Breathnach, Proinnsias (Dublin) wrote:
>> Actually - to be fair, it's nothing to do with the single market ... rather
> to do with CDWow importing "illegal" cds, those the copyright holders (in
> .ie IMRO and in .uk BPI) haven't allowed that particular version to be sold
> to.
The root of the issue is that Trademarks and Copyrights have been extended
(by stealth in most cases) from controlling production to controlling
distribution. This is not a case of someone making illegal copies, but
of reselling legal copies against the will of the copyright / trademark
holders, because they want to segment the marked to maximise profits.
Unfortunately, the induh-viduals who made up this EU directive decided
that it was fine if copyright / trademark holders could price-gouge
european consumers, provided they did the gouging in a consistant way
across the EU. Gotta love the single market :)
End result, european customers get to pay more than anyone else. It's kinda
like market protectionism by import duties, except worse, since the companies
can keep the markup.
> CDWow are not based in .eu ... rather in .hk ... so things are a little
> beyond European competition. Tesco lost a similar case trying to import
> Levis from (IIRC) Africa
Yep. Next thing you'll have to license your levis for a specific purpose,
once they extend copyrights / trademarks to restrict usage too. Which is
starting to happen in music.
Tony.
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