Going to Prison for Burning CDs? In 2026? Seriously? | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: This relates to something we talked about earlier. We had

0:04 Speaker 1: members of the band The Surge on the show with

0:06 Speaker 1: us in the first hour, and we were talking about CDs. Now,

0:11 Speaker 1: if you happen to hear that interview, you might know

0:13 Speaker 1: what I'm referring to, because they're in the UK, and

0:17 Speaker 1: they were talking about how the new album Meow, which

0:21 Speaker 1: comes out in August. Their new album coming out in August,

0:24 Speaker 1: it's going to be they're going to have physical CDs.

0:27 Speaker 1: And this is a subject that comes up a lot

0:30 Speaker 1: on the show. When you're releasing music in the year

0:32 Speaker 1: twenty twenty six, how do you do it? Do you

0:34 Speaker 1: just do it digitally? Do you just put it out

0:36 Speaker 1: on the streaming platforms like Spotify and band camp and everything?

0:39 Speaker 1: Do you do physical CDs? Do you do Vinyl? Vinyl

0:43 Speaker 1: very popular these days. Actually, what was it a few

0:45 Speaker 1: years ago? What was it, maybe twenty twenty three or

0:47 Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, the first year since CDs came out

0:50 Speaker 1: that Vinyl actually outsold CDs. And I don't know where

0:54 Speaker 1: CDs fall right now in terms of how they're selling,

0:58 Speaker 1: but new music is still released on CD, certainly still

1:01 Speaker 1: released on vinyl. There's even indie artists putting out cassette tapes,

1:05 Speaker 1: not kidding. You can find them if you don't believe me. So,

1:10 Speaker 1: physical media is still very much a thing. But gone

1:14 Speaker 1: are the days, or at least I thought gone were

1:17 Speaker 1: the days of people burning CDs. Now, if you are

1:22 Speaker 1: old enough to remember, there was a time when you

1:25 Speaker 1: could burn CDs. Burning meaning copying again for you very

1:29 Speaker 1: young people who don't know what I'm talking about, when

1:31 Speaker 1: you take a CD and you copy it, that is,

1:38 Speaker 1: whether or not that's okay or ethical is a subject

1:42 Speaker 1: that's been of debate since I was a kid. Geez.

1:44 Speaker 1: When I was a kid, we would copy cassette tapes.

1:46 Speaker 1: You know, if you had a dual cassette deck, you know,

1:50 Speaker 1: you could you could put a cassette in one side,

1:53 Speaker 1: press play on the other side, press press record, And

1:55 Speaker 1: sometimes that's how I would get music from my friends

1:57 Speaker 1: and they would get music from me. We would we

1:59 Speaker 1: would trade that way, you know, just I'll copy that

2:02 Speaker 1: tape for you, I'll copy that cassette. But you know,

2:05 Speaker 1: eventually it became all about burning CDs. Anyone who was

2:09 Speaker 1: in a band in say the nineties or two thousands

2:14 Speaker 1: up until I don't know, maybe ten years ago, maybe

2:21 Speaker 1: not quite, but there was a period of time where

2:24 Speaker 1: if you were in a band, you might be burning CDs.

2:27 Speaker 1: You might be burning CDs to give out to people.

2:30 Speaker 1: You might be burning CDs to give to radio stations.

2:35 Speaker 1: You know. Every once in a while, someone will bring

2:37 Speaker 1: us to CD here, you know, when we have guests

2:38 Speaker 1: in studio, they'll bring a CD, a physical CD. But

2:41 Speaker 1: it's not to play on the air. Even though we

2:43 Speaker 1: do have a functioning CD player here, it's not to

2:46 Speaker 1: play on the air. That's all done digitally. We just

2:48 Speaker 1: everything's online. They email us the tracks ahead of time.

2:52 Speaker 1: But you know, but they'll still they'll still bring in

2:54 Speaker 1: a physical CD and all the packaging and everything if

2:56 Speaker 1: they're releasing it on CD, because it is cool to

2:59 Speaker 1: have the physical met you know, if you're a nerd

3:01 Speaker 1: like me, you like reading liner notes and things like

3:03 Speaker 1: that and have the artwork. I'll tell you when I

3:08 Speaker 1: first started interviewing musicians, and I've been at this a

3:12 Speaker 1: long time, I'm dating myself, but when I first started,

3:16 Speaker 1: it was not uncommon, not only for a musician to

3:21 Speaker 1: hand me a CD and not email the tracks ahead

3:25 Speaker 1: of time. That's how long I've been doing this where

3:28 Speaker 1: even though the technology existed, rather than emailing me the tracks,

