CD Wow denies illegal importing of CDs

 

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By Simon Aughton

Posted on 22 Feb 2007 at 14:44

CD Wow has denied that it intentionally breached an agreement with the BPI not to sell CDs in the UK that have been imported from outside Europe, simply because it never has.

In an email, the online retailer said that it does not knowingly despatch unlicensed CDs to UK customers and that all CD's bought by CD Wow are legitimately acquired from the record companies.

CD Wow was responding to a BPI lawsuit alleging that a 2004 court order had been broken, with the retailer continuing to import CDs 'illegally' from South East Asia.

It said that in fact all the CDs sold are despatched from the company's base in Hong Kong, but that, it claimed, is not the issue.

'The issue is whether a CD sold to a customer in the UK is licensed for sale in the UK and Europe,' the email says. 'The CD does not have to be produced in the UK (in fact almost no CD's are actually produced over here now).'

CD Wow said that during four years of investigations the BPI has compiled a list of 33 CDs that have breached UK copyright. The retailer admitted fault in these 33 instances but said that the wrongdoing was unintentional and the result of human error, adding that it does everything it can to operate within the law.

'The BPI undertook a programme of trap purchases in January 2004 to see if CD Wow were engaging in parallel importing; a process where legitimate products are purchased in one country and imported into another without the permission of the owner of the intellectual property rights which are attached to the product in the receiving country,' the email reads. 'The CDs themselves are legal products supplied to CD Wow by the major record companies who are now trying to sue CD Wow under the representation of the BPI.'

It added that it despatches as many as 100,000 CDs a day to the UK so it is 'understandable that a few unfortunate mistakes may have occurred'.

The BPI denied that its action has anything to do with the low prices that CD Wow is able to charge because of its location, but the retailer said that this is not the case, citing BPI's own legal counsel, Simon Baggs.

'One of the great causes of concern to the UK record industry at the present time is that prices for CDs and DVDs are being pushed down by the ability of consumers to obtain the same CD and DVD, in terms of the recordings on it, from companies such as CD Wow, and that is a very significant concern,' Baggs said.

And despite its denial, the BPI has gone to some lengths to justify the higher prices that UK music buyers pay compared to consumers in Asia.

'The British record business accrues British costs employing British workers to develop British artists,' it said. 'Record labels therefore set British prices that allow them to cover those costs to stay in business.'

In South East Asia average incomes are much lower and the markets are dominated by counterfeit products.

'Record companies have a choice of surrendering those markets entirely to piracy and not selling there at all, or reducing prices to a level that the market can bear,' it said.

It added that the average UK price is lower than in comparable developed countries and has fallen by 10 per cent since 2000.