Field Dispatch
Going to Prison for Burning CDs? In 2026? Seriously? | Matt Connarton Unleashed
Speaker 1: This relates to something we talked about earlier. We had
Speaker 1: members of the band The Surge on the show with
Speaker 1: us in the first hour, and we were talking about CDs. Now,
Speaker 1: if you happen to hear that interview, you might know
Speaker 1: what I'm referring to, because they're in the UK, and
Speaker 1: they were talking about how the new album Meow, which
Speaker 1: comes out in August. Their new album coming out in August,
Speaker 1: it's going to be they're going to have physical CDs.
Speaker 1: And this is a subject that comes up a lot
Speaker 1: on the show. When you're releasing music in the year
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six, how do you do it? Do you
Speaker 1: just do it digitally? Do you just put it out
Speaker 1: on the streaming platforms like Spotify and band camp and everything?
Speaker 1: Do you do physical CDs? Do you do Vinyl? Vinyl
Speaker 1: very popular these days. Actually, what was it a few
Speaker 1: years ago? What was it, maybe twenty twenty three or
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, the first year since CDs came out
Speaker 1: that Vinyl actually outsold CDs. And I don't know where
Speaker 1: CDs fall right now in terms of how they're selling,
Speaker 1: but new music is still released on CD, certainly still
Speaker 1: released on vinyl. There's even indie artists putting out cassette tapes,
Speaker 1: not kidding. You can find them if you don't believe me. So,
Speaker 1: physical media is still very much a thing. But gone
Speaker 1: are the days, or at least I thought gone were
Speaker 1: the days of people burning CDs. Now, if you are
Speaker 1: old enough to remember, there was a time when you
Speaker 1: could burn CDs. Burning meaning copying again for you very
Speaker 1: young people who don't know what I'm talking about, when
Speaker 1: you take a CD and you copy it, that is,
Speaker 1: whether or not that's okay or ethical is a subject
Speaker 1: that's been of debate since I was a kid. Geez.
Speaker 1: When I was a kid, we would copy cassette tapes.
Speaker 1: You know, if you had a dual cassette deck, you know,
Speaker 1: you could you could put a cassette in one side,
Speaker 1: press play on the other side, press press record, And
Speaker 1: sometimes that's how I would get music from my friends
Speaker 1: and they would get music from me. We would we
Speaker 1: would trade that way, you know, just I'll copy that
Speaker 1: tape for you, I'll copy that cassette. But you know,
Speaker 1: eventually it became all about burning CDs. Anyone who was
Speaker 1: in a band in say the nineties or two thousands
Speaker 1: up until I don't know, maybe ten years ago, maybe
Speaker 1: not quite, but there was a period of time where
Speaker 1: if you were in a band, you might be burning CDs.
Speaker 1: You might be burning CDs to give out to people.
Speaker 1: You might be burning CDs to give to radio stations.
Speaker 1: You know. Every once in a while, someone will bring
Speaker 1: us to CD here, you know, when we have guests
Speaker 1: in studio, they'll bring a CD, a physical CD. But
Speaker 1: it's not to play on the air. Even though we
Speaker 1: do have a functioning CD player here, it's not to
Speaker 1: play on the air. That's all done digitally. We just
Speaker 1: everything's online. They email us the tracks ahead of time.
