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Digital Music Downloads Too Expensive?
threeofnine writes "The Sydney Morning Herald has an article written by a copyright and technology lawyer asking if we are paying too much for digital downloads. From the article: 'Parallel imports are unavailable in the Australian digital market, however. Australian consumers cannot purchase downloads from iTunes or Wal-Mart in the US, which are often cheaper than downloads available here, without a US-issued credit card. And restrictive licensing conditions imposed by copyright owners also limit the sale of digital downloads across international borders. For both reasons Australian consumers miss out. And retailers cannot buy downloads from overseas and resell them here, even if it is worthwhile for them to do so. In a recent analysis, the prices of Australian-made CDs of artists such as Bon Jovi, REM and Robbie Williams were compared to those of legal parallel imports. It was found that the local product was as much as 300 per cent more expensive.'"
To The United States Congress: We are the customers and former customers of the member labels of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). We love music and will gladly pay a fair price for it, but we are outraged by the RIAA's tactics in suing ordinary Americans for filesharing....
Let's slashdot the Senate and House Commerce!
Actually, in the US it is not illegal. Actually, there is a little known loophole in US law that allows you to import music from outside the US without any copyright violation.
17 USC 602(a)(2) says that "importation, for the private use of the importer and not for distribution, by any person with respect to no more than one copy or phonorecord of any one work at any one time" is NOT infringement.
Thus, if you "import" one song from say, allofmp3.com, or from some other foreign server, for personal use, and do not distribute it to anyone else, the RIAA could not legally come after you.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.