"Iain M Churches" wrote in message
...

"Keith G" wrote in message
. ..

Counterfeit CD's are clones of the original produced at next to
no cost.


The 'pirate stuff' I've seen (only a couple of Chinese DVDs) is/was a
damn
sight more obviously fake than the only 'replica' watch I've seen - which
was an exact copy of a gold Rolex I had at the time. From a few feet you
coudn't tell them apart.

From a few feet? You need to be more discerning that that:-)


I am, mine was the real one... ;-)



People do this to fool the public, and make money with little or
no investment.


Yes, I'm sure some do - to flog at car boots and round the pubs....

It's much much bigger than that.


So where are they sold then?

Go to Singapore, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Tallinn, Vilna, Moscow,
St Petersburg, you will find nothing but counterfeit CDs in most record
shops. It's a huge multi-million business. In KL, they have one of each
CD on the stand, and then burn you a clone, and colour copy the inlay
card while you wait.



OK. All I can say to that is 'As ye sow, so shall ye reap...'



Very few people can differentiate between a
genuine and counterfeit CD.

I disagree but irrelevant anyway...

Even experts find it extremely difficult. The packaging is usually
flawed in some way - which is a clue.


OK, fine. Note that I don't *know* from personal experience - the only
*certain* bootleg I have is a record I bought from eBay....




I don't agree. Where is this confusion taking place - in a brightly lit
music shop or in some dark car park behind a pub somewhere....???

Brightly lit shops outside the UK, but within the UK on a market stall
near you:-) A recent "investigation" at Portobello and Camden Lock
markets indicated that more than 70& of CD's on sale were fake.
The heavy cavalry appeared within the week. But removing the
traders is not too effective. You need to find the source. That's
not so easy.

Nothing unsubstantiated here. Read the BPI annual report.

Are you kidding?

It's quite an eye-opener.

If the price of CDs came down, do you think they would sell more of them?
Hard to say.


Sure. No-one inside the MI (including you) wants to consider there may hve
been a better way than *greed*....


48% of all statistics are made up on the spot.....
Well, 46.75% actually:-)
I believe the piracy figs.


No-one is forced to buy a product
'Take it or leave it'...???

Yes, that's how commerce works.
If you want to buy a house or a car, you pay
the going price. The same for a CD (most shops
will give you 10% discount if you ask)


And the way consumerism works is that if summat is too expensive (or deemed
to be overpriced) then it will get ripped off - that's the way of the world.
Your own cited examples demonstrate just how much of a market there is for
'knock offs'....

Producing records is (presumably) pleasant and easy work (nothing to plough,
nothing to lift and haul), it's also very rewarding (while stifling a lot of
real talent, I gather). I can not shed a tear over the fact that the whole
sorry mess lends itself to equally easy piracy - not when a CD can cost
nearly 20 quid for ripe old material one minute and then one (from new
talent) can appear FOC with a Sunday paper...

Interesting that the strongest defenders of such an obviously flawed system
in this group are those that are connected and derived financial benefit
from it, isn't it?

I've said it a thousand times - pitch a music CD (*any* music CD) at say
1.99 a go and work back from that in terms of payments/royalties or whatever
and this whole piracy thing would melt away under the heading of 'who can be
arsed?' but that wouldn't suit the MI at all would it?