Speaker 1: But you know, but they'll still they'll still bring in
Speaker 1: a physical CD and all the packaging and everything if
Speaker 1: they're releasing it on CD, because it is cool to
Speaker 1: have the physical met you know, if you're a nerd
Speaker 1: like me, you like reading liner notes and things like
Speaker 1: that and have the artwork. I'll tell you when I
Speaker 1: first started interviewing musicians, and I've been at this a
Speaker 1: long time, I'm dating myself, but when I first started,
Speaker 1: it was not uncommon, not only for a musician to
Speaker 1: hand me a CD and not email the tracks ahead
Speaker 1: of time. That's how long I've been doing this where
Speaker 1: even though the technology existed, rather than emailing me the tracks,
Speaker 1: a musician who is going to be a guest on
Speaker 1: a show that I was doing, might actually hand me
Speaker 1: a burned CD with just a burned CD with and
Speaker 1: they write on it in magic mark or what it
Speaker 1: is and then hand it to me. And then it's
Speaker 1: not even in a case. This would happen all the time,
Speaker 1: wouldn't even be in a case, and they would hand
Speaker 1: it to me on their finger. They would put the
Speaker 1: CD to put their finger, their index finger through the
Speaker 1: hole in the CD, and that's how they would hand
Speaker 1: me this CD and say this is for the radio
Speaker 1: show or this is for the podcast. Thank god, those
Speaker 1: days are gone. I have to be honest with you.
Speaker 1: It never left not that I was ever a jerk
Speaker 1: about it, but it never left the greatest impression on me.
Speaker 1: When a guest or a potential guest would hand me
Speaker 1: their music on their finger. They would put their the
Speaker 1: CD on their finger, their burned CD that they wrote
Speaker 1: on it, label it with magic marker, and then here
Speaker 1: you go. That never left the most professional impression. But
Speaker 1: it would happen more than you might think. So I
Speaker 1: prefer it the way we have it now. Everything is
Speaker 1: done digitally. If you want to bring me a CD, great,
Speaker 1: And I love getting CDs from our guests with the
Speaker 1: artwork and everything in the full package. But I do
Speaker 1: not miss the days of burned CDs. Many of us. Again,
Speaker 1: if you're old enough to remember, you might have had
Speaker 1: one of those CD booklets that you would drive around
Speaker 1: in your car with. Right, you got the CD booklet,
Speaker 1: you're putting the CDs and the CD player, and a
Speaker 1: lot of them were burned CDs, and some of them
Speaker 1: you might not even know what they are because the
Speaker 1: magic marker wore off on them, but a lot of
Speaker 1: them would be burned CDs. So but anyway, that's a
Speaker 1: thing of the past, right, even though CDs still exist
Speaker 1: and they're still making CDs and artists are still releasing
Speaker 1: music on CDs, burned CDs are a thing of the past. Right.
Speaker 1: I'm building to something here. And those debates about whether
Speaker 1: or not it's okay to burn a CD or is
Speaker 1: that a form of piracy, that's also a thing of
Speaker 1: the past, right, because no one's burning CDs anymore. Right. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is from Digitalmusicnews dot Com. One of my favorite
Speaker 1: websites for music industry news. Oh by the way, uh,
Speaker 1: cheap and shameless plug. You can also now with greater consistency,
Speaker 1: because we're gonna be putting up a lot of content
Speaker 1: on both ipmnation dot com and on Matt connorton unleashed
Speaker 1: dot com. You are going to see a lot more
Speaker 1: content and a lot more articles and blogs. Uh. And
Speaker 1: that has already started. So just a quick shameless plug
Speaker 1: if you want some. For example, a couple new articles
Speaker 1: on ipmnation dot com all about college radio. They're there,
Speaker 1: check them out, please enjoy them. You're gonna see more
Speaker 1: on Matt connorton unleashed dot com, not just the show,
Speaker 1: but other show related content that isn't necessarily audio, but
Speaker 1: some articles just want to mention that. Get that in
Speaker 1: there anyway. Okay, So getting back to this, So Digitalmusicnews
Speaker 1: dot com has an article titled, and this is the
Speaker 1: actual title. Yes, this is a twenty twenty six headline.
Speaker 1: Judge issues two year jail sentence for burning and selling CDs.
