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British Record Companies Win £41m In Damages
Benjamin Fox writes "The BBC is reporting that online retailer CD-Wow has been ordered to pay £41m to the British Phonographic Industry. The London High Court ruled that Hong Kong-based CD-Wow, which imports cheap (but genuine) CDs from Hong Kong and elsewhere into the U.K., is '"in substantial breach" of a 2004 agreement to stop importing CDs.' This is a serious blow to proponents of an open, no-barrier music market."
Record companies win 41m damages
Which they will, naturally, turn over to the artists...
FTA: "It is vital that all retailers compete on a level playing field," said director general Kim Bayley. "Illegal imports threaten that level playing field and threaten British jobs."
Cry me a river, think of your jobs as being "outsourced" to Hong Kong. Your brick & mortar record stores are going the way of the haberdashery and cooper workshop. Be creative and come up with a new business model or go extinct.
Being in business for X years doesn't give you a mystical right to be in business for X+1.
Trolling is a art,
The part about someone putting a gun to the head of CD-Wow and forcing them to sign that agreement.
Does this mean that IBM, HP, GE and others owe billions to American engineers when they imported cheap (but genuine) foreign workers into the country?
And it would be extremely dangerous if an Englishman and a Chinaman could pay the same amount for the same product.
What would be next? Where would it end? What if petrol prices also reached parity? It just wouldn't be proper!
How does breaking an agreement the company made in 2004 to stop importing CDs drive a "serious blow" to an open, no-barrier music market? The company agreed to stop importing CDs in the first place; they should either renegotiate the agreement or abide by it.
The agreement was in response to the threat of a lawsuit.
It should be a clear warning sign when it's cheaper to manufacture a CD, and ship it half-way around the world, than it is to manufacture it right where you live.
One place has too much red-tape and taxes, or one place has too few standards and protections, but in this case I think it's both.
their annual UK TURNOVER in 2005 was only £21.7m. This judgement effectively means that the high court wants them to hand over at least 5 years UK profits. It would be a damn-sight cheaper for CD-Wow to just pull out of the British market. Also, it's clear that the BPI's plan here was to get such unreasonably large damages that CD-Wow has to hike its prices right up around the world to cover the cost of paying them, thus destroying their business of selling CDs cheap. UK customers already pay a £2 surcharge at CD-Wow to cover the cost of sourcing CD's in the EU, now the high court has deigned to make consumers the world over pay a surcharge to give pure profit to a few already wealthy corporations. So, either the company goes under, or they stop trading in the UK, or they massively hike the prices. Either way it's bad for many UK consumers. Well done the high court, always looking out for the majority of people in society!
Hopefully the EU will strike this effective tariff-imposing down - people may lambast them, but the EU seems to be the only thing protecting us from the jokers in Westminster who make laws to benefit corporate interests over those of consumers.
FGD 135
OK... According to the article, CD-Wow sells 'top 10 albums for as little as £6.99', and the basic ideas behind economics lead me to assume that they acually profit from such low prices.
For them to profit from that, it leads me to assume that it's cheaper to produce a (legit) CD in Hong Kong, and fly it to the other side of the eastern hemisphere, then to simply buy the same CD in a store in the UK.
So why does the same album cost so much more in the UK then it does in Hong Kong?
Maybe the answer isn't to sue people. Maybe it's time for them to re-evaluate their business models.
I think it's a case of letting the market that can pay for it pay for it, but still getting something rather than nothing out of the other markets. The average wages in HK is much lower, they aren't going to pay the same prices.
Isn't this why the movie industry placed region codes on DVDs? Now it doesn't seem to matter that the music industry was so short-sighted when developing CDs, they're going to get their money anyway.
the one against drug re-importation. The drug companies have to make their R&D money back from someone, so people in wealthy nations cannot have the product at the same prices as everyone else.
Doesn't change the fact that while living in this wealthier nation many the people I know cannot afford proper health care or buy the medications at all.
I'm not trying to be bitchy with you. I am just frustrated with the realities of globalization.
Regards.
Not to mention those dirt cheap CDs appear to be around $11.00 still :(
:/
;)
How much do CD cost nowdays?
If $10 profit can't pay everyone down the chain we need a shorter chain...
Maybe all bands should put their music on video so we can get it in the bargain DVD bin instead
Thank god i have all the music i will ever need to listen to already on Cd/record/cass/8-track. I have paid retail for 1 CD in many years and that was off ebay for a 10-year-old out of print one. OK, plus a DVD of the month thingie for The Midnight Special (70's version of MTV) at full retail
This is the perfect definition of 'globalisation'. If you're a producer of a product, you get to take advantage of the lowest possible production costs wherever they may be found in the world in order to maximise your profits.
If you're a consumer of that same product, then you're fucked and have to pay whatever the producer decrees is the market price in your country. Even if that price is many multiples of the exact same product in another country (cf: Adobe software prices in the UK compared to the US, to name but one example).
I'm still waiting to hear an even vaguely plausible reason why record companies charge vastly more for a music CD, a piece of plastic and metal on which the largest production expenses - the actual recording and artists' advances - have already been paid, in the UK than to buy that same CD from Hong Kong including shipping halfway around the world other than sheer, unashamed, blatant, greedy price-gouging of British consumers. And I'll be waiting a long time, because there isn't one.
You must think in Russian.
I'm really sick and tired of the hypocrisy. When we lose our jobs to cheaper workers overseas, big business tells us that it's unfortunate but it's the harsh realities of the international business etc. Yet when that same market threatens them, the government steps in to protect them.
Funny that, the first thing I do with a legally purchased DVD is make a region free backup copy. This prevents me from having to resort to firmware hacks to watch films that I payed to watch (many of which are imports). Then there are those folks who regularly move between zones. Region encoding has failed miserably.
The right price in a global market place is the cheapest price - take it up with the WTO if you have an issue with that!
The government didn't make the decision, the courts did. Yes, the government appoint judges but the decision was not made directly by them...
We have many reasons for wanting a different government - this one isn't even close to the top 10.
--- Band: Joey Ultra
Shouldn't the British Phonographic Industry be investigated for price fixing? As has been mentioned, the CDs are legally produced and the artists have already been paid their share, leaving the only reason the BPI are pissed off is that they didn't make a larger cut of the sale.
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
Once the customer base start failing you, make use of your lawyer base.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
$GlobalCorp that was paying me a good wage can outsource my job to India, Serbia, South Africa, etc.
Check.
I then have to get another job, possibly in another field.
Check.
Most jobs being created in the US and UK economies are service industry jobs where I have few applicable qualifications so I will most likely take a serious pay cut.
Check.
Because I now have a lot less disposable income, if I want to maintain my previous quality of life I need to look to other sources for products. I can't afford HMV or Virgin prices of GBP15 for a new CD anymore. Imports from overseas may be one solution to this. After all, it's exactly what $GlobalCorp did in step 1 - saved money by sourcing their product (my labour in this case) from a cheaper market.
Nope - can't do that.
AFAIK this is explicitly against the WTO agreements on price differentiation in different markets and the prevention of people from taking advantage of this. This is why the BPI have to use shady trademark laws (see Levi vs Tesco for more on this).
Time to make this shit personal and stop being sheeple!