Endangered?
30-day cooling off period? With the rise in sales and trading of music online combined with the selling and buying of used CDs, the stores selling new product took a page from the RIAA and MPAA and are having governments enact laws to prevent this one aspect of their demise under the guise of stopping stolen CD sales. Yup! That’s what the government is for: to protect outmoded business models from new technology and competition. Wouldn’t surprise me a bit if NARM is funded by the RIAA.
And you know this will eventually be expanded to used DVDs shortly.
New laws create second-hand woes for CD retailers
Independent merchants selling and buying used CDs across the United States say they are alarmed by stepped-up pawn-broker-related laws recently enacted in Florida and Utah and pending in Rhode Island and Wisconsin.
In Florida, the new legislation requires all stores buying second-hand merchandise for resale to apply for a permit and file security in the form of a $10,000 bond with the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. In addition, stores would be required to thumb-print customers selling used CDs, and acquire a copy of state-issued identity documents such as a driver’s license. Furthermore, stores could issue only store credit — not cash — in exchange for traded CDs, and would be required to hold discs for 30 days before reselling them.
At least one Florida town has enforced the law, resulting in the cited merchant pulling used CDs from its store.
Finally! And with ReadID we won’t have any stolen CDs! Yay government.
This just makes piracy even more appealing. These idiots won’t be happy until their entire business model is destroyed. They will blame it on the pirates!
Actually, I have gathered from a close read of this item that NARM, which represents the stores themselves, is expressing concern about the way these laws may affect them and is trying to reduce their severity. What I’d like to know is how these things sneaked into their respective legislatures in the first place.
I strongly suspect that you’re correct in suspecting that the RIAA (whose member organizations have had their own little trouble with the laws, particularly with regard to price-fixing payola, and embezzlement) is behind all of this.
Friends, we live in a world where at least one branch of the Mob no longer has to use physical force in order to flourish; they have bought the lawmakers and the enforcers.
The so-called major players of the recorded music industry have made money hand over fist for decades, despite being lazy, greedy, stupid, arrogant, totally contemptuous of their customer base, and utterly without ethics.
They made their fortunes because 1) they had complete control of the methods of distribution, and 2) they were fabulously lucky. Now the distribution is wide open, and the luck has evaporated, and these self-styled giants of commerce lash out in any way that they can.
If they had not squandered all possibility of good will for all those decades, by treating the public with such execrable contempt, then it’s just conceivable that today’s consumers might feel a little sympathetic to them now. As it is, they shall receive no such sympathy because they deserve none. I hope that their encroaching failure is cataclysmic and public.
let’s not forget their main flaw.. they believe their own hype.. religiously
their mantra is greed.. and that shouldn’t surprise anyone..
what surprises me is their inability to keep up with the times
this industry seems to be allergic to my money
I can’t believe that people are actually making this into a law!
What next? Laws saying that you can only sell one used cd per month? And when will they plug the flea market/yard sale loophole?
What about selling CDs on e-bay in Florida?
These laws make it harder to buy or sell music CDs than handguns. Evidently some people consider music more dangerous than violent crime.
Amazing! The inmates really are running the asylum.
The so-called major players of the recorded music industry have made money hand over fist for decades, despite being lazy, greedy, stupid, arrogant, totally contemptuous of their customer base, and utterly without ethics.
DESPITE or BECAUSE?
J/P=?
It would be interesting to see that any second hand CD sales store, like Music Go Round, announced next week that they will lay off every employee across the United States due to the impending legislature. Would the government reverse the trend because that would mean alot of people would be jobless and sitting on unemployment? And yes I know that many of these people are part-time employees, but still, that would create a smaller consumer base for garbage.
#3. That was my read as well. re NARM
Frankly, the law cited seems so broad (thumbprinting, 30 day waiting list, copying ID cards, etc) that its target is sales of stolen goods, and its effect upon used CD sales is incidental.
I do firmly believe the RIAA is absolutely determined to commit suicide, however, and would prefer to put every used CD store out of business.
They already put new CD stores out of business with preferential wholesale prices for Wal-Mart, Costco, etc. Lets just kill the entire distribution arm of the CD business completely.
Fuck it…
You know, I really didn’t like music all that much anyway… 🙁
As much as I despise the RIAA, I believe this (stupid) law targets theft. Cds are easy to steal and convert to cash at a pawnshop or used cd stores. It happens so much around here I burned copies of the cds I want to take on the road and leave my originals at home, which by the way, I consider fair use.
