitted. Within the EU, they are because of the legistlation on the freedom of movement of goods, i.e., its legal for a UK person to import stuff from another EU country.

This sounds like not such a big thing, but Poland, the Czech republic and Hungary are joining the EU in summer. Goods are still priced lower for these markets.

Re:Paralllel Imports - the argument against.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in New Zealand parallel importing is perfectly legal.

Generally it seems to have been a good thing for consumers as the prices of many items (especially things like cameras) have dropped.

I thought price fixing was illegal???

[gumbysworld]

I thought price fixing was illegal???

The global economy...

[Anonymous Coward]

Means we are allowed to pressure weaker trading partners into making trademark/copyright legislation so we can wipe out their copycat drug manufacturers, into bringing down import barriers so we can sell our cheap wheat and beef and milk, into standardising their regulations so we can sell our software, and into taking our large loans from the world bank so we can "export" more.
In return we refuse them entry for their agricultural produce, citing "non-conformity of banana shapes", "inability to document beef production standards", etc.
The typical result is that Europe can export massive amounts of surplus food to Africa while African farmers are unable to sell their beef and fruit on a free market.
This is the "global economy" and it works remarkably well if you are on the right end of things.

Free market

[mcc]

Because, as we all know, the Free Market will always end up providing the best solution for everybody, where consumers can choose the best product at the best price and everything sorts itself out, magically, until we're all rich and free and happy.

The problem here is that while that theory actually does work, it requires the free market to actually be in correct operation.

If you do not actually have the free market running, the theory breaks down.

This is a problem in the specific case of music because of the existence of organizations like the RIAA and the BPI. These are called "cartels" and they are organizations that exist for the one and sole purpose of preventing the free market from operating-- or, more specifically, to prevent the natural consumer-protecting forces of the free market from coming into effect against producers.

In the presence of a cartel, the rules of economics change entirely; if the cartel becomes large enough, as it had has with the RIAA and BPI, the forces of capitalism as most people think of it cease to function..

Re:Free market

[tiled_rainbows]

Yeah, I can see what you're saying, but I guess what I was saying is that the phenomenon of a truly free market, as advocated by economic libertarians, etc, is a helluva lot rarer than some people make out.

Like Communists who, when you point out that Communism didn't work that well in the USSR, say "yeah, but that wasn't true Communism".

Maybe Communism does work in theory, just like the free market does work in theory. The trouble is that one tends to turn into a totalitarian dictatorship and the other one ends up being strangled by a bunch of cartels and monopolies.

An economic model is only useful if it works in practice.

If this is the case...

[Anonymous Coward]

If one country can make another country jack up the price for a good/service to match with their homeland's market in order to be competitive, why can't the USA do this with offshoring labor and such? After all, it is essentially the same concept: to protect the local markets (in this case, the US labor workforce).

Globalization is inevitable and a wonderful concept, yes, but the issue of the differences in the cost of living between countries needs to be resolved before it will be fully accepted.

Amazon.co.uk Following?

[barnsleyBigUn]

The Quiet Earth, an interesting Austrailian sci-fi movie which has been on my to-buy list for some time now. I looked again today and notice that they've changed their price from 7.99 to 5.99 + 2.00 "Special Surcharge"... I'm thinking that Amazon are taking a hit on their original business price (which is not their actual cost anyway) and decided to provoke compaints...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000BX C0 X/026-2317522-8596430

A short lesson on basic economics

[mst76]

This is somewhat off-topic, but I think it's important enough to post anyway. One of the nicest things about the classical free market perfect competition economy is that products are sold at the lowest possible prices. If one producer charges more, consumers would soon flock to another producer who is willing to take less profit, so prices soon drop to just above production costs. It should not be surprising that few producers like to operate in such a market,
so very few consumer goods are traded in markets resembling perfect competition (perhaps generic hardware like brandless DRAM or ethernet cards?).

Most goods are produced/sold by a fairly limited number of parties, who often engage in some form of collusion (i.e., a block of producers acting together as a monopolist or cartel). This usually takes the form of price fixing, which may or may not be forbidden, depending on the exact market and the nature of the agreements. Other than boycotting the industry, there is little that individual consumers can do about collusion. Legislature on the subject is pretty complex, and proving tacit collusion is usually difficult.

The other way for producers to escape perfect competition is to differentiate the product, through quality, design or simply by promoting the brand. Notice that almost everything you buy has a brand? All marketing is designed to make you believe that that brand is *different*. The more different the brand name product is perceived to be, the more the supplier can act as a monopolist. Being a monopolist is not a binary state, as many people seem to think. A producer can act more as a monopolist if there are fewer substitutes, but there are few products for which no substitute exists at all.
A singer has a monopoly on his/her voice, but if the price is too high, find another singer. The RIA may have monopoly pricing power on music CDs, if they set the price too high, find another medium for music. If alternative distribution channels are outlawed, find other forms of entertainment, like films, books, games. If entertainment products are priced too high, entertain yourself. The key is to realize that we have many many options, and there are very few products that we in fact cannot live without.

