Two US States Restrict Used CD Sales

DrBenway sends us to Ars Technica for a report that Florida and Utah have placed draconian restrictions on the sale of used music CDs; Wisconsin and Rhode Island may soon follow suit. In Florida, stores have to hold on to CDs for 30 days before they can sell them — for store credit only, not cash. Quoting: "No, you won't spend any time in jail, but you'll certainly feel like a criminal once the local record shop makes copies of all of your identifying information and even collects your fingerprints. Such is the state of affairs in Florida, which now has the dubious distinction of being so anal about the sale of used music CDs that record shops there are starting to get out of the business of dealing with used content because they don't want to pay a $10,000 bond for the 'right' to treat their customers like criminals."

Pawn shops

[Anonymous Coward]

So, except for the only store credit part, they're making them follow the same laws that pawn shops must follow here in Colorado? That is, valid ID and fingerprints are required as well as a 30-day holding period for all items. Working in a pawn shop, I can point out that CDs, DVDs, and video games (VHS is dead) and other common but low-value items are rarely even investigated by the police. Proving the ownership of such a generic type of item is futile. Un-serialized items in general are, really. Despite the annoyance, I still fully support the restrictions pawn shops are given and we -- the honest brokers -- fully try to insure that stolen items are returned to their rightful owners or are at-least unsellable.

Stealing? Maybe. But from whom?

[kingsindian1]

Courtney Love has a nice article [salon.com] on her take on piracy etc.
Her view on the issue is that the music industry is a huge, profiteering middleman and artists are swindled by them. She's of the opinion that for an artist, more exposure, however it comes, is a good thing and will lead to people buying more stuff.
The music industry is whining just because they're being cut out from a direct experience between an artist and the listener.

So two things are going on here:

[Glowing Fish]

The stated issue behind the restrictions on reselling CDs seems to be that they are a likely good to be stolen and resold. I suppose that this does make sense, and that CDs should have the same restrictions put on them that any other good sold in a pawnshop should.

But there seems to be hints that this is just a way for the recording industry to stop the reselling of CDs.

But there would have to be a closer studying of the legislation and the people backing it to find out which one is the real reason this is being pushed.

On the face of it, though, I find it a little unlikely that this is an anti-theft measure. Especially the part about "only to be used for store credit". It seems unfair to target CDs like this, when there are plenty of other things: cars, guns, jewelry, musical instruments, home electronics, sporting equipment, that are also likely targets of theft (I would think all of those named would be better targets for theft than CDs), but (AFAIK), there isn't any specific laws that say you can't sell your skis or guitar for cash.

Re:What a bunch of fucking idiots.

[djh101010]

You thundering moron. Wisconsin is run by the democrats, the idiot governor here doesn't trust good people to be honest and instead caves to criminals and the RIAA. Why don't you actually get some facts before spewing your partisan crap.

We've been (this) close, twice, to getting rid of the criminal Doyle, but for reasons dictated by emotion rather than logic, the idiot got elected and then reelected. Yet he trusts criminals to be the only ones armed, and the RIAA to dicate how we listen to our CDs. So, maybe, just maybe, you could look at the actual situation next time, before guessing that it's the eeevul Republicans' fault, mmmkay? Thanks awfully.

Re:What a bunch of fucking idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Put down your crack pipe and your beer bong and pay attention. It isn't just Republicans. It is the entire political class. Follow the money and you will see that it ends up on both sides of the aisle. And so does the origination and support of MAFIAA protective legislation.

Re:CDs are more dangerous than GUNS???

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a genetic fallacy, not a straw man argument.

Re:Stealing? Maybe. But from whom?

[goosman]

Courtney basically lifted her speech from this [negativland.com] article by Steve Albini [wikipedia.org].

Re:CDs are more dangerous than GUNS???