3:32 Speaker 1: a musician who is going to be a guest on

3:34 Speaker 1: a show that I was doing, might actually hand me

3:38 Speaker 1: a burned CD with just a burned CD with and

3:43 Speaker 1: they write on it in magic mark or what it

3:46 Speaker 1: is and then hand it to me. And then it's

3:48 Speaker 1: not even in a case. This would happen all the time,

3:51 Speaker 1: wouldn't even be in a case, and they would hand

3:53 Speaker 1: it to me on their finger. They would put the

3:55 Speaker 1: CD to put their finger, their index finger through the

3:57 Speaker 1: hole in the CD, and that's how they would hand

3:59 Speaker 1: me this CD and say this is for the radio

4:02 Speaker 1: show or this is for the podcast. Thank god, those

4:05 Speaker 1: days are gone. I have to be honest with you.

4:07 Speaker 1: It never left not that I was ever a jerk

4:11 Speaker 1: about it, but it never left the greatest impression on me.

4:16 Speaker 1: When a guest or a potential guest would hand me

4:19 Speaker 1: their music on their finger. They would put their the

4:23 Speaker 1: CD on their finger, their burned CD that they wrote

4:26 Speaker 1: on it, label it with magic marker, and then here

4:30 Speaker 1: you go. That never left the most professional impression. But

4:36 Speaker 1: it would happen more than you might think. So I

4:39 Speaker 1: prefer it the way we have it now. Everything is

4:42 Speaker 1: done digitally. If you want to bring me a CD, great,

4:45 Speaker 1: And I love getting CDs from our guests with the

4:48 Speaker 1: artwork and everything in the full package. But I do

4:51 Speaker 1: not miss the days of burned CDs. Many of us. Again,

4:56 Speaker 1: if you're old enough to remember, you might have had

4:58 Speaker 1: one of those CD booklets that you would drive around

5:01 Speaker 1: in your car with. Right, you got the CD booklet,

5:04 Speaker 1: you're putting the CDs and the CD player, and a

5:07 Speaker 1: lot of them were burned CDs, and some of them

5:09 Speaker 1: you might not even know what they are because the

5:11 Speaker 1: magic marker wore off on them, but a lot of

5:13 Speaker 1: them would be burned CDs. So but anyway, that's a

5:16 Speaker 1: thing of the past, right, even though CDs still exist

5:19 Speaker 1: and they're still making CDs and artists are still releasing

5:21 Speaker 1: music on CDs, burned CDs are a thing of the past. Right.

5:27 Speaker 1: I'm building to something here. And those debates about whether

5:31 Speaker 1: or not it's okay to burn a CD or is

5:34 Speaker 1: that a form of piracy, that's also a thing of

5:37 Speaker 1: the past, right, because no one's burning CDs anymore. Right. Okay,

5:43 Speaker 1: this is from Digitalmusicnews dot Com. One of my favorite

5:49 Speaker 1: websites for music industry news. Oh by the way, uh,

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6:29 Speaker 1: on Matt connorton unleashed dot com, not just the show,

6:32 Speaker 1: but other show related content that isn't necessarily audio, but

6:36 Speaker 1: some articles just want to mention that. Get that in

6:38 Speaker 1: there anyway. Okay, So getting back to this, So Digitalmusicnews

6:41 Speaker 1: dot com has an article titled, and this is the

6:44 Speaker 1: actual title. Yes, this is a twenty twenty six headline.

6:49 Speaker 1: Judge issues two year jail sentence for burning and selling CDs.

6:56 Speaker 1: Now who add that on their big go card in

6:58 Speaker 1: twenty twenty six? First of all, somebody actually, in any time,

7:04 Speaker 1: in any year, in any era, somebody actually getting in

7:08 Speaker 1: trouble and actually facing some sort of legal consequence for

7:13 Speaker 1: burning a CD. Unheard of. Nobody whoever got caught doing that,

7:17 Speaker 1: whoever got in trouble for doing that? Right, I mean, yeah,

7:21 Speaker 1: maybe some people, but very few. Right, You just don't

7:23 Speaker 1: expect it. Nobody expects to get caught or punished, even

7:27 Speaker 1: if you are caught right for that, for burning a CD.

