Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

UK Music Industry Stomps on Imported CD Seller

Posted by michael on from the no-price-arbitrage-for-you dept.

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."

1 of 404 comments (clear)

  1. Clarification by slim · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.