Selling CDRs on eBay. Legal?

[Brad]

Is selling cdrs on eBay legal.  I saw a couple of Classics CDs I might be interested in and the seller described it as a CDR. Does it make a difference if the recording is now in the public domain?

[Teasing the Korean]

8 hours ago, Brad said:

Is selling cdrs on eBay legal.  I saw a couple of Classics CDs I might be interested in and the seller described it as a CDR. Does it make a difference if the recording is now in the public domain?

Do you mean legitimately licensed CDRs like are sometimes sold on Amazon?

[Brad]

I had a conversation on eBay with a seller of a Herman Chittison Classics cd, listed as a cdr. He said this was a cdr authorized by the owner of Classics. He indicated the CD and artwork are copies of the original.

That you can sell a cdr strikes me as odd. 

[Big Beat Steve]

IIRC towards the end of the life of Classics they offered either downloads or CD-Rs even from their website.

But of course who'd be able to prove what ANY seller ellegedly negotiated with ANY label owner?

 

[Brad]

Steve, please pardon my ignorance, but does the Classics label not exist anymore?

[Brad]

I came across this old thread on the Hoffmann Forum about CDRs.  

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/amazon-now-selling-legitimate-cdrs-of-oop-cds.175981/

Paying money for a CDR is not for me. 

[Big Beat Steve]

3 hours ago, Brad said:

Steve, please pardon my ignorance, but does the Classics label not exist anymore?

I can't give you the exact background (for I don't remember exactly) but to the best of my knowledge they stopped thier reissue program about 10 years ago.

Some French forumists might have more info.

The English Wikipedia entry apparently was updated haphazardly. They mention the label changed ownership in 2004 and stopped reissuing music in 2008 but the rest of the entry largely reads in the PRESENT tense - as if the label was still in operation. (The French-language entry is even worse)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronological_Classics

 

Edited May 4, 2018 by Big Beat Steve

[AllenLowe]

I refuse to buy CDRs, and always return 'em if they are not advertised as such. A few things to note:

1) these labels - and now we talking about Document, Acrobat, and Jasmine, at the minimum - use cheap, crappy CDRs. I used to do a lot of transfers and I can tell by looking at them how cheap they are. They will not last -

2) the transfers to CDR that I have heard are often not straight digital wave transfers but clearly cheap MP3s; the sonics suffer because they are saving storage and compressing things very often.

I would not only avoid them, but I would tell these labels why you are doing so. I have -

[Brad]

35 minutes ago, AllenLowe said:

I refuse to buy CDRs, and always return 'em if they are not advertised as such. A few things to note:

1) these labels - and now we talking about Document, Acrobat, and Jasmine, at the minimum - use cheap, crappy CDRs. I used to do a lot of transfers and I can tell by looking at them how cheap they are. They will not last -

2) the transfers to CDR that I have heard are often not straight digital wave transfers but clearly cheap MP3s; the sonics suffer because they are saving storage and compressing things very often.

I would not only avoid them, but I would tell these labels why you are doing so. I have -

I was thinking of reporting it to eBay (although the seller says he's authorized). I'd report it to the label but it appears defunct. 

[AllenLowe]

I have a feeling that ebay is ok with it as long as it is mentioned in the item description.

[Scott Dolan]

That's some serious piracy shit, Allen! Especially if they're using low bitrate mp3's! 

[Brad]

2 hours ago, AllenLowe said:

I have a feeling that ebay is ok with it as long as it is mentioned in the item description.

eBay is ok with anything except maybe selling body parts. 

[Dan Gould]

We have Planned Parenthood for that.

[Dave Garrett]

6 hours ago, AllenLowe said:

1) these labels - and now we talking about Document, Acrobat, and Jasmine, at the minimum - use cheap, crappy CDRs. I used to do a lot of transfers and I can tell by looking at them how cheap they are. They will not last -

Are there any other kind besides crappy ones anymore? People used to swear by Taiyo Yuden as the gold standard for quality CDRs, but their parent company got out of the CDR manufacturing business several years ago. Given that the market for pressed CDs has fallen off so much, it's not too surprising that the CDR market has softened as well. 

5 hours ago, AllenLowe said:

I have a feeling that ebay is ok with it as long as it is mentioned in the item description.

eBay used to yank auction listings immediately if the terms "CD-r" or "CDR" or "CD copy" appeared anywhere in the listing. They made no distinction between whether a CDR was a properly-licensed or pirate copy (which is probably not unreasonable on their part, since they probably had no appetite for devoting the required staff to making a case-by-case determination). Not sure whether this is still the case, as lots of things have changed at eBay in the past few years.