7:29 Speaker 1: Come on, but actual legal jeopardy like a two year

7:35 Speaker 1: jail sentence for burning and selling CDs in the year

7:38 Speaker 1: twenty twenty six. All right, well, let's see again. This

7:42 Speaker 1: is from Digital Musicnews dot com. A UK man. Oh,

7:46 Speaker 1: it's funny too. This happened in the UK. I didn't

7:48 Speaker 1: preread this. I didn't have time. This happened in the UK.

7:51 Speaker 1: And you know, we were talking earlier to the Surge

7:54 Speaker 1: members of the band The Surge, who are from the UK,

7:56 Speaker 1: and we were talking about CDs. So all right, A

7:59 Speaker 1: UK man has received a twenty six month prison sentence

8:03 Speaker 1: after pleading guilty to the unauthorized mixing and selling of

8:08 Speaker 1: CDs in violation of copyright law. Now, I don't know,

8:12 Speaker 1: maybe they're strict about that in the UK. That would

8:16 Speaker 1: never happen in the United States. I don't think it would.

8:19 Speaker 1: Maybe it hasn't. I just don't know about it. But again,

8:21 Speaker 1: in any era, can you imagine somebody actually being sentenced

8:26 Speaker 1: to prison for twenty six months over burned CDs? It

8:31 Speaker 1: just wouldn't happen, right, I don't think it would. Am

8:33 Speaker 1: I wrong? All right? It says here. The article goes on,

8:38 Speaker 1: if you thought the headline was from two thousand and two,

8:40 Speaker 1: you'd be forgiven. Instead, it's twenty twenty six and a

8:45 Speaker 1: man in the UK has been sentenced after pleading guilty

8:49 Speaker 1: to the unauthorized mixing and selling of CDs in violation

8:54 Speaker 1: of copyright law. Forty seven year old Mark Kerns was

8:59 Speaker 1: issued a twenty six month prison sentence, which will be

9:03 Speaker 1: suspended for eighteen months. He must also carry out two

9:07 Speaker 1: hundred and fifty hours of unpaid community service work. Oh

9:14 Speaker 1: mute the mic for a second. Speaking of allergies, my

9:16 Speaker 1: nose is getting very itchy. All right, Well, at least

9:20 Speaker 1: so at least this sentence is suspended. I assume when

9:25 Speaker 1: we say suspended sentence, I know what that means in

9:27 Speaker 1: the United States. Not from personal experience, mind you. I've

9:30 Speaker 1: never been in any trouble. But I know what that means.

9:32 Speaker 1: In the United States, if your sentence is suspended, you're

9:34 Speaker 1: not going to do any time. The only way you're

9:35 Speaker 1: going to do any time is if you violate parole,

9:37 Speaker 1: if you get into some other kind of trouble, then

9:40 Speaker 1: that sentence can become unsuspended pretty quickly. But so it

9:43 Speaker 1: sounds like he's not actually going to prison if it's

9:45 Speaker 1: a suspended sentence, I assume, Oh, wait a minute, no,

9:51 Speaker 1: I misread that he was issued a twenty six month

9:54 Speaker 1: prison sentence which will be suspended for eighteen months. So

9:59 Speaker 1: the twenty six month sentence, but it's suspended for eighteen

10:03 Speaker 1: Now I'm a little bit confused. What does that mean?

10:08 Speaker 1: So is it suspended for eighteen and then when he

10:11 Speaker 1: gets to month nineteen he has to go to prison

10:13 Speaker 1: for a few I don't know what that means. I

10:16 Speaker 1: guess it doesn't matter. I'm getting bogged down in details

10:18 Speaker 1: that are not necessarily relevant to the heart of the story.

10:23 Speaker 1: Continuing on again. This is from Digital Music News dot Com.

10:26 Speaker 1: Kerns pleaded guilty to a number of charges at Whole

10:30 Speaker 1: Crown Court and was sentenced on Thursday. The sentence follows

10:34 Speaker 1: a lengthy investigation that began in mid twenty nineteen after

10:38 Speaker 1: the British phonographic industry became aware of the offenses in

10:43 Speaker 1: twenty eighteen. A warrant was issued in September twenty twenty two. Again,

10:50 Speaker 1: maybe they're much more strict about that. I mean, the

10:52 Speaker 1: laws exist here, but actual enforcement maybe they're more strict

10:56 Speaker 1: about that in the UK. Can you imagine here in

10:58 Speaker 1: the United States, police show up a door, They've got

11:01 Speaker 1: a warrant for your arrest. You've been burning CDs. I mean,

11:06 Speaker 1: it's unfathomable, is it not? So? A spokesperson for the

11:12 Speaker 1: Yorkshire Council said, quote, this activity enabled him to commercially

