Record companies actually do care about something other than illegal downloading.
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Amazon.com faces CD imports probe
By Richard Milne in London
FT.com site; Jan 06, 2004
Amazon.com, the world's biggest online retailer, is being investigated by the music industry over possible illegal importing of CDs into the UK.
The probe by the BPI, the record industry trade body, is at a preliminary phase and is seeking to ascertain whether amazon.com breaches copyright law when it sells CDs to UK consumers - so-called parallel importing. It is not concerned with amazon.co.uk, which the BPI has separately concluded does not import CDs illegally.
The news comes as the BPI prepares to fight its most high-profile illegal importing case against CD Wow, a Hong Kong-based retailer that has been one of the internet's success stories with an estimated £100m ($182m) turnover last year.
The BPI's lawsuit, to be heard in the High Court next month, alleges that CD Wow imports CDs bought outside the European Economic Area into the UK, where it sells them cheaper than traditional retailers.
The BPI has also issued legal proceedings against play.com, another online CD retailer, based in Jersey.
Internet retailer prepares to face the music,
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The investigation of amazon.com and the two legal actions represent the music industry's first large assault on parallel importing, where genuine goods are bought in one country, usually more cheaply, before being imported and sold in another without the copyright owner's consent. It also highlights the widening spread of parallel import actions following Levi-Strauss's successful court action against Tesco for selling jeans bought in eastern Europe to UK consumers.
"The BPI is looking at amazon.com," a person close to the trade body said. "If the product the UK consumer buys is from the US, we would have to look at that carefully. Potentially they are acting without the consent and authority of the UK record companies."
Patty Smith, of Amazon, said: "We are not aware of any action the BPI may or may not be taking. We clearly respect copyright laws in all the countries we operate in."
Philip Robinson, director of CD Wow, said: "We have got consent [from the record companies] and change of ownership takes place outside the UK. There is a huge difference between us and the Tesco-Levi case."
Play.com said it had reached agreement with the BPI. The BPI denied this and said proceedings were ongoing.
