Why does a disclaimer appear on this CD I will not name?
Nov 7, 2022 19:35:56 GMT
Post by My Avatar Is A Hot Babe on Nov 7, 2022 19:35:56 GMT
Is it legal for a store to sell a brand new European music edition in the USA and vice-versa?
NOT FOR SALE IN THE USA - This product is produced for sale in the UK and is produced strictly in accordance with the 1988 Copyright Act. The product is not authorised for sale in the USA. Please bring this notice to the attention of any US retailer offering this product.
It's somewhat common to see "not for sale in ___" or "not to be sold outside of ___" on DVDs, but it's not something you usually come across on music, with the exception of some 1980s releases by artists who boycotted South Africa at the time. To my understanding, the US was not a member of the Berne copyright convention until the late 1980s (much of the world had signed up to it about a century earlier) and until that time it was quite common to see books sold in Europe and Australia that mentioned "Not for sale in the USA" (and in some cases also Canada), but you no longer see this now that they have roughly equal copyright laws. As far as I know, such disclaimers were never legally enforceable. I think foreign book imports at that time were essentially in the public domain in the US unless they were republished using a US-originating typeface, which the US editions would be.
It might be that this is for an album that in Europe has entered the public domain but not yet in the USA. Thus, it would be legal to sell that album new in Europe but not in the USA.
I haven't encountered any "not for sale in X" disclaimer on any other music release from the past 30 years.
RJDG14 said:
I came across a secondhand CD from 2005 earlier and it had a rather weird copyright notice which I have never encountered before on a music product:NOT FOR SALE IN THE USA - This product is produced for sale in the UK and is produced strictly in accordance with the 1988 Copyright Act. The product is not authorised for sale in the USA. Please bring this notice to the attention of any US retailer offering this product.
It's somewhat common to see "not for sale in ___" or "not to be sold outside of ___" on DVDs, but it's not something you usually come across on music, with the exception of some 1980s releases by artists who boycotted South Africa at the time. To my understanding, the US was not a member of the Berne copyright convention until the late 1980s (much of the world had signed up to it about a century earlier) and until that time it was quite common to see books sold in Europe and Australia that mentioned "Not for sale in the USA" (and in some cases also Canada), but you no longer see this now that they have roughly equal copyright laws. As far as I know, such disclaimers were never legally enforceable. I think foreign book imports at that time were essentially in the public domain in the US unless they were republished using a US-originating typeface, which the US editions would be.
Popmartijn said:
What was the album?It might be that this is for an album that in Europe has entered the public domain but not yet in the USA. Thus, it would be legal to sell that album new in Europe but not in the USA.
RJDG14 said:
I'm not going to name the album since Discogs lists it as "unofficial" (I didn't know this until I looked it up) and I know the discussion about the contents of such albums is prohibited here, but the recordings on it date from the late 1980s and early 1990s so would still almost certainly be under copyright in both the US and Europe. The particularly strange thing would be how Discogs claims that it is a bootleg while it contains a second disclaimer saying that the tracks were "issued under licence" (though doesn't state from whom), and it also contains the MCPS (British royalty collection society) logo which you wouldn't generally expect from an unofficial release (most legitimate British releases lack it). Discogs either has it mislabelled or the information on the cover is false, probably to make it seem legitimate.I haven't encountered any "not for sale in X" disclaimer on any other music release from the past 30 years.