11:16 Speaker 1: exploit protected material, generating income at the expense of legitimate

11:21 Speaker 1: artists and businesses within the music industry. Unquote. Maybe I

11:26 Speaker 1: don't know, Maybe it's that he was selling them. If

11:32 Speaker 1: he had just been burning them, he probably would have

11:34 Speaker 1: been fine. But was he But how much could he

11:35 Speaker 1: have even been prop Like what was he doing? Was

11:39 Speaker 1: he burning them and then just selling them? Like? Where

11:42 Speaker 1: was he selling these? Again? It's the year twenty twenty six.

11:46 Speaker 1: Who's buying these? Who's even buying these from him? Who

11:52 Speaker 1: like what is the market for this? So this guy's

11:57 Speaker 1: I get it. He's burning the CDs and then he's

11:59 Speaker 1: selling them to make money. Who is buying the burn

12:02 Speaker 1: CDs from him? Is he selling them to people on

12:05 Speaker 1: the street? Is he like the guy like you know,

12:08 Speaker 1: you'd see this, uh, like on seventies TV shows or something,

12:14 Speaker 1: you know, like like on seventies Buddy cop shows like

12:17 Speaker 1: Startski and Hutchet or whatever. You know, you'd see the guy,

12:20 Speaker 1: the guy on the street who's selling stolen watches. You know,

12:22 Speaker 1: he opens his jacket and you see all these stolen

12:25 Speaker 1: watch It's almost comical, right, it is kind of comical.

12:28 Speaker 1: You see all these stolen watches on the inside of

12:30 Speaker 1: his jacket. He's trying to sell you a Rolex or something,

12:33 Speaker 1: or a counter or their counterfeit watches something like that. Right,

12:36 Speaker 1: Is that what this guy was doing with the CDs?

12:38 Speaker 1: Is he on the street and he's just like opening

12:40 Speaker 1: his jacket and saying, hey, do you want to buy

12:42 Speaker 1: a burned CD? Is that what this guy was doing?

12:47 Speaker 1: Because because who's buying these from him? That's what I

12:51 Speaker 1: don't understand. I mean, if you're going to make money

12:53 Speaker 1: at something, be it a legal and legitimate or something

12:58 Speaker 1: illicit like you know I list quote unquote like burned CDs.

13:02 Speaker 1: There has to be a market for that. Who Who

13:05 Speaker 1: is the market for this? The more I think about it,

13:09 Speaker 1: the more bizarre this gets. But according to the spokesperson

13:14 Speaker 1: for the Yorkshire Council, this guy was commercially exploiting protected material. Ugh,

13:23 Speaker 1: let's see. Cabinet member Lynn Healing said, quote counterfeit and

13:29 Speaker 1: unauthorized goods undermine fair trading and can generate significant illicit profit.

13:35 Speaker 1: We will not hesitate to take robust enforcement action where

13:38 Speaker 1: offenses are identified and the sentence sends a clear message

13:42 Speaker 1: that such activity will not be tolerated unquote. I'm stuck

13:49 Speaker 1: on the phrase generate significant illicit profit by selling these

13:55 Speaker 1: to who? Who was buying That's what I want to know,

14:01 Speaker 1: And I have a feeling we're not going to learn

14:02 Speaker 1: the answer in this article. Who was buying these? Where

14:07 Speaker 1: was the profit coming from? Is there a website you

14:11 Speaker 1: can sell these on burnedcds dot com. I'm sure it

14:17 Speaker 1: would cost more to mail it than what anyone would

14:20 Speaker 1: pay for a burned CD. Oh you want to you know,

14:24 Speaker 1: if you want a copy of Elton John's greatest hits.

14:27 Speaker 1: It's gonna cost you ten bucks at the music store.

14:33 Speaker 1: I'll sell you a burned copy for fifty cents plus shipping.

