Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
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
Slashdot needs to interview Natalie Portman.
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).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
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.
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...
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.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"