Speaker 1: Now who add that on their big go card in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six? First of all, somebody actually, in any time,
Speaker 1: in any year, in any era, somebody actually getting in
Speaker 1: trouble and actually facing some sort of legal consequence for
Speaker 1: burning a CD. Unheard of. Nobody whoever got caught doing that,
Speaker 1: whoever got in trouble for doing that? Right, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe some people, but very few. Right, You just don't
Speaker 1: expect it. Nobody expects to get caught or punished, even
Speaker 1: if you are caught right for that, for burning a CD.
Speaker 1: Come on, but actual legal jeopardy like a two year
Speaker 1: jail sentence for burning and selling CDs in the year
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six. All right, well, let's see again. This
Speaker 1: is from Digital Musicnews dot com. A UK man. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's funny too. This happened in the UK. I didn't
Speaker 1: preread this. I didn't have time. This happened in the UK.
Speaker 1: And you know, we were talking earlier to the Surge
Speaker 1: members of the band The Surge, who are from the UK,
Speaker 1: and we were talking about CDs. So all right, A
Speaker 1: UK man has received a twenty six month prison sentence
Speaker 1: after pleading guilty to the unauthorized mixing and selling of
Speaker 1: CDs in violation of copyright law. Now, I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe they're strict about that in the UK. That would
Speaker 1: never happen in the United States. I don't think it would.
Speaker 1: Maybe it hasn't. I just don't know about it. But again,
Speaker 1: in any era, can you imagine somebody actually being sentenced
Speaker 1: to prison for twenty six months over burned CDs? It
Speaker 1: just wouldn't happen, right, I don't think it would. Am
Speaker 1: I wrong? All right? It says here. The article goes on,
Speaker 1: if you thought the headline was from two thousand and two,
Speaker 1: you'd be forgiven. Instead, it's twenty twenty six and a
Speaker 1: man in the UK has been sentenced after pleading guilty
Speaker 1: to the unauthorized mixing and selling of CDs in violation
Speaker 1: of copyright law. Forty seven year old Mark Kerns was
Speaker 1: issued a twenty six month prison sentence, which will be
Speaker 1: suspended for eighteen months. He must also carry out two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty hours of unpaid community service work. Oh
Speaker 1: mute the mic for a second. Speaking of allergies, my
Speaker 1: nose is getting very itchy. All right, Well, at least
Speaker 1: so at least this sentence is suspended. I assume when
Speaker 1: we say suspended sentence, I know what that means in
Speaker 1: the United States. Not from personal experience, mind you. I've
Speaker 1: never been in any trouble. But I know what that means.
Speaker 1: In the United States, if your sentence is suspended, you're
Speaker 1: not going to do any time. The only way you're
Speaker 1: going to do any time is if you violate parole,
Speaker 1: if you get into some other kind of trouble, then
Speaker 1: that sentence can become unsuspended pretty quickly. But so it
Speaker 1: sounds like he's not actually going to prison if it's
Speaker 1: a suspended sentence, I assume, Oh, wait a minute, no,
Speaker 1: I misread that he was issued a twenty six month
Speaker 1: prison sentence which will be suspended for eighteen months. So
Speaker 1: the twenty six month sentence, but it's suspended for eighteen
Speaker 1: Now I'm a little bit confused. What does that mean?
Speaker 1: So is it suspended for eighteen and then when he
Speaker 1: gets to month nineteen he has to go to prison
Speaker 1: for a few I don't know what that means. I
Speaker 1: guess it doesn't matter. I'm getting bogged down in details
Speaker 1: that are not necessarily relevant to the heart of the story.
Speaker 1: Continuing on again. This is from Digital Music News dot Com.
