CD-Wow to pay GBP£41m to record companies (1 Viewer)

[penexpers]

Online retailer CD-Wow must pay £41m to British record companies after breaking a deal to stop selling illegally imported cheap albums in the UK.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6700639.stm

 

[xsteox]

"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."


hum, and how much of the £41m is going to the bands, and how much to the shareholders of the labels?

 

[Mormon Nailer]

Who decides what constitutes illegally imported?
Actually they are not illegally imported at all, they are imported in breach of a private agreement that CDWOW have with the record industry, not illegally.

It's not UK Revenue or Customs and excise who have a problem with this its just the record industry.

Anyway an deal that attemplts to stop CDWOW doing something which is perfectly legal sounds like restraint of trade to me and something the EU would be interested in.

 

[Lili Marlene]

"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."

How was that again, sorry? Is the implication that British artist's music is sold at a loss in Hong Kong? But that can't be the case, can it? These are legal recordings, and money from a CD goes back to the labels whether the CD is wholesaled in Hong Kong for eventual sale in Leytonstone or Wan Chai.

If the UK record labels have cut poor deals which mean they're not getting a fair return for their investment when tracks are sold abroad, that's hardly the fault of the UK consumer - and why should the UK consumer be forced to pay over the odds to compensate their losses?

If the UK record labels have cut good deals which mean they are getting a fair return on their investment when tracks are sold abroad, there's no problem anyway.

And the consumer could ask "why am I being forced to pay more to cover bad investment decisions by companies?" The BPI often runs out its justification for charging high prices in the UK as saying that it needs to cover the costs of its flops, but why should someone have to pay an extra two quid to buy a record by a band they like because some idiot in an office somewhere decided to pour their company's money into an absolute turkey?

Why don't they ask consumers if that's the way they think it should be? Perhaps they could offer, say, purchasers of a Jackson Browne album the chance to pay a couple of extra quid in order to offset the losses on the Paris Hilton album. If the record labels are convinced that their way of doing things works in the consumer interest, why not put that to test?

some good points no?

 

[xsteox]

some good points no?

yeah, totally. i'd probably respect the bpi a little, if they dropped the bullshit, and just said its money for label's sharewholders.

 

[Pantone247]

Jon Snow had some fella on from the BPI last night on Channel 4 news. He treated him like he was shit, it was great.

 

[Vinnie]

Who decides what constitutes illegally imported?
Actually they are not illegally imported at all, they are imported in breach of a private agreement that CDWOW have with the record industry, not illegally.

It's not UK Revenue or Customs and excise who have a problem with this its just the record industry.

Anyway an deal that attemplts to stop CDWOW doing something which is perfectly legal sounds like restraint of trade to me and something the EU would be interested in.

It's an EU law. It's parallel importing. It makes perfect sense.

 

[Mormon Nailer]

It's an EU law. It's parallel importing. It makes perfect sense.

Which part makes sense?

 

[Vinnie]

Which part makes sense?

The part about using low cost foreign markets to bypass local industry to sell at huge margins

 

[MDR]

The part about using low cost foreign markets to bypass local industry to sell at huge margins

Apparently there are huge margins in the A4 refill pad industry.