January 22, 2004

The BPI suck!

So last night I get an email from CD-WOW and here's what it said:

Dear Member,

The UK Major record companies through their mouth piece the BPI* have unfortunately restricted the UK and Irish consumers right to enjoy the freedom of the World Wide Web.

As from this weekend, any CD ordered for delivery to the UK and Ireland will incur a surcharge as we are only able to deliver CDs manufactured within the EU (more expensive).

Delivery to the rest of the world will not be affected.

You only have a few days left - so order now!

Be quick to make the best of our current low low prices while you can still exercise your right to choose.

We will of course still be supplying UK and Irish customers but as of Sunday 25th January 2004 a surcharge of £2.00 (3.00 Euros) per CD will apply.

Please Note - our prices of DVDs and Games will remain unaffected

Warmest Regards
CD WOW!

So yet again the British (and Irish) consumer is going to have to pay ripoff prices for their CD's because the BPI has decided that, essentially, we weren't paying enough.

Astonishingly the BPI appear to be saying that the consumer will not suffer, at least according to this story in the reg.

"It is not the consumer who will suffer" say the BPI. Yeah, right. OK.

CD prices in this country are an absolute shambles. I will absolutely NOT pay the HMV price for a CD of around 15 to 16 quid. The shame of this whole thing is that the consumer could rely on CD-WOW to be around the cheapest place to buy CD's and delivery would be within a few days of ordering. The cheapest place to buy CD's is now likely to be the supermarket and they're only going to carry the poppy rubbish like Will Young / Gareth Gates et al.

Don't think play have caved yet so we'll have to see what happens with them when it goes to court next week.

I am tired of this insane ripoff country where we are taxed to death and everything is seemingly much more expensive than in other parts of the world (witness petrol [gas if you like], it bears a tax of more than 80% making the UK around the most expensive place in the world to fill up a car tank with fuel).

I am looking forward to our coming emigration to Canada. Sure Canada has its problems and the taxes are higher than in lots of other places but at least the standard of living is much higher than the UK.

Posted by Garry at January 22, 2004 12:48 PM
Comments

ABSOLUTE disgrace...... but what can we do? Don't buy any more music and return to ripping it off via the net and mp3 perhaps? Is that what you'd like BPI?

I thought price fixing was illegal... evidently it's ok if you're the bpi.

To any artists reading this excellent blog. If you're worried about earning money for your work (which I think you ought to), and you're thinking the BPI is working in your interests. Think again. Most of us will PAY for your albums if you offer them at a reasonable price... so this surcharge will make people look again at ripping you off and getting the tracks on mp3 from the net. Not because they want to, but because the BPI pricing fix gives them no choice.

Whilst we're at it.... tell your production companies to agree to online distribution via apple itunes in the uk. Again, if we can't buy online then we're very likely to just download it for free.

Allegedly ;-)

Posted by: Keith at January 22, 2004 8:14 PM

Keith made an excellent point about downloading. They tell us we can't do it and send the authorities down to prosecute people for doing it and CD sales are falling blahblah but they leave us no choice when we want to buy albums but aren't quite sure if we like it or not (recent buys: Best of Bjork and Badly Drawn Boy--not exactly artists who are played on the radio a lot). (To those North Americans who can't see why we're all het up..if we go into our HMV the average CD would cost about 32-35 bucks.) I wish there was some way we could protest this but the companies probly won't take a bit of notice. ITunes is getting popular but I personally still like buying CD's for all the liner notes etc so that won't totally replace my CD collection.

Posted by: Carla at January 23, 2004 7:22 AM

I think I'll send these guys some email to voice my displeasure and let them know I'm not happy where CD prices are concerned. If perhaps other people do it at least we've got a clear concience that we've done something (and let them know that we'll be voting with our feet and not buying CD's at these stupid prices), even if the bigwigs ignore us. On the BPI site I found two possible email addresses on the Contact Us section;

legal@bpi.org.uk
general@bpi.org.uk

I'll post what I wrote on my blog.

Posted by: Carla at January 23, 2004 7:31 AM

Aaron Swartz had a good article about this and I'm with him.
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/001112

Posted by: Kodger at January 23, 2004 2:28 PM

just another example of the worlds obsession with money. it is the new god. this world franky sux.

Posted by: chris at October 8, 2004 8:04 PM