[Anonymous Coward]

What's wrong is that groups like Brady are perpetually distributing a variety of lies and half-truths to the public for their own political purposes. Can you purchase a firearm in a gun show without a background check? Yes, you can-but only from a private person. Any dealer still has to run a check. Those who have been to gun shows, and who are familiar with how criminals operate, will tell you that the majority are not going to be relying on gun shows for the weaponry.

As for the second part of that statement, it only shows how much misinformation Brady puts out, and how little understanding there is by most people on how traces are conducted. When a dealer sells a firearm, they are required by law to keep the 4473 form on file for as long as the business remains open. When/if the business shuts down, the 4473s are sent to the ATF. If a gun is recovered from a crime, the serial numbers get sent to the ATF, who then will go through the chain of possession to the last FFL who possessed it (the dealer). That dealer will then give them the 4473, which has contact information on the purchaser (which is verified at time of sale using state-issued current identification). At that point the buyer can be tracked down, and contated to find out the disposition of the firearm. Local police do not need to keep their own sale records because such a system is already in place, and doing its job quite well. Brady would like to have records of every time any firearm is touched by a human being, with DNA records attached, and under realtime surveillance. Or just a total ban.

Other posters are correct: turning to the Brady Campaign for information on firearms is a perfectly analagous to looking to the RIAA for info on piracy.

Re:Holy SHIT that sucks.

[Draconix]

so buy an iPod. (ok... those are really expensive)

They have a levy on those too. I think they started doing that before they did it to CDs, actually.

tax on blank cds

[falconwolf]

I was gonna say that I lived in Toronto, where there are also used CD stores everywhere, then feel all cocky about it ... then I remembered the Canadian government is charging a levy on blank CDs. Sigh.

I don't know if it's only audio cds or all of them but the US also has a tax on blank cds. And the money supposed to go to the RIAA.

Falcon

Re:Could somebody please enlighten me?

[Misanthrope]

Depending on how a fidelity recording you want to make, a usb turntable is a viable option. It even uses Audacity as it's software side, which includes good plugins for removing clicks/hiss.
http://www.ion-audio.com/ittusb.php [ion-audio.com]
Alternatively, you can buy a nice sound card something with a 24-bit 96khz input and use a turntable with appropriate cabling to connect to the jack.
http://www.smarthouse.com.au/How_Stuff_Works/Real_ Hi_Fi/G7S9C4H6?page=1 [smarthouse.com.au]
This site goes over some options.

Re:Holy SHIT that sucks.

[Mistlefoot]

They admitted guilt after being confronted by the police. But they didn't have a list of what they stole from me. I didn't have a list of what I owned either. I knew what I owned and when looking at the list of items they sold could see it was mine. That being said, according to the Pawn Shop - I could have looked at a list and just claimed it all as mine.

I had no proof that what they sold was all "my collection" and not someone elses. I suppose if I would have hired a lawyer I may have had them returned. In the criminal case the Crown (Canada's DA) paid for all that.

Re:Buying Used records is STEALING

[only_human]

Why is this modded informative?

When you have bought a new CD, even with the DMCA, you are allowed to sell it.
Look it up, it is the right of first sale.

Someone else buys it; they are not breaking any laws, nor are you.
This is a single CD that has not been copied -- there is a single listener (the current owner)
The royalty on that CD was paid with the original retail purchase.

Second hand means second owner, not that it was copied.

Re:Could somebody please enlighten me?

[glwtta]

I haven't bought a CD in four years, and I'm older than God. If I'm not buying them, I can't imagine who is.

When I pay for music, I buy the CD. I just can't envisage paying money for an ephemeral lossy digital file (hard drives crash more often than houses burn down). Now, I haven't actually listened to a CD in a couple of years, but at least for now, that's the way to buy.

And when I like something that's released by a RIAA member (plug: RIAA Radar [riaaradar.com]), I buy the CD used; so this sucks.

Re:wow

[BlueGecko]

I mucked that up. The link to the Utah Legislature's search form is at http://www.le.state.ut.us/asp/billsintro/ [state.ut.us]. No matter how many times you preview...

