The Featured Artists Coalition relased a statement a little while back regarding their position on filesharing and their support of the British government’s proposed measures to restrict the web access of repeat filesharers (which is a logistical nightmare waiting to happen, but anyway). This brought to mind something that has bothered me for a while now: second hand record shops.
Surely second hand music sales are just as bad for the music industry as illegal dowloads? It’s not like they’re making any money off it. I doubt the owner of “Greg’s CD Heaven”, or the sellers on Amazon Marketplace are sending EMI royalty cheques every time they sell a cd. So if I choose to buy a cd from the weird little kiosk in the local shopping centre or second-hand off the internet, I am stealing from the artist or the industry or whoever in exactly the same fashion as if I downloaded it off a filesharing network. Not only that, but I am actually supporting someone who makes thier livelihood off stealing from artists and record labels, and perpetuating their criminal enterprise, enabling them to sell more second hand records and cheat hard-working musicians and record executives out of even more money. Why haven’t we had a vicious attack on the second hand record shops? Why haven’t Sony and EMI and the RIAA sued Amazon and eBay to shut down their trade in second hand music? Am I missing something obvious here?