Re:How about offering 2 pounds off to UK customers

[BiggerIsBetter]

I'm not sure about that. Motorcycle dealers have been doing it for years with bikes from Japan.

Technically, the CDs are private imports anyways, so even if commercial importing for sale was illegal private imports should be fine.

Yeh, there was a big of drama over the parallel importing thing. Had to be done though, as the little monopolies folks had built up were fleecing us something chronic. Even now it's still pretty bad...

You're off by quite a bit

[Pope]

If they were from Ontario, the combined 7% GST and 8% PST on most items would be 15%. That, of course, does not include exchange, which a lot of people forget to do when comparing prices.

GST is the Goods & Services tax, which is a federal tax, each Province can introduce their own PST (Provinvial Sales Tax), or in the case of some misguided fools, combine it with GST for HST or Harmonized Sales Tax.

The real bitch is getting charged GST on top of Customs tariffs, and having to pay GST on postage!

End of the world

[sPaKr]

JEBUS. Since when do trade groups get to directly enforce tariffs. At least back in the day you had to purchase a polition, or a few of them and then pass a tariff to be put on a good. Now it seems that trade groups with the threat of legal action impose a tariff on companies they dont like. Couple this with the recent news that the RIAA is building a shock trooper squad and it becomes obvios that the Publishing groups are no only producing media, but rather inventening their own goverment system to steal the rights from citizians of the old system.

Re:How about offering 2 pounds off to UK customers

[Anonymous Coward]

So now the big monopolies different folk have built are fleecing you even more?

Re:How about offering 2 pounds off to UK customers

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure they should. They've got lots of money, they can have whatever they want.

Sniff...Sniff.......WAAAHHHHH!!!!!

[localhost00]

You're prices are too cheap and nobody's buying from us!!! I'm Telling!!!!!!

First CDs, then DVDs

[payndz]

Well, this is the first step, long expected, but finally it's happened.

Next up: one or more of the major studios will issue a similar lawsuit against one of the major Region 1 DVD importers (play.com or Movietyme) for the same reasons - copyright infringement - and despite the fact that importation of DVDs from abroad is perfectly legal under UK Customs & Excise rules, we know who will win because these days, the law can be bought.

Paranoia? Well, I used to work for a DVD magazine. Last year, we had a very formal letter from one of the major studios (not saying which, but it rhymes with 'cocks') demanding that we stop carrying advertising from R1 DVD importers for a whole slew of reasons, but mainly that it hurt the profits of their UK arm (FYI: a newly released DVD of theirs costs 19.99, or $35.38) and if we didn't play ball they'd pull all their advertising. Since we make more ad money from importers than this studio, we told them to blow us (although in much more polite terms). And they still advertise with us anyway, since we have about 2/3 of the UK DVD mag market. Gee, being part of a soulless megacorporation *can* have its advantages!

(Also, I think another reason why we told them to get bent was that *every single member of management*, from editor level up to the MD, regularly buys R1 DVDs from play.com or Movietyme...)

But the lawsuit will be coming, and probably soon. The studios will try to close the import loophole that they couldn't shut via their pitiful region coding scheme by using the law, and they'll almost certainly succeed. And UK consumers will see another example of how the global economy will only be allowed to work for the benefit of billion-dollar corporations rather than the people who actually *pay* for their products.

Call to action: what about an antitrust complain?

[xlyz]

any UK citizen feeling it's worth sending a note to UK Competition Commission?

here the complaint procedure

who fucking cares ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not like I ever bought CD's to begin with ...

This is an EU not UK thing

[Alan Cox]

The EU has some rather stupid rules about who can sell something into the EU from outside if its not already sold there. (and of course a US and EU CD are never *quite* identical products right)

The UK has been trying to get this moronity fixed for some time but the EU itself only likes listening to corporations (it says something that the EU unelected commission is currently sueing the democratically elected EU finance ministers for voting to wave a euro borrowing rule)

Re:This is an EU not UK thing

[nicky_d]

So it's really WAS those Brussels beaurocrats all along? I'll never doubt the tabloids again. Still and all, the BPI are the ones hurling legal around, and they go so far as to have 'British' in their name, so I can't start waving my Union Jack just yet... but at least it could be worse. For a change.

Re:How about offering 2 pounds off to UK customers

[thogard]

Modern Payola is done by concert promters as well. A typical large concert will only sell less than 1/2 the tickets and the rest are freebees given to who knows who. Ever see the concert riders? The ads for the concerts must continue even after its sold out. The reason for that is the concert promotion is a key way to pay the radio stations to play the bands songs. Ever wonder why the radio decides to play a bunch of lame songs when a lame band is going to be in town? Its because those ads are costing like 10x as much as a normal ad. I also wonder how many 3 minute ads for songs are played as well.

