Music Retailers argue against the music industry which defends using copyrighted cds by claiming its to prevent the unauthorized duplication of their cds. They take the side of the customers seeing that customers get frustrated by copy protected cds and tend to buy less. Tim Baker of Sunrise Records, a large retailer in southern Ontario puts it this way : “This is just another really, really ridiculous way of telling our customers, We don’t want your business”.

I personally think its good for the customers if music retailers are finally speaking out against this and show the music industry that not only the customers but also the retailers don´t like this practice. Retailers of course have different reasons for this but it nevertheless is a valuable addition to the customers position. Its rather strange that the music industry on the one hand cries about reduced cd sales but on the other hand introduce more and more protection mechanisms that do nothing to stop people from copying their cds but stop the customers from buying them. This is ridiculous.

A lot of my friends stopped buying cds that have a copy protection sign on the case. I think many people don´t care about copy protection until they find out that they can´t copy a song from the cd to their newly bought MP3 player.

Nevertheless its good news that retailers are siding on this topic with their customers.