This week I was interviewed by our local weekly alternative newspaper, the Willamette Week, for a story about the closing of a branch of Music Millenium, one of our more storied music stores here in Portland. Of course, whenever a music store goes down anywhere in the country these days there’s the usual round of finger pointing and those digits point most firmly in the direction of those music consumers who prefer to buy their music digitally. There is also an outpouring of sympathy, usually from nostalgists who prefer the pungent smell of a dark and dusty indie music store to the instant access to music in the comfort of your own home brigade who are out-stripping them by about 1000 – 1.
Well, any inkling of sympathy that I may have mustered for those CD retailers was lost today when I read about Hastings, a music retailer, who are blatantly offering to buy back CDs that their customers have purchased and ripped into their computers…. Of course the headline of this story is Local Music Store Supports Piracy and if you click on the link you’ll find that those who have commented point out that they really are supporting an illegal enterprise. One person writes, “Sorry but copying for personal use is not piracy” and someone else replies “Sorry, but it actually is. Once you relinquish (i.e. “sell backâ€) the original disc, you don’t have the right to retain your copies. I’m not saying I agree or support one way or the other, but this is illegal or at least obtusely suggesting customers partake in illegal activity.” I have a suggestion – just drop on by your local CD store, shoplift a CD then rip it, return to the store and give it back to them for free. If you are arrested you can then point out that Hastings started it. It could be a novel defense.
Related Post: Music Millennium, what’s to be done?, A future for music retailers?.