I wonder what would happen if 1) running ads trying to sell tickets to sold out concert was prosecuted and 2) all ads on radio must be at the same rate.

Heh.

[Aldric]

Damn I love watching the recording industries get increasingly desperate. First it was file sharers, now it's foreign imports. What next? Going to sue people that don't listen to music?

In Australia,

[Anonymous Coward]

the said organisation would be immediately taken to court, tried, then the board shot - not necessarily in that order.

Don't you have a consumer protection council there? Ours already ruled grey imports were legal about 5 years ago.

Price fixing?

[Squelch Oil]

This is a question not a statement as I am not a lawyer. If this were in the US would this not violate price fixing laws? If so, does the UK not have similar laws or have these folks found some way around them?

Dude! Paragraphs!

[The Grassy Knoll]

Looks like there's a severe shortage of

tags in the UK too!

.

Re:Dude! Paragraphs!

[nicky_d]

Well, clearly I was... ah... trying to convey that the post should be read as one long, breathless, babbling rant, while avoiding the old caps lock schtick.

Next time, I'll use paragraphs but remove the spaces between words - and you watch, someone will complain about that, too.

In my defence, I'm in the UK - the only <p>s I had were mushy <p>s.

Sorry.

Re:How about offering 2 pounds off to UK customers

[Alan Partridge]

A troll? Bizarre.

Pisses me off

[Cackmobile]

Not just with cds. I am looking at getting an archos av-140. I can get it on US websites for 220 but here in the UK it retails for 360. Why the difference. Most of the US sites won't let me order from the UK.

Re:How about offering 2 pounds off to UK customers

[SpaceJunkie]

I am not sure there are laws against it in the uk. If they are - they sadly seem to more often fall in favour of big consortiums before consumers and smaller companies. This case cleary demonstrates that. BPI, MPAA and RIAA are now seriously worried that they will be undercut. They know the days of their business models are dated- and they are probably aware that it is this kind of behaviour that will make many individuals feel justified in sharing MP3s. Why can they sell them cheaper in Asia than the UK? Or is it that the Asian population really dont want allow themselves to be ripped off like we do? If they stomp on amazon as well - I am going to abstain entirely from buying any music via their business model- I compose my own music, and I know others who do - fine. Its time we vote with our feet - what they have done here is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Some other relevant information

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

It's funny the Tesco/Levi case has come up, because for example "car supermarkets" are doing very well in the UK. Their basic business model is importing new vehicles and selling them on at a lower price than main dealers charge in the UK, and of course the major car manufacturers don't like that, either.

There was some concern at government level not long ago about how car prices in the UK compared with European prices for essentially the same specs (give or take which side the steering wheel goes) and whether the manufacturers were basically price-fixing. AFAIK no-one has made any sort of legal challenge on the car supermarkets since that time. So the legal grounds for manufacturers blocking importing their products to the UK and selling on the cheap here are obviously not completely clear.

[In case anyone's interested, I'm looking to buy a car at present, and the car supermarkets are typically coming in around 10-15% cheaper than the biggest discount any main dealer will give me, which is itself around 10% of the list price for the model I'm looking at. Then again, the supermarket models aren't backed by full manufacturer warranties and such, and by the time you've paid extra for comparable after-sales support, the gap is still there but much closer. Just mentioning it in case anyone else is car-hunting. :-)]

The most interesting development in the music industry case seems to be the BPI considering similar action against Amazon. As CD-Wow! pointed out, they are only a small company, and it may have been prudent for them to settle. Amazon are not a small company, and if my friends and family are anything to go by, they are responsible for a very significant proportion of legitimate music sales in the UK now.

I rather doubt a retailer in their position will just roll over and die for the music industry. A lot of the reason for their market share is down to charging significantly less than our high street stores for CDs (and DVDs and books). Without that advantage, they still have a much broader catalogue, but that's probably their only major advantage. On the flip side, you have to wait several days to get stuff, and there's more risk of something needing returning due to damage in the post (which Amazon are quite professional about IME, but still takes more time). I imagine they'd lose a lot of sales back to "buy here, have now" high street retailers if the price difference were cut, so it's well worth their while to get the lobbyists out and fight the legal battle over the free trade/imports question.

Free Trade Laws

[tiger99]

Are there not laws and treaties relating to free trade, to which all the relevant countries are signatories, which make this blatantly illegal?

IANAL, so perhaps someone who is can enlighten me. Surelty it is not right that an industry which exists purely to exploit both the artistes and the buying public can ride roughshod over international trade agreements? If we can purchase almost anything else abroad at the local price, and import it quite legally, paying all proper taxes, why should mere entertainment material be any different?