CD WOW!

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CD WOW! is an online CD, DVD and Video Games retailer based in Hong Kong developed by Phillip Robinson, formerly of budget record label, Tring International. CD WOW! was bought by Australian company Stomp International in August 2007. Like Amazon.com, it operates websites in and ships from multiple countries including: United Kingdom, Hong Kong, USA, Republic of Ireland, Australia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Germany.

The retailer made a name for itself in 2000 when it began operating in the UK and offered CDs and DVDs at lower prices than the high street. Because of their price position they were taken to court by the British Phonographic Industry, the recording industry association for the UK, for selling CDs at prices that often undercut UK retail prices by 25%. Although the CDs in question were legal, many of them were licensed for sale and distribution in other markets and thus priced accordingly for those markets.

The BPI, under severe pressure from the high street stores, saw the lower priced albums as damaging to the UK and European markets and took the company's former owners Music Trading On-Line (HK) Ltd to High Court citing UK's Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988. This resulted in CD WOW! having to increase the price of all CDs by £1 at the time, citing legal costs as the reason why they decided not to take the case to court. They are still operating their low cost operation and still offering lower priced CDs and DVDs than the high street stores.

On 29 May 2007, the former owners of CD WOW! were ordered by the High Court to pay £41 million in damages to the BPI for breaching a 2004 agreement over the sale of illegally imported CDs. The damages awarded to the BPI are still outstanding and they are appealing the decision.[1]. Updates to this case can be found on the CD WOW! US blog [2] and news of the company's current position can also be found on the new CD WOW! Ireland Blog. [3]

As of September 1st, 2007 the retailer has been under the control of Australian company Stomp Pty and has just launched a new web store;CD WOW! US. The changeover did lead to a dip in customer service but what appears to be mass staff changes has led to a improvement (as of April, 2008).

In May 2008, CD WOW! started to change it's domain name from cd-wow.com to cdwow.com. Customer accounts on the old site don't exist on the new site. Any changes to the retailer policies are yet unknown. The site was redesigned, but the overall navigation was kept.

Contents

[edit] External links

[edit] CD WOW! Websites

[edit] CD WOW! News Sources

  • The Register "cd-wow fights BPI over imported CDs" 17 March 2003.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Record companies win £41m damages (BBC News)
  2. ^ CD WOW! Blog
  3. ^ CD WOW! Ireland Blog
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