CD (wow) prices up -consumer bashed

[Ivor_Monkey]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertain...ic/3416437.stm

[paulus]

That sucks big time!

[mrmc74]

Wonder how long it takes for it to happen over here...

CDWOW will lose a lot of coustomers because of the BPI, and many of those it loses may resort to downloading.

I have used cdwow for a number of years now, and I recommended them to everyone I knew who bought cd's.
I feel a bit sorry for them, it looks like they are being picked on.

Play are apparently the next target.

What happens if we order from their hong kong site ??

Yes, yet again the British consumer will be forced to pay more!

We need to let the BPI know what we think.

I believe the address is:

peter.jamieson@ bpi.co.uk

[Whiting]

Originally posted by thamesider
What happens if we order from their hong kong site ??

Doesn't look like they .hk site has changed....Hopefully, we can carry on then ?

[chris110]

It says on the news report I just heard that the prices will only go up for UK deliveries from this weekend. I doubt it would matter which site of theirs you ordered from the fact its a UK address will mean a £2 surcharge which i just think is utterly rediculous and have just sent a lengthy email to the BPI telling them just that.

[hornydragon]

What happens to the extra £2???And does this apply to Eire?

As the BPI's job is to promote and protect the British music industry, does this mean we still pay the surcharge on non-British artists? It's a farce.

Wingnut

[chris110]

From what i heard all UK and Ireland postal address will be made to pay an additional £2 surcharge on top of the CD price from Sunday onwards. Although I did hear CD WOW say they were working closely with contacts they have within europe to offer the best price possible so I'm thinking (and hoping) that they have something up their sleeve.

There is still other sites offering CD's cheaper than £7.99 so unless CD WOW do do something it will cripple their business.

[ag005613]

In case you want to contact the BPI - they have a mailbox at: general@bpi.co.uk
...I know I will be.

[Radiohead]

I sent this to the BPI yesterday

"I am stunned to read of your settlement with CD-Wow. As you will know this will force them to add a surcharge of £2 to each CD shipped to a UK buyer, resulting in UK consumers paying more for your often over-priced products.

It seems that you and the music industry are not happy with just criminalising legitimate consumers by enforcing low-rent copy protection systems and thereby dictating where we can play the product we have purchased, now you are actively engaging in protectionism and thus raising prices.

Does it not seem obvious that in doing so CD-Wow, and as a result the music industry, will suffer reduced sales - at the very time that you and your legions of hand-wringers are bleating about falls in sales. By increasing prices and offering consumers less choice you will serve only to increase the numbers of people downloading music via P2P applications, a good number of them in protest at your ludicrously misguided actions.

Here's an idea - stop paying your creatively bankrupt executives inflated salaries and stop trying to create immediate hit acts for a short-term profit. Start thinking about the changing face of music consumption, react to it in imaginative ways and allow decent acts time to develop before discarding them after 1 album and dropping £50m on some half-baked boy band. Look at your pricing models and realise that they're woefully out of date - £9.99 for a CD on the High Street is a fair price, £13.99 certainly isn't (step forward HMV and Virgin). £7.99 is a fair price for a CD bought online - well, it was before your myopic acts closed off that particular avenue.

The BPI once sued radio stations for playing music in the 1920's - have you learnt nothing? The mind truly boggles.

Yours in despair"

[ag005613]

and here's mine...

Just a quick note to say that I am very unhappy about your recent "spat" with CD-Wow. It seems to me that you are unfairly discriminating against UK customers. It really makes no sense to me that a French CD-Wow customer can now purchase the same CD as UK customer for £2 less. As far as I can see CD-Wow were simply sourcing their merchandise from as cheap a legal source as they could. It so happened that most of the cheap CDs were sourced from outwith Europe. So therefore I guess the money from these CDs goes into the Asian (or whatever) branch of the multinational record companies; and I guess the non-UK based distribution companies.

But we live in the modern age where the Internet has given more power to the consumer. Indeed we are still limited by taxation laws on imports from outwith the EU for more expensive products. I really think that the laws in these areas are bound to change in the coming years.

At the end of the day though I am just a modest consumer of CDs. I have purchased thousands of CDs over a number of years. I will continue to do so - but I feel ripped off here. The prices in the high street are simply not competitive. CD-Wow are being penalised for being successfull. It's still not clear to me what law, if any, they were breaking.

The BPI must look to preserve their companies and employees but I think that the recent "agreement" with CD-Wow will do more harm to your industry than good. Any response would be appreciated, but is not fully expected. I am, after all, only a consumer of your products.

[Whiting]

Originally posted by chris110
It says on the news report I just heard that the prices will only go up for UK deliveries from this weekend. I doubt it would matter which site of theirs you ordered from the fact its a UK address will mean a £2 surcharge

Don't think that's the case.

On, the Uk CD-Wow site, the new Coral album has jumped from £7.99 to £9.99 since the ruling (it's released on Monday so falls under the new rules)

it's listed at ~ £7.50 on the HK site and when you attempt to buy it, despite the UK address, it confirms that £7.50 will be deducted from your credit card.

Of course, the real proof comes on Monday.

[mjn]

Originally posted by hornydragon
What happens to the extra £2???And does this apply to Eire?

i believe it does......but they could be going on about Northern Ireland