Cheap Imported CDs and Legality
How much do you pay for a normal music CD from well-known publishers? $30? $24.95? $19.95? Or maybe you buy all your music from iTunes Music Store. Recently I have seen shops like Deals Direct and Daily Deals selling popular CDs for $9.95 (+ $2 shipping).
Take Robbie Williams’ “Intensive Care” for example (not his fan, but that’s just an example I can find on both stores):
- Deals Direct — $9.95
- Daily Deals — $9.95
Both listed $29.95 as recommended retail price. The same CD is sold for $30.15 from Chaos.com (who said you can’t sell for more than RRP?).
How did they do it? Apparently those CDs are imported. The fact that Chinese characters are printed from top to bottom shows where they might possibly be imported from.
So instead of flying to Asia, and load your suite cases with cheap CDs, they have actually done all that for us by importing them. And 100% legal copies of music compact discs do actually sell that cheaply there (as well as DVDs and sometimes packaged software) to combat piracy. I always bring back some when I visit my families in Taiwan.
Now what I wasn’t so sure is, the actual legality of reselling imported CDs in Australia. Is that okay for consumers to buy CDs or DVDs that were intended to be sold overseas over here in Australia? It’s a bit like buying online music from places like AllOfMP3.com — they said they are 100% legal selling to the Russians (Your Mileage Might Vary if you are a foreigner, but we are happy to take your credit card).
I am pretty sure Deals Direct and Daily Deals have worked everything out, and in fact you can buy imported CD here in many places (but mostly are those that can’t be sourced from local distributors). I guess I am just looking for a confirmation that says “yes, it is okay” :)
Hey mate
Importing CDs or MP3s bought legally overseas is not against the law in Australia. If that were the case,
buying cds from places like Amazon would also be illegal.
That applies to allofmp3.com legalsounds.com etc.
Hi Mat. Yup people do buy CDs from places like Amazon, but I guess usually the ones that you can’t source from a local distributor. Or maybe it is just the DVD where the region codes are there to discourage consumers from buying elsewhere?
I think I am not trying to say that it might be illegal for the consumers, and laws are usually more strict on the distributor than the consumers. As a consumer I think I can buy from any shop with a clean conscious, but I am just wondering for the sake of Deals Direct and Daily Deals in this case — what’s the legality of reselling imported CDs that might conflict interest with local distributors/publishers?
As of AllOfMP3.com, LegalSounds.com and all other so-called “cheap legal download” sites operated from RU, that’s another matter to be debated…
While I don’t know about CD’s, I can say that only Zone 4 DvD’s may be legally SOLD in Australia. Part of the reason zoning was set up, was to stop the likes of unscrupulous Asians making cheap copies and destroying the local market.
Yes, you can BUY any zones you like thru the internet or overseas legally, but if you live in Australia you may only SELL Zone 4 to Australia. All those Asian stores you find in Sydney suburbia are breaking the law. There is just no one willing to police it.
I used to work for an Australian auction website that had Aussie members posting items they bought overseas like DvD’s. We were approached by some offical guy linked to movie production industry (sorry don’t remember the organisation name) and told to remove any listings of non-zone 4 DvD from our .com.au website.
To my knowledge the law hasn’t changed and for sellers ignorance of it isn’t a defence.
“told to remove any listings of non-zone 4 DvD from our .com.au website.” Just because someone tells you to remove it, doesn’t mean you legally have to.
This idea has already been tested. Zoning was declared illegal in Aus a few years ago, by the High Court.. in 2003 or 2004.. which is why all DVD players now are multizone.
“As of AllOfMP3.com, LegalSounds.com and all other so-called “cheap legal download” sites operated from RU, that’s another matter to be debated…”
I don’t see why. IT’s impossible for them to legally differ. Also, re: Deals Direct et. al., they have no obligation at all to worry about what the locals think. Until the government bans legal CD imports - which will never happen - they are perfectly fine.
I say the person who told you that you can’t sell non-zone 4 DVDs were the ones who were acting illegally, they tried that with CDs earlier and there were millions in fines -
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/25/1061663710106.html
Hey guys. Let’s just declare that it is perfect fine to buy imported CDs/DVDs. Deals Direct and Daily Deals have clearly worked that out, and have seen it as a viable business model.
