HP CD Burner Lawsuit :: GCSE Business Marketing Coursework

HP CD Burner justnesssuitHewlett-Packard Hits Legal Snag Over Its CD Burners in Germany crush Disk burners confuse been a controversial product for the last some(prenominal) years because of there ability for making pirating of computer software and medical specialty CDs a very easy operation. The Hewlett-Packard Corporation has live on the first major company to be attacked by the German Law which requires firms to pay fees for making CD burners which in unloosen can be used for pirating medicinal drug CDs from music illegally downloaded from the internet. The music Industry estimated that approximately five billion dollars in sales revenue was lost last year due to the pirating of music CDs. Many other European countries have laws similar to Germanys that are meant to protect the authors and musicians legal ownership of their work by threatening the people who create the equipment used to carry out pirating activities. Although a bother is that these laws were c reated quite sometime ago and were aimed at such(prenominal) things as commemorate recorders and video players. Germanys lawsuit against HP is the first time we have seen these older laws being put against modern day technology. What needs to be examined in this case is the distinct difference that this new pirating has. Unlike the recent the majority of the pirated CDs are created for personal use and not sold on the black market. People are downloading music from such programs as the infamous Napster and creating their own CDs, which results in a nought profit for the music industry. HP was ordered by the German organization to pay a fee of 30 marks or $12.