Speaker 1: Kerns pleaded guilty to a number of charges at Whole
Speaker 1: Crown Court and was sentenced on Thursday. The sentence follows
Speaker 1: a lengthy investigation that began in mid twenty nineteen after
Speaker 1: the British phonographic industry became aware of the offenses in
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen. A warrant was issued in September twenty twenty two. Again,
Speaker 1: maybe they're much more strict about that. I mean, the
Speaker 1: laws exist here, but actual enforcement maybe they're more strict
Speaker 1: about that in the UK. Can you imagine here in
Speaker 1: the United States, police show up a door, They've got
Speaker 1: a warrant for your arrest. You've been burning CDs. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's unfathomable, is it not? So? A spokesperson for the
Speaker 1: Yorkshire Council said, quote, this activity enabled him to commercially
Speaker 1: exploit protected material, generating income at the expense of legitimate
Speaker 1: artists and businesses within the music industry. Unquote. Maybe I
Speaker 1: don't know, Maybe it's that he was selling them. If
Speaker 1: he had just been burning them, he probably would have
Speaker 1: been fine. But was he But how much could he
Speaker 1: have even been prop Like what was he doing? Was
Speaker 1: he burning them and then just selling them? Like? Where
Speaker 1: was he selling these? Again? It's the year twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: Who's buying these? Who's even buying these from him? Who
Speaker 1: like what is the market for this? So this guy's
Speaker 1: I get it. He's burning the CDs and then he's
Speaker 1: selling them to make money. Who is buying the burn
Speaker 1: CDs from him? Is he selling them to people on
Speaker 1: the street? Is he like the guy like you know,
Speaker 1: you'd see this, uh, like on seventies TV shows or something,
Speaker 1: you know, like like on seventies Buddy cop shows like
Speaker 1: Startski and Hutchet or whatever. You know, you'd see the guy,
Speaker 1: the guy on the street who's selling stolen watches. You know,
Speaker 1: he opens his jacket and you see all these stolen
Speaker 1: watch It's almost comical, right, it is kind of comical.
Speaker 1: You see all these stolen watches on the inside of
Speaker 1: his jacket. He's trying to sell you a Rolex or something,
Speaker 1: or a counter or their counterfeit watches something like that. Right,
Speaker 1: Is that what this guy was doing with the CDs?
Speaker 1: Is he on the street and he's just like opening
Speaker 1: his jacket and saying, hey, do you want to buy
Speaker 1: a burned CD? Is that what this guy was doing?
Speaker 1: Because because who's buying these from him? That's what I
Speaker 1: don't understand. I mean, if you're going to make money
Speaker 1: at something, be it a legal and legitimate or something
Speaker 1: illicit like you know I list quote unquote like burned CDs.
Speaker 1: There has to be a market for that. Who Who
Speaker 1: is the market for this? The more I think about it,
Speaker 1: the more bizarre this gets. But according to the spokesperson
Speaker 1: for the Yorkshire Council, this guy was commercially exploiting protected material. Ugh,
Speaker 1: let's see. Cabinet member Lynn Healing said, quote counterfeit and
Speaker 1: unauthorized goods undermine fair trading and can generate significant illicit profit.
Speaker 1: We will not hesitate to take robust enforcement action where
Speaker 1: offenses are identified and the sentence sends a clear message
Speaker 1: that such activity will not be tolerated unquote. I'm stuck
Speaker 1: on the phrase generate significant illicit profit by selling these
Speaker 1: to who? Who was buying That's what I want to know,
Speaker 1: And I have a feeling we're not going to learn
Speaker 1: the answer in this article. Who was buying these? Where
Speaker 1: was the profit coming from? Is there a website you
Speaker 1: can sell these on burnedcds dot com. I'm sure it
Speaker 1: would cost more to mail it than what anyone would
Speaker 1: pay for a burned CD. Oh you want to you know,
Speaker 1: if you want a copy of Elton John's greatest hits.
Speaker 1: It's gonna cost you ten bucks at the music store.
Speaker 1: I'll sell you a burned copy for fifty cents plus shipping.
