I guess it's important to distinguish between ""selling" and importing".
These two things are different:
1) A store already has imports in stock, and then months later they
get a shipment of the same record on a domestic release.
2) A store orders an import release while they already have a
domestic release in stock.
I see #1 happen all the time, and it seems pretty innocent. This seems
to be the situation in which the retailers choose to lower the price of
the import for good, and allow their stock of imports to dry up.
#2 Seems to be the problematic one for domestic labels, and appears to
be the one which really violates the law. In this situation, some people
desire to buy the import instead of the domestic release (for whatever
reasons) and this presents a real problem for the US label - a problem
which a law like this would be helpful in deterring.
This is a boring subject. It has grow tiresome. It is time to dance!
-CF
quoted 41 lines -----Original Message-----
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Lazlo Nibble [SMTP:lazlo@swcp.com]
>Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 1997 1:31 PM
>To: idm@hyperreal.com
>Subject: RE: (idm) Parallel Imports
>
>>> It's a violation of US copyright law (Title 17 section 602) to import
>>>works
>>> that have a US copyright without the permission of the US copyright
>>>holder.
>>
>> But isn't the US copyright holder the same as the foreign copyright
>> holder (i.e., the artist?) And therefore, wouldn't said artist generally
>> give themselves permission to sell their own records?
>
>Very few artists on major labels own the copyrights to their own work.
>
>> In the case where a record label may own a copyright (and not the
>> artist), wouldn't it be in the US label's best interest to keep the
>> imports highly priced to drive US consumers to the domestic disks?
>
>It's even more in their best interests to keep imports out of the country
>completely, which the parallel-import laws allow them to do.
>
>> The point of the law is probably to prevent undercutting the price of the
>> domestic product, which is certainly not a possibility in a situation where
>> US records and CD's are usually around half the price of the imports
>
>I think that's probably a little too narrow a view of the law -- the labels
>seem to view these laws primarily as an additional tool for enforcing their
>distribution agreements. And in a sense I can't really blame them; if I were
>investing X dollars in exclusive US distribution rights to a release, I'd be
>annoyed by the general availablility of non-US copies in my territory. But
>ultimately I think it's the labels' own fault when they lose sales to imports
>-- most of the reasons people buy imports (better track selection, better
>sound quality, earlier availability) could be matched by the US labels if
>they
>cared enough to do so.
>
>--
>::: Lazlo (lazlo@swcp.com; http://www.swcp.com/lazlo)