ACCC rejects complaint about copy-control music discs
By*Sam Varghese

The Age
August 5 2003


A consumer who petitioned the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
about the problems he faced in trying to play music discs with copy control
technology marketed by EMI has had his complaint rejected.
The gist of the complaint lodged by Russell Waters, a technical officer with an
electricity company in Melbourne, was that the music discs and new, standard CD
players were being sold without any warnings that they may not be compatible
with each other.

At the end of a long letter, the ACCC told Waters: "As you are aware, the
Commission has attempted to draw consumers' attention to these issues through
two Media Releases of 22 December 2001 and 20 November 2002. In the
Commission's view, EMI have endeavoured to draw consumers' attention to the
performance characteristics of their product. Therefore, it is not proposed to
take any further action regarding this matter at this time."

Waters says the ACCC has avoided many of the questions he asked and has written
a detailed reply to the ACCC, pointing out where various aspects of the
consumer watchdog's response are, in his opinion, inadequate.

For example, one paragraph of the ACCC's letter to Waters said: "Software and
hardware manufacturers are continually updating their products. This includes
creating new means of storing information on old recording mediums (sic).
Innovation brings about consumers (sic) choice and encourages competition.
However, in any industry undergoing change such as massive technological
advancements, some incompatibilities may arise. The Commission advocates
consumers being informed of any likely changes to the performance
characteristics of goods and services they are used to buying, and EMI have
endeavoured to do this via the notes on the front and back of the disc."

In his reply, Waters wrote back: "But the notes on the back of the CD fail to
mention anything about them not being compatible with brand new CD audio
players! In fact they state the exact opposite: "This disc is designed to be
compatible with CD audio players". Does the ACCC not consider this to be even
the slightest bit misleading?"

"The discs I have in my back catalogue do not work on the new model CD player,
and some don't work in the fully compatible CDROM drive at work either. It is
obvious that this "warning" is hopelessly inadequate and misleading. Or is the
ACCC saying that this warning, which states the opposite of what is true in the
case of the thousands of players just sent out, is adequate???

"Again, neither the ACCC's warning or EMI's 'endeavour' even hint at the fact
that the discs are incompatible with some new CD players. Your warning states
that "...discs released in the United States and Europe bearing early versions
of the copy control technology could not be played in computers, DVD players or
car stereos". I am talking about new release, Australian made CDs and a new CD
player, so your warning seems quite erroneous. Are the ACCC going to update
this warning?"

He pointed out to the ACCC that Philips, the developers of the CD standard, had
expressed the view that the EMI music discs did not fit the Red Book definition
of a CD. In the article referred to Philips representative Klaus Petri had told
the Financial Times Deutschland: "Those are silver discs with music data that
resemble CDs, but aren't."

Waters made this comment in response to the ACCC's listing of the criteria that
a product had to meet to ensure that it did not violate the Trade Practices Act
- it said a product must "match description or sample - goods must match any
description or sample given to the consumer whether face to face, on the
labelling or packaging, or in any promotional material."

Waters asked, with reference to this: "What is the ACCC's stance on this, as
the discs I purchased are marketed as though they are genuine CDs?"

In response to the ACCC pointing that another criterion which goods had to meet
was that they must be "free from defects - there must be no hidden defects,
which affect the merchantable (sic) quality of the goods," Waters wrote back:
"But the deliberately inserted 'errors' (as described by Philips) on these
discs causes every track to jam at 9 seconds in the player I purchased? Does
the ACCC not consider this a defect?? If not why not?"

And in response to the consumer watchdog suggesting that he "approach the
retailer of this CD to affect (sic) a refund or replacement of the CD," Waters
responded: "So are you saying that CD retailers will have to offer refunds on
discs purchased last year, as people upgrade their players this year?? Even
though the discs could by then be a year old and well and truly used?? What
about another year into the future, for how long are they obliged to offer
refunds if the discs turn out to be incompatible later?"

Waters said he would not give up in a hurry and hoped the ACCC would take a
closer look at the issue.



This story was found at:
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...849381595.html