Rich Fiscus
20 Mar 2007 18:03
CD-WOW!, the second largest online music retailer in Britain, may have to pay millions of pounds for importing CDs from Asia. Besides the damages, which could be around £4 per CD or DVD, CD-WOW! was also ordered to pay legal costs for the British Phonographic Institute (the British equivalent of the RIAA) and the other claimants in the case.
Justice Evans-Lombe said there was "strong evidence that CDWOW! was committing widespread breach of the undertakings", referring to an agreement CD-WOW! reached with the BPI in January of 2004. The agreement settled a similar complaint at that time. The company's founder, Henrik Wesslen said afterwards that the breaches of the agreement were "not intentional."
Wesslen told reporters "We knew the verdict was always going to be a negative one because we held our hands up to a number of incidents," but called it "a harsher verdict than we would have hoped for." He went on to say "At a time when the record industry is losing vast revenue to piracy, it seems ludicrous that they can set out to destroy a section of the market that is actually making them money."
Sources:
Reuters
In The News