Wednesday, January 12, 2005
http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=63084

Six East Boston stores were raided Monday and more than 1,000 CDs - primarily from Latin recording artists - were confiscated by detectives. The sweep was sparked after an investigator from New York City's recording industry followed a trail of bootleg music to Boston, police sources said.

The store owners were given orders to appear in court, and could face fines, police officials said."They are obviously breaking the law. Whether they knew they were doing it or not is questionable. Some people were duped into buying the CDs, thinking they were buying from legitimate vendors," said one police official. "Sometimes the deal really is too good."

Merchandise copyright infringement is a felony. The record and fashion industries have taken a stand against counterfeiters by hiring investigators to track the trail of fake goods.

Note to copyright cops...Get a life boyz!

Busting counterfeiters is good.

But I love this line..."The sweep was sparked after an investigator from New York City's recording industry followed a trail of bootleg music to Boston, police sources said."

New York City's recording industry? The RIANYC?

But I was more entertained by the idea of this guy walking down the road... "Look! There's another one!"

It reminds me of the untouchables Robert Stack series.... remember? bath tub gin, tommy guns , any old timers here?... kind of the same thing and then the prohibition era ended.
Maybe it will be the same for the copyright laws.

Think we all know that selling copywrited material is jail time to say the least.

But what about p2p? No money is passing hands, nothing to tax, no profit made. The best the majors have come up with on that side is the possibility that they are loosing sales and even that has been thrown into doubt with non-major sponcered studies.

They have yet to prove that p2p has financially injured them. In fact it appears to be free advertisement instead with the majors sueing those that are doing the advertisement for them.

Be that as it may, there is no profit, no money exchanged, and nothing to point at to show physical harm of said businesses other than the claims the majors are making. Claims that are very much suspect...

Ya know, there was a store near me that had sold cdr copies of numerous bootleg recordings for like $30 a copy. First of all, they're selling cdr's for a higher price than regular music cd's - and there's absolutely no way I'd call them a "Mom-and-Pop" store, which implies that there is a friendly comforting feeling to the ownership there, like if a mom & pop running the place. No, it was just a group of punk teenagers running the store without a care in the world that they were stealing more profits per cd than RIAA could ever hope to steal per cd.

Dakota, how were they getting $30 a copy? Were they live show bootlegs, out of print music or what? Who would pay some punk teenager $30 for a CDR? I agree with gdZiemann, busting counterfeiters is good, they are the real music "pirates".

Wet1 is right P2P is a misunderstood promotional tool with unlimited value (even if each download doesn't bring immediate profit). I purchased so much music back in the Napster days. But, I will never purchase a substandard low bitrate MP3 from any online music service. I've been on a 5 year boycott with no end in sight, so it looks like I'll never be able to buy another CD either. I know there's good music out there, but I'll never hear it on the radio or MTV. Dmusic and my 909 are all I've got, now I have to make what I want to hear...I guess thats a good thing.

Yeah, they were mostly concert & recording session recordings. So not like they were taking the latest Britney Spears album and making copies. I haven't been to the place in such a long time, they've most likely stopped selling the cdr's by now. Regardless there's other places to go to in the area.

I just really don't like when people call these places "mom-and-pop" stores when they clearly are not literal mom and pop stores, and in reality very much far from it. The "mom-and-pop" term implies that you must be supportive of the business, or otherwise you're against mom & pop, and who in their right minds would ever be against two good all-american folks trying to earn a decent living? They should be called independant businesses instead.

"Think we all know that selling copywrited material is jail time to say the least. "

Wet1....if only that were true...we could jail all those RIAA affiliated companies selling copyrighted materials.