It would appear that in the ‘Land of the Free’ the legislature is getting a little over zealous about protecting big business.  This time the record companies appear to have found away to make the practicalities of selling second hand CDs economically and in practical terms unviable – the full story can be found here.  The whole action is an attempt to stop people using it as a channel to sell pirated CDs.

The whole situation seems a little crazy – in countries such as Russia & China pirate CDs account for 90%+ of all CD sales, so making a little bit of head way (even if it means bribing officials to get things moving) would notably improve profits for the companies rather than chasing those 1%-2% of sales that maybe lost in this manner. Although there is nothing wrong legally in chasing down those small criminals the actions affect small businesses and more importantly 90%+ of the law abiding population.

In many respects this strikes me as being a lot like speech Tom Dobbs (Robin Williams) from the film Man of The Year gave at the Presidential Debate when asked about national security he ripped into the levels of airport security being so tight its frightening for the law abiding Joe – yet Mexicans can wonder across the border with their entire household without being in the least bit concerned.