Excuse me , I think I hear the RIAA at the door……
Anyone know about the strange laws in Japan that control selling used Electronics and used cars? I’m sure such laws will be here soon…
James Hatsis
I thought you “liberals” liked government (over)regulation.
#17: It took longer than I thought before some obsessive type decided to make an out-of-left-field ad hominem remark. Longer still would have been nice. The real enemy here is that portion of Big Business represented by the RIAA, no matter which straw dogs you may prefer to set upfor your attack.
Which reminds me of the “Ode to Howard Stringer” which popped up after Sony’s rootkit debacle:
Howie is a Welshman;
Howie’s Sony’s chief;
Howie messed up my PC
And claimed that I’m a thief!
#15:
I don’t think so, Tim. What’s the next logical step? Currency controls?
#19. “What’s the next logical step? Currency controls?”
logical, no. likely, yes. I mean the article itself said that CDs could only be traded in for store credit, not cash. there you have it – a very basic, otherwise harmless, business transaction taken out of the cash economy. To the cops and the prosecutors who always have the attention of the State Legislators, this takes the incentive out of stealing CDs.
And that is only one provision of a larger act that has nothing specifically to do with CDs, and everything to do with second-hand merchandise sales generally. These laws probably have a thousand backers, from the RIAA, to the cops, to the people who sell new discount merchandise who want a competitive advantage by making life harder for the second-hand merchants.
So I don’t think we can hang it all on the RIAA.
Well looks like more garage sale LPs for me!
Fortunately, very, very little music that I care for has been recorded since the demise of the LP as the primary commercial format.
#15 – Chris
“Cds are easy to steal and convert to cash at a pawnshop or used cd stores.”
No, not really. Someone who breaks into your house has far more valuable, saleable items to steal. The last thing they’ll even glance at is your media, unless you’ve got a ton of it, all ready to carry out the door.
CDs (and movies) are not now, nor have they ever been a popular theft item. They’re simply not even remotely valuable enough. No matter how valuable your music may seem to you, no pawnshop is going to give you more than a buck apiece for the ones they’ll take – and and a lot they won’t take at ANY price. Every pawnshop has boxesfull of crappy CDs they’ll never sell, and they don’t hand out cash to just increase that unsellable inventory. And thieves know that, too.
As a music collector for over 40 years, who’s bought from countless thrift shops, garage sales, used media stores and pop-shops, across dozens of cities, I know whereof I speak.
Even the stupidest criminals know enough not to risk a felony rap to steal something they can only get literally pennies for. Obviously a number of legislators are either in the pocket of the RIAA or they’re simply clueless and out-of-touch with reality. No need to join their ranks…
Thieves want money, guns, jewelry, drugs, maybe your TV or hi-fi. Unless they’re fans looking to add to their personal collections, the last thing they want is The J. Geils’ Band’s Greatest Hits or your Gin Blossoms box set…
I go to my library (we have a very good system here in Tampa, FL) and take home 3 ~ 5 CD’s every week. Rip them to my harddrive and listen on my portable MP3 player. Does this mean they’re going to pull CD’s (and DVD’s) from the library system? What’s the difference between buying a used CD and getting one for free from the library?
You know it’s interesting when I went off on my judge/lawyer rant last week, that someone said the ONLY way for the weak to fight the strong was the legal system. I guess someone should tell the poor they no longer live in a Democracy because their votes for Congress and the Presidency don’t matter.
The flip side to the laywers helping the poor argument is that lawyers are also busy taking the side of corporate Ameica. In Enron’s case, the law firm representing Enron, Vinson and Elkins, charged $162 million in fees, and unlike the CPAs and Enron managers, they are still in business. The MVPs of the RIAA have to be their lawyers and lobbyists. And let us not forget that most of our presidents and Congressmen have been and are lawyers.
Of course, laywers have to justify their inflated salaries because there is no other nation on earth that has so many and so many well paid lawyers.
What do lawyers actually do? They argue, pass, and enforce laws. You put lawyers in at the top of the RIAA, and this is what you get. But creating a quality product that consumers actually want? That is someone else’s job.
I actually am happy with what the RIAA has done. No other orginazation has better demonstrated that our government has been stolen from us and put up for sale than the RIAA.
What flies in the face of all the RIAA has done is the Grateful Dead. Everytime the Dead tried a money making venture, it failed. But they broke business model after business model with their actions: encourage their fans to record contests, played every song differently at each concert. Their anticorporate business style has left them with sold out concerts, among the most loyal fans the music world has ever seen, and made them millions and millions of dollars.