cd-wow may be sued!

[bowenjones]

Lets hope and pray that this doesn't happen.....
http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/index.cgi?page=News&id=4227

It's not that big a deal. It's annoying that the record companies are interfering in giving the customers what they want but if CD-WOW stop selling HK CDs (and even N American CDs), I for one wouldn't be that bothered.

I've had problems with some Asian CD releases in the past. They can be less well mastered than their N American and European counterparts and sometimes have fewer tracks than the N American or European releases.

Also, the N American artists that I'm after, CD-WOW often do not sell and even when they do, I find it cheaper to order directly from suppliers in Canada and the US.

The only problem is with new releases. CD-WOW are often the cheapest and meet the earliest release dates.

I guess CD-WOW could just shift to a HK-based operation, they might get away with it then (after all, everyone else does).

Who's gonna be next though? Are they gonna start taking on those who supply N American CDs like Play?

[bowenjones]

I inadvertantly posted this thread on the dvd and music
forums as I thought that users of either of them would
be interested.
I didn't realise that I was breaking forum rules and therefore
apologise
I do think that if the BPI wins this case it will have implications
regarding other sites which would be very bad news indeed!

[Lex]

Originally posted by bowenjones
I do think that if the BPI wins this case it will have implications
regarding other sites which would be very bad news indeed

Agreed. As I said before, I believe that both Play & Future Ent get their cds from abroad (I could be wrong). I wonder why cd-wow are being picked on.

Yes Lex, you are absolutely right. Play and Future Ent get their CDs from N America.

They only get them from N America though, whereas CD-WOW appear to get them from all over the world. I have had CDs from CD-WOW that are of HK, Phillipine, Australian, US, Canadian and UK origin.

[Azrikam]

Once again, proof that the music industry is their own worst enemy.

[Lex]

Originally posted by Azrikam
Once again, proof that the music industry is their own worst enemy.

They haven't got a clue have they!

£3.99 for a cd-single - surely that should be classed as robbery!

[bowenjones]

Reading the case facts, it seems to me that the BPI and Sony
want us ( the UK consumers ) to buy only the cd's that are
produced ( i.e. made ) here.
Perhaps cd-wow were chosen because they supply a large
number of cd's that are produced overseas and the reason they
are picking on HK based producers could be just to simplify
things.
If they were to win, I beleive that their next step would be
to target the imports of all overseas produced cd's.
That then would open the door for other companies to sue
sites that sell other overseas products such as dvd's to protect
their own interests.
As I said, lets hope and pray that this doesn't happen.

[Lex]

This case seems similar to the Levis Vs Tesco court case - which Levis won... Tesco were buying their Levis cheap from the far east instead of direct from Levis.

[encaser]

The record companies BPI keep making things harder for consumers to get a fair deal and then wonder why sales go down. When you consider - as Lex notes - £3.99 for a cd single, which can only have 3 tracks, UK releases which have often less tracks/mixes than their international one and ill-thought copy protections it's no surprise the market suffers.
It'll be intersesting to see what happens when bluray dvdr/rw arrives.

[Bone Daddy]

[mmmm can't allow this to go through unless you have proof, I'm afraid]

[Daneel]

I don't know how most people feel here but I speak to a lot of americans who are very anti-RIAA and refuse to buy CDs at all until the system changes.

I am happy to buy CDs at a reasonable price, which CD-WOW allows me to. If they remove this supplier they will lose my CD sales as I refuse to pay standard UK prices and have other ways to get music (of CD quality).

This kind of thing makes me REALLY angry. CD-WOW is doing nothing illegal AFAIK, they are simply running a business. If they can ship music from HK to the UK and still under-cut prices by 40% (album priced £13 here and £7.70 on their site) it says something about the prices we are paying here.

It's about time they realised that the public won't stand for being ripped off anymore. If they are worried about falling CD sales they are going about trying to revive them all the wrong way.

Another thing that record companies seem to ignore when quoting their poor sales figures is the state of the economy. The vast majority of businesses are suffering with many having to cope with significantly reduced sales, yet the record industry feels it shouldn't affect them!!



I'll stop now before I ruin my mood completely.

The 'quality' of Asian bootleg CD and DVD releases (with regards to covers, printed CD and DVD labels) makes it VERY difficult to tell what is an original and what is a bootleg release in Asian countries. Apparently, even the "holograms of autheticity" can be purchased for just a few pennies on the open market. If we can be duped in this way, it must be the same for legitimate suppliers.

Someone else commented on the forum a few months ago that the reason why Asian DVDs and CDs are so cheaply priced is because the originals have to compete with the bootlegs on the open market. So if the originals were priced any higher, people just wouldn't buy them. They have to be so cheap so people will say "Well, for a couple of $'s more, I will buy the original".

I suspect the only reason CD-Wow are being targetted is that they do have a UK operation that handles returns, and possibly other aspects of the business.

There's nothing they can do to the likes of A&B Sound or Amazon.com/ca/whatever or just about any other music shop anywhere in the world who are entirely based outside of the UK.

As someone said in uk.media.dvd cd-wow often seem like a UK company posting from HK rather than a HK company posting to the UK (not that I think for a minute that it's a bad thing).

You'd have thought the BPI would realise they're shooting themselves in the foot as the more they try to get people to pay over-the-odds prices the more people will resort to downloading so the artist/record label gets jack.

I for one don't feel I'm being ripped off paying £7.50 for an album, but it does slightly rankle when I (as an individual) can get a single album shipped from Canada for £7 whereas I can walk to HMV who must buy in thousands and see the same thing on sale for £12 :-(

regards
Paul

Originally posted by hutchingsp
I suspect the only reason CD-Wow are being targetted is that they do have a UK operation that handles returns, and possibly other aspects of the business.

Yes, but so do Play and Future Ent. Odd that CD-WOW get picked on first, but then they are the only major supplier dealing with Asian CDs in particular with a UK base and their CDs are frequently cheaper than Play's and Future Ent's.