Parallel importing

Some big recent music news is that both Warners and Universal were unsuccessful in overturning a High Court decison that they were guilty of contravening the trade practices act by threatening to refuse to supply Australian retailers who stocked parallel-imported CDs. Indeed, the Full Court increased the penalties, basically doubling the fines.

The judgement in the orginal case makes for an excellent description of the way the music industry works, if you can wade through the legalise. It stands as a confirmation of what we already know of the wheeling and dealing of the industry, the importance they place on the manufacturing of demand and controlling the market.

Parallel importing had been made illegal in Australia to prevent the local music market being flooded with cheaper imports and so protect the local industry. The effect was in fact to stifle the music industry at the retail level while protecting it at the wholesale level. For the consumer it meant prices were probably a bit higher than they should have been. However, the major disadvantage of the ban on parallel importing was that if a record company listed a record as theirs, then another company could not import that album for distribution within Australia. This effectively meant that in theory you could not buy some release in this country.

Of course, outside the mainstream business has just continued as usual. And retail outlets like Missing Link have simply continued on without the bogus hype that goes with major-label bullshit artistry. We just like to let the music itself dictate terms.