Why doesn't the RIAA shut down second-hand record shops?

What about limited edition/out of print stuff? Those artists don't get a penny of the astronomical amounts of profit some items are making on the second-hand market.

The publishing industry has survived despite the millions of used bookstores out there. The furniture industry has survived despite the millions of thift stores.

What makes the recording industry so special, exactly?

If that was true of publishing, why is the entire industry so pissy about Google book search, which if it does anything, raises the profile of individual books to completely unprecedented levels? Sorry to say it, but the book industry is quickly going the same way as the record companies.

Anyway, I've heard publishing agents gripe about libraries - "a library book borrowed four times = three lost sales", etc.

Of course. But on the other hand, I only buy records from the secondhand shop when they're good.

Right, because if not for libraries, people would be buying up books like hotcakes or some other fast-selling thing.

I mean, people just love buying books.

the fact? so many people burn-and-then-sell/return good music is a boon for used cd buyers like myself, but I wonder why they even bother when there's p2p? Are there that many people who're snobbish about "lossy files" or something?

of course, but it seems like he was implying a per-use payment for borrowing. i'd never heard of that.

-- patrick bateman (p...), February 17th, 2006 2:33 PM. (later)
OTM. Both of them.

Also, the RIAA suffers more harm from mass-scale counterfeiting from full-sized pressing plants in China/Taiwan/Korea than ALL of the file-trading and hometaping that goes on in the US. But the RIAA strikes out at the small-fry close at hand because its more convenient, I suppose.
The irony is that what the small fry -- who paid for a legit CD and merely copied it onto his iPod/Zen/GoGear -- is still within his constitutionally protected statutory rights to make his copy. Fair Use and First Purchase and all. The illegal pressing plants in China aren't within 1000 light years of legality. So why do they get the get out of jail free card?

I have occasionally done when there are undeniably better remasters available.

ever hear of something called TAXES?

China is the emerging market to watch in the next couple of decades. More than a billion of potential customers and cheap laborers, no country wants them as their enemy. The rest (our own jobs, artists, copyrights) don't mean shit compared to that. Heck, our (Belgian) royalty and government go there on trade missions every couple of months, what do they care if their own citizens lose our jobs? Trillions of €€€$$$£££ to be made if we can keep on China's good side!

Doesn't sound like it has anything to do with music, I know, but that's the bigger picture you need for the explanation. (Why did Google agree to censorship? Exactly the same reason.)

Oh yes. RIAA probably wants to sue the hell out of them, but the bigger picture is:

The chance for a whole country to buy/sell oil and gas and cars and wood and metal and food and drink and clothing and fruit and vegetables and meat and grain and labour and kidneys and animals and plastic and medicine and herbs

vs.

counterfeit albums and other trademarked stuff.

-- NickB (nic...), February 17th, 2006. (NickB)

If the RIAA tried to demand royalties for secondhand-store sales, someone would surely argue that the artist should have to give back some royalties when you sell his CD to a secondhand store. And I'm sure the RIAA wouldn't want to get into that, if for no other reason than the bookkeeping involved.

counterfeit albums and other trademarked stuff.

Keep in mind, also, that a 100 years ago, there was rampant piracy in the United States as a matter of course. Unless a book was first published in the US, there was no protection for books by foreign writers (ie, the British). Dickens never made a cent off the books he sold here, nor did the Brontes or anyone else. The idea that copyrights in one country are protected in another is relatively new. I don't remember when the first world agreements started popping up, but I'm pretty sure it's less than 70 years ago.

So yeah, let China pirate all they want now; in sixty years, it'll be a mature market with a desire for Hollywood films and Japanese noise rock or whatever the hell is popular then.