14:42 Speaker 1: It doesn't sound like a sound business model. I don't

14:44 Speaker 1: know how this works, all right? Getting back to the article, Oh,

14:49 Speaker 1: here we go. Interestingly, sources failed to identify whether Kerns

14:54 Speaker 1: was selling CDs online via social media from a physical

14:59 Speaker 1: product I'm sorry, I have a physical market stall, or

15:02 Speaker 1: perhaps from the trunk of his car old school style. However,

15:07 Speaker 1: his CD burning and selling business must have left a

15:10 Speaker 1: significant and traceable commercial footprint for the UK government to

15:14 Speaker 1: have gotten involved to such an extent. Yes, is that

15:19 Speaker 1: even possible? Says here. The fact that CDs are not

15:26 Speaker 1: an entirely abandoned physical medium probably further added in his

15:31 Speaker 1: getting caught. As the vinyl boom has been hit with

15:34 Speaker 1: production snags, the CD industry has remained smaller but still

15:38 Speaker 1: notably bustling since its initial popularity over forty years ago,

15:43 Speaker 1: particularly in the K pop and J pop scenes. CDs

15:46 Speaker 1: and cassettes remained popular among fans for their ability to

15:52 Speaker 1: include limited or unique alternative album covers and photos. To

15:56 Speaker 1: that end, artists like Taylor Swift have continued to find

15:58 Speaker 1: success with the medium alongside vinyl in the West, despite

16:02 Speaker 1: streaming having largely taken over physical alternative alternatives over the

16:07 Speaker 1: past two decades. That's the end of the article. I

16:10 Speaker 1: want to know how this guy was selling them and

16:12 Speaker 1: how he was possibly making money at this This seems

16:16 Speaker 1: so bizarre to me, but yeah, I mean, CDs have

16:20 Speaker 1: had a resurgence, Vinyl of course never went away and

16:24 Speaker 1: continues to flourish, and even cassettes, you know, that came

16:28 Speaker 1: up too again during my interview with the Surge. I mean,

16:31 Speaker 1: it's hard to believe. I think it was probably about

16:33 Speaker 1: ten years ago. I've told the story on the show before.

16:35 Speaker 1: Forgive me if it's if you've heard it, but just

16:37 Speaker 1: very briefly, I've told the story. I think it was

16:40 Speaker 1: about probably ten years ago. I was on band camp

16:43 Speaker 1: dot com and again, you know, I'm a big fan

16:44 Speaker 1: of band camp dot com, and I was looking for

16:48 Speaker 1: local artists and I happened to find and I can't

16:51 Speaker 1: remember the name, but they were a band from Keen Keen,

16:56 Speaker 1: New Hampshire, who was selling cassettes and I thought, oh,

17:02 Speaker 1: I saw this, and I thought, what an interesting sort

17:05 Speaker 1: of novelty thing cassettes. They're actually selling cassettes, very retro

17:10 Speaker 1: kind of cool. I guess, I don't know how many

17:12 Speaker 1: they're actually selling, who knows. But then I started poking

17:16 Speaker 1: around and I realized that there were all these sort

17:19 Speaker 1: of indie pop artists on band camp who were selling

17:23 Speaker 1: cassettes cassettes. It made this weird comeback. I guess if

17:27 Speaker 1: you enjoy the sound of tape hiss and all the

17:32 Speaker 1: trouble it causes when your cassette gets caught up in

17:35 Speaker 1: the in the gears, you know what a pain. I

17:39 Speaker 1: don't miss cassettes. I mean, yeah, I have nice memories

17:42 Speaker 1: of when I was a kid recording songs off the

17:44 Speaker 1: radio on my cassette. Ooh, I hope these prosecuters in

17:47 Speaker 1: the UK don't hear about that. They want to track

17:49 Speaker 1: me down, have me extradited, because I'm sure at some

17:54 Speaker 1: point I recorded artists from the UK on my little

17:59 Speaker 1: cassette player. But you know, but there were a lot

18:04 Speaker 1: of trouble. I remember when I was a kid actually

18:06 Speaker 1: using scotch tape too. If a cassette that I really loved,

18:09 Speaker 1: if it broke, using scotch tape to actually tape it

18:12 Speaker 1: back together, and sometimes it would actually work out, and

18:15 Speaker 1: sometimes it would not. But yes, that is a headline.

18:18 Speaker 1: In the year twenty twenty six. Judge issues two year

18:21 Speaker 1: jail sentence for burning and selling CDs. I do want

18:24 Speaker 1: to know more about this guy. I'm going to keep

18:25 Speaker 1: an eye on this story going forward because I want

18:28 Speaker 1: to know how he was doing it, how it could

18:31 Speaker 1: have possibly have been profitable before him, and how they

18:35 Speaker 1: could have been a big enough deal that UK prosecutors

18:40 Speaker 1: actually said we need to put this man in prison.

18:46 Speaker 1: These are answers that I see