Slashdot Mirror
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.
From TFA:
"The vibrancy of British music depends on a fair return on the investments that allow British talent to shine.
"This decision is an important step in ensuring that British music has a bright future."
So my question is... Why are the cd's being sold at such low prices in places like Hong Kong, where this company is buying them for resale in England. How are the artists getting a fair return selling their albums for such low prices in Hong Kong?
Regards.
If this Internet company is based in Hong Kong, how does British law apply exactly?
In theory, theory always works in practice. In practice, theory rarely works. <><
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
Does the phonograph industry really think they have a chance against the CD industry?
IOU one (1) signature
"A Hong Kong CD Reseller has been found to be in breach of contract, by violating an agreement it made with British record companies in 2004. It agreed to certain restraints on its trade practices in exchange for financial consideration but did not abide by the terms of its contract. In football news, the Manchester..."
Doesn't really sell into Your Rights Online, does it?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
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.
If I was British I'd be calling for a replacement of the government over this. Whose interests are the government protecting with a decision like this? Clearly not the people themselves, who are one of the most overcharged (look at the cost of a PS3, for example) populace on this planet.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Someone doesn't understand how the law works.
I'm not a lawyer, this is not legal advice and this is based on Canadian law, but UK law is similar.
If the new corporation is controlled by the same people, the transaction is considered to be non-arm's-length. If the assets aren't sold at fair market value and the old corporation goes bankrupt (as a result of a legal judgement), the transaction could be set aside and the assets would go to the old corporations creditors. Courts don't like bankrupt people or companies giving away their assets.
What they could do is start a new corporation in the same business without any of the old corporations assets. They are two distinct legal entities, so the contract probably wouldn't apply.
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.
I'm sure this is flawed thinking, but oh well:
If you want protection from parallel imports/greymarket sales, then you should be forced to develop your products from scratch in the country in which you're expecting protection.
e.g., if you benefit from cheaper production in China, the customers should be able to expect cheaper sales via China/HK. If you want to kill off parallel imports in CountryX, then research, design and handle production for your product entirely in Country.
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
Interestingly, in Australia the court system has found on several occasions to date that "grey importing" (unofficial importing) is legal and in fact (as sony found out: http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/06/ 1211211) circumvention of devices which prevent grey importing (e.g mod chips which get around region encoding) is also legal.
It's interesting/scary how countries seem to go in virtually completely different directions on some of these issues (and in this case it is the UK and Australia which have inherited the same legal system).
Once the customer base start failing you, make use of your lawyer base.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
What's been particularly interesting/scary is the complete lack of "mainstream" journalism on this subject. I watched a section on BBC Newsnight which totally failed to address any of the issues that even the most unkarma Slashdot troll would have raised. The mouthpiece from the BPI was given free-reign.
This is very disappointing because it means we are not getting our message through to the mainstream.
Rich
libguestfs - tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine disk images
Here in Australia, they removed all parallel import restrictions on CDs and record stores didn't go out of business. Stores like JB Hi Fi, Sanity and others are still doing a roaring trade.
If the same thing happened in the UK and all the UK record stores were on the same level playing field (and could import stuff from Hong Kong just like CD-WOW does), this wouldn't be an issue.
Not CD Wow.
If I live in the UK and order something from overseas, I am officially the importer.
I have to pay the relevant import duties and taxes when the goods arrive. In this case, as you will notice from the text quoted from CD Wow's site, the duties are paid on my behalf by the shipping agent, out of the payment made to CD Wow. But in essence, it is still me, as the importer, who is paying the duties albeit through an agent.
The company selling the stuff to me is the exporter.
Beef.
Way back when, British Leyland aka Rover was a Great UK Car Company. This is before it finally exhausted subsidies and went bust. In those days, to keep it in business, the Government permitted a cartel which fixed prices at levels where BL could more or less break even. This was at levels about 40% higher than in Europe. Everyone in Britain paid far more than the world price for cars, just as they do now for CDs. To benefit BL, just as now to benefit the record companies.
So guess what? BL then exported their cars to Germany, and sold them below cost. Doubtless in pursuit of the Queen's Awards for Export. Enterprising people with a crazed desire to buy cars guaranteed to rust and break down then tried to import them back into the UK.... After all, if you were going to buy a pile of junk, why pay list for it? That's not quite how they thought of it.
The more it goes around, the more it comes around.
Prices for *everything* in the UK are outrageously higher than in continental Europe, USA and even Mexico. But I guess the main reason for that is because the government let corporations do these kind of things. It is so stupid that they do it *even* against their own companies. For another example see the Tesco vs Levi where Tesco (a Wal*Mart like supermarket) was importing Levi's jeans cheaper than the price they got from Levi's... guess what happened? Levi's sued and they where forced to buy directly from Levi's... at the highest price.
But hey, the guys over here are used to that, if you tell a Briton that they are getting raped with the prices they will have a *hard* time acknowledging it, they do not believe it as most of them have not traveled outside their island... and when they go to Spain they are surprised *how cheap* is it... they should look all around the world to see *how cheap* is everywhere, excepting of course their island.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
$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!