I really don’t want to get into the discussion on AllOfMP3.com. Yes, you are paying and downloading from a website that does what is required by the local authority, where you are not sure how much is flowing back to the publishers and artists. Legal? Maybe, according to the Russians. I just can’t find myself using them with a clear conscious.
Great article
I did a bit of research on the legality of things when I started buying from allofmp3.com. I stopped buying from there when iTunes Music Store came along because although not technically illegal in Australia, I didn’t like the morality of what they were doing, the artists and labels don’t get very many royalties when you buy from there. It is legal to import CD’s and DVD’s from Asia or anywhere, there are no import restrictions.
The record and movie companies don’t like this and so for DVD’s they invented region coding. It is not illegal to break region coding in Australia although the movie companies would prefer that you didn’t. That allows them to manipulate the prices and release dates to suit themselves and maximise their profits. It is illegal to break region coding in the US because of the DMCA and it may yet become illegal in Australia when the full ramifications of the free trade agreement are realised in Australia.
In 2000 the government passed legislation to allow parallel imports - ie brand name products produced in other countries and sold in Australia, in direct competition with the Australian distributor. They also extended this to sound recordings. This mens that today you can go to Kmart and buy chart CD’s for $15 - something we could only dream about in the 90’s. This was quite a big deal at the time - because the australian distributers were saying that wthout their monopoly they wouldnt be able to compensate for all the crap aussie bands that they signed up and made a loss on. A few artists also agreed with them.
See: http://www.ladas.com/BULLETINS/1999/0399Bulletin/Australia_CopyrightParImpt.html
yes i have just wish to ask if anyone can clarify the following, having been to many auction sites i find that they are all selling imported dvd,s cd etc. note australian owners are selling them. now i have been made aware that it is illegal to resell imported dvds regardless of where they have been purchased.
funny as it may seem, i met someone who was caught doing this and band from ebay for it-but when i went and checked others are still doing this, it seems to me if its imported from the USA or europe(to resell here) the auction sites dont give a toss, but if people are importing from asia(to resell) they are shutting them down.
the law does not discriminate, why are the auction sites namely ebay, not enforcing the law preventing this. is it one rule for some and a different rule for others.
and after searching the laws governing this topic, it implies that those aiding in this are breaking the law.
personally i do not give a toss, i just buy what i want. but if i was a reseller i would be totally confused. and i tell you this person was-where do the big guys get off ? they say they vet their sellers, only tonight hundreds of new region 2 and 1 dvds are for sale on ebay- all from australian sellers
from totally amazed
I don’t see what the confusion is, selling DVDs imported from Asia might mean you get harassed, it doesn’t mean that they have the law on their side. They’re not the police, and they’re definitely not judges even if they act like they are.
Surely a lifting of restrictions would help aussie film and CD makers get their titles further and wider - sure the rest of the world is bigger but we should not have to wait 1-2 years to watch titles downunder - it’s a new day - time to iron out the niggly wrinkles in the law and allow consumers all over the world access our products whilst we access theirs!
I dont understand the import laws on dvd sets , they get vero’d off ebay by paramount , but ebay gives you the email address to contact them to see why they were veroed and you get no response from paramount , i’ve sent 2 e-mails to them ,they refuse to answer.It seems if they are the international versions , they would be allowed, they are factory made. it isn’t like your selling copies you made from home because we know they are illegal, I have not found anything on the internet about selling imported DVD’s in the US . but i have seen many websites that do sell the imported dvd’s and they are based in the US . This needs to be figured out , because paramount wont respond.
You can sell imported dvds aslong as the dvds are not pirate, bootlegged, ect, you need to keep in mind that if you want to sell imported dvds in the u.k , u.s same should go for australia on e.bay, then you should state that they will be delivered to the buyer directly from outside of u.k, u.s ect. You cannot purchase imported dvds yourself and then sell them on, they need to come from the original source. Thats were dropshipping comes in handy, get yourself a good cheap supplier, put your item(s) on e.bay (without purchasing them yourself), then once the item has sold, buy it from your supplier, any profits are yours to keep, your supplier will then ship the item(s) to your buyer. hope this helps.