Re:this does NOT suck

[Grave]

Depends on the business. Most independent record stores are being pushed out of business thanks to the big box retailers. Boutique stores must have a niche available (in this case, used sales) to stay afloat. The money made by the retailer from the sale of new CDs (or DVDs or software, for that matter) is very slim, and isn't enough to keep the retailer profitable by itself.

Most things like this are pro-business, but you have to consider which business is really benefiting.

Re:tax on blank cds

[Divebus]

Yes, you can still get DVDs for authoring which are 3.95GB or 4.7GB but embody the format used in pressed masters (allowing CSS) instead of that DVD-R stuff. There's a fair explanation about it here. [taperesources.com]

Re:this does NOT suck

[ill dillettante]

It is illegal under current US copyright law to rent music CD - the RIAA is one step ahead of you :)

Re:Well

[the_fat_kid]

A stack of $20 bills? I think not. More like $1 and $5 bills.
Have you sold any CDs or DVDs to a "used" record store?
think 10 cents on the dollar.
They still have value, don't get me wrong, just not the gold mine you make them out to be.

The purpose behind it

[Anonymous Coward]

I was an intern during the Utah legislation when this law was discussed. The purpose behind it was not to go after CD resellers. The problem is that there is a lot of theft of home building equipment and huge rolls of wire which are being sold to scrap yards. To combat this they created a law but were not insightful enough (during committee meetings) to realize the problems for other businesses.

Why do people think Pawn Shops buy stolen goods?

[edawstwin]

"The TV!" ... yeah, what pawnshop is going to take a TV missing the remote and half the cables? Obviously hot.

My parents used to own (and I used to work in) a Pawn Shop in the U.S. Every state has specific laws concerning pawn shops, but in general they are similar. First of all, if what you describe above happened, the criminal wouldn't take it to a pawn shop, even with the remote, cables, manual, and box it came in. When a pawn shop buys or lends on (there is a difference) anything with a serial number, it is recorded in a log along with the pawner's drivers license number and name, and given to the police periodically (in our case it was every week). Sometimes if alot of items were stolen, the police would come by the day after to look at our logs. Real criminals know this and would never sell electronics (and especially guns) to a pawn shop. They'll take it to the flea market or something similar where no one keeps records.

We only had one instance (in several years) of anything stolen coming through our shop. This is what happened: A kid around 18 or so came in with some expensive stereo equipment (higher end than what you can buy at Best Buy). My stepfather immediately thought something was wrong. He explained to the kid that he would only buy the equipment if it wasn't stolen. Furthermore, if it was stolen, he had the kid's drivers license info, which would be turned over to the police, and the kid would certainly go to jail. He insisted that it wasn't stolen and accepted a reasonable offer from my stepfather. A few days later the police came by and inquired about the equipment because it was stolen. The kid ended up going to jail because he was stupid. I don't think this deterred him from stealing again, but he now knows not to sell anything to a pawn shop.

Real information

[pontifier]

I searched the Utah website, and didn't find anything. I called the Utah state legislature, and they didn't know what I was talking about. So I called John Mitchell, who was a source for the article.

He kindly pointed me to Utah House Bill 402 [utah.gov] which seems to cover any second hand store.

Re:Why do people think Pawn Shops buy stolen goods

[Phantom Gremlin]

Ha. Just the opposite in Portland Oregon. Here pretty much anything goes.

Here's an article link http://www.portlandcopwatch.org/PPR37/secondhand37 .html [portlandcopwatch.org]

And here's a choice snippet:

In September, 2005, subsequent to a raid by the FBI on ten secondhand shops, Detective Sergeant David Anderson sent Chief Foxworth a memo expressing serious concern regarding "a culture of acceptance within the Police Bureau in which our officers know that these shops are engaging in illicit business." Sergeant Anderson referred to these shops as "little more than legalized fencing operations" (Oregonian, October 2).

My apologies if I have slighted the subtle distinction between a "secondhand shop" and a "pawn shop".