[felser]

4 hours ago, Dave Garrett said:

Are there any other kind besides crappy ones anymore? People used to swear by Taiyo Yuden as the gold standard for quality CDRs, but their parent company got out of the CDR manufacturing business several years ago. Given that the market for pressed CDs has fallen off so much, it's not too surprising that the CDR market has softened as well. 

eBay used to yank auction listings immediately if the terms "CD-r" or "CDR" or "CD copy" appeared anywhere in the listing. They made no distinction between whether a CDR was a properly-licensed or pirate copy (which is probably not unreasonable on their part, since they probably had no appetite for devoting the required staff to making a case-by-case determination). Not sure whether this is still the case, as lots of things have changed at eBay in the past few years.

Apparently allowing them now. Not sure why in this case, as this is not public domain material.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/BULLDOG-BREED-MADE-IN-ENGLAND-CDR/131749648956?hash=item1eace41a3c:g:nSIAAOSw8-tWZzCx

[Marzz]

On 5/4/2018 at 5:57 AM, Brad said:

I came across this old thread on the Hoffmann Forum about CDRs.  

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/amazon-now-selling-legitimate-cdrs-of-oop-cds.175981/

Paying money for a CDR is not for me. 

Brad, Have you seen this thread at the Hoffman Forum?

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/some-ojc-and-other-concord-cds-are-being-re-pressed-as-cd-rs-list-them-here.444883/

These OJC CD-Rs are legit and also sold at a major brick & mortar store down here (JB HiFi). Naturally, there's also been an accompanying price increase with these discs. These are not the same as the Amazon on Demand cds. I've also found a few Blue Note titles as well. Heck, even a Deutsche Grammophon Classical CD!

 

I agree 100% with Allen Lowe above. As far as returning them though, I recently purchased a Classical Cd from Lyrita via ebay. Turns out it was a CD-R with awful print quality (almost illegible) for the the booklet. First and only time I complained, Lyrita/Ebay returned me this message...

"Dear Customer, 
   
We will refund you  
Note this would be the only way you can purchase this item and MOD/manufactured on demand is coming big as labels do not want to keep stock on commersially [sic] small items 
   
Kind regards "

 

My issue is that CD-Rs should be labelled as such, though I'm more understanding of the smaller labels doing this than I am from Concord (OJC), etc.

 

Edited May 6, 2018 by Marzz

[Brad]

I had not seen that thread but will take a look. The concept of paying money for a CDR leaves me cold.  

[Scott Dolan]

Unless it were sent to me straight from a musician, I wouldn’t order/purchase one. 

Though I guess the lone exception would be for something that is OOP that the company agreed to seend me a copy of. 

Edited May 5, 2018 by Scott Dolan

[AllenLowe]

20 hours ago, Dave Garrett said:

Are there any other kind besides crappy ones anymore? People used to swear by Taiyo Yuden as the gold standard for quality CDRs, but their parent company got out of the CDR manufacturing business several years ago. Given that the market for pressed CDs has fallen off so much, it's not too surprising that the CDR market has softened as well. 

eBay used to yank auction listings immediately if the terms "CD-r" or "CDR" or "CD copy" appeared anywhere in the listing. They made no distinction between whether a CDR was a properly-licensed or pirate copy (which is probably not unreasonable on their part, since they probably had no appetite for devoting the required staff to making a case-by-case determination). Not sure whether this is still the case, as lots of things have changed at eBay in the past few years.

the plant that was making the Taiyo Yudens was bought by somebody else, and blanks with the same formulation are still being sold under the Taiyo Yuden imprint.

[mjzee]

Lots of Taiyo Yuden available on Amazon.

Can anyone recommend another brand of similar quality?  Verbatim, CMC Pro?

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Venus Records has also issued some titles as CD-Rs. I was browsing a used CD bin one day and saw a few cheap Venus CDs. I pulled them out and found out why they were so cheap - they were all CD-Rs.

[Dave Garrett]

On 5/5/2018 at 1:02 PM, AllenLowe said:

the plant that was making the Taiyo Yudens was bought by somebody else, and blanks with the same formulation are still being sold under the Taiyo Yuden imprint.

Good to know, thanks. Goes to show how long it's been since I had to buy any blanks.

On 5/5/2018 at 1:09 PM, mjzee said:

Lots of Taiyo Yuden available on Amazon.

Can anyone recommend another brand of similar quality?  Verbatim, CMC Pro?

I've always had good luck with Verbatim, but I've used them more for video than audio purposes. If you ever need dual-layer recordable Blu-ray blanks, they're the way to go, although at around seven bucks a pop it really makes you pay close attention to what you're doing lest you wind up with an expensive coaster. 

On 5/5/2018 at 9:24 PM, felser said:

Apparently allowing them now. Not sure why in this case, as this is not public domain material.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/BULLDOG-BREED-MADE-IN-ENGLAND-CDR/131749648956?hash=item1eace41a3c:g:nSIAAOSw8-tWZzCx

Could be they just haven't caught it yet. I think eBay has algorithms that search for certain terms in listings that would red-flag them, but a lot of stuff still slips through the cracks unless someone reports it. They may no longer be automatically yanking listings described as "CDR" since many rightsholders have shifted to offering MOD discs.