Speaker 1: It doesn't sound like a sound business model. I don't
Speaker 1: know how this works, all right? Getting back to the article, Oh,
Speaker 1: here we go. Interestingly, sources failed to identify whether Kerns
Speaker 1: was selling CDs online via social media from a physical
Speaker 1: product I'm sorry, I have a physical market stall, or
Speaker 1: perhaps from the trunk of his car old school style. However,
Speaker 1: his CD burning and selling business must have left a
Speaker 1: significant and traceable commercial footprint for the UK government to
Speaker 1: have gotten involved to such an extent. Yes, is that
Speaker 1: even possible? Says here. The fact that CDs are not
Speaker 1: an entirely abandoned physical medium probably further added in his
Speaker 1: getting caught. As the vinyl boom has been hit with
Speaker 1: production snags, the CD industry has remained smaller but still
Speaker 1: notably bustling since its initial popularity over forty years ago,
Speaker 1: particularly in the K pop and J pop scenes. CDs
Speaker 1: and cassettes remained popular among fans for their ability to
Speaker 1: include limited or unique alternative album covers and photos. To
Speaker 1: that end, artists like Taylor Swift have continued to find
Speaker 1: success with the medium alongside vinyl in the West, despite
Speaker 1: streaming having largely taken over physical alternative alternatives over the
Speaker 1: past two decades. That's the end of the article. I
Speaker 1: want to know how this guy was selling them and
Speaker 1: how he was possibly making money at this This seems
Speaker 1: so bizarre to me, but yeah, I mean, CDs have
Speaker 1: had a resurgence, Vinyl of course never went away and
Speaker 1: continues to flourish, and even cassettes, you know, that came
Speaker 1: up too again during my interview with the Surge. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's hard to believe. I think it was probably about
Speaker 1: ten years ago. I've told the story on the show before.
Speaker 1: Forgive me if it's if you've heard it, but just
Speaker 1: very briefly, I've told the story. I think it was
Speaker 1: about probably ten years ago. I was on band camp
Speaker 1: dot com and again, you know, I'm a big fan
Speaker 1: of band camp dot com, and I was looking for
Speaker 1: local artists and I happened to find and I can't
Speaker 1: remember the name, but they were a band from Keen Keen,
Speaker 1: New Hampshire, who was selling cassettes and I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: I saw this, and I thought, what an interesting sort
Speaker 1: of novelty thing cassettes. They're actually selling cassettes, very retro
Speaker 1: kind of cool. I guess, I don't know how many
Speaker 1: they're actually selling, who knows. But then I started poking
Speaker 1: around and I realized that there were all these sort
Speaker 1: of indie pop artists on band camp who were selling
Speaker 1: cassettes cassettes. It made this weird comeback. I guess if
Speaker 1: you enjoy the sound of tape hiss and all the
Speaker 1: trouble it causes when your cassette gets caught up in
Speaker 1: the in the gears, you know what a pain. I
Speaker 1: don't miss cassettes. I mean, yeah, I have nice memories
Speaker 1: of when I was a kid recording songs off the
Speaker 1: radio on my cassette. Ooh, I hope these prosecuters in
Speaker 1: the UK don't hear about that. They want to track
Speaker 1: me down, have me extradited, because I'm sure at some
Speaker 1: point I recorded artists from the UK on my little
Speaker 1: cassette player. But you know, but there were a lot
Speaker 1: of trouble. I remember when I was a kid actually
Speaker 1: using scotch tape too. If a cassette that I really loved,
Speaker 1: if it broke, using scotch tape to actually tape it
Speaker 1: back together, and sometimes it would actually work out, and
Speaker 1: sometimes it would not. But yes, that is a headline.
Speaker 1: In the year twenty twenty six. Judge issues two year
Speaker 1: jail sentence for burning and selling CDs. I do want
Speaker 1: to know more about this guy. I'm going to keep
Speaker 1: an eye on this story going forward because I want
Speaker 1: to know how he was doing it, how it could
Speaker 1: have possibly have been profitable before him, and how they
Speaker 1: could have been a big enough deal that UK prosecutors
Speaker 1: actually said we need to put this man in prison.
Speaker 1: These are answers that I see
Podbean