Government Will Send You to Jail for Buying Used CDs

The government should regulate items for sale in this country. People should wait to buy a gun, you should have a license to buy viruses, you shouldn't let just anyone buy radioactive material. I, however, do not think that used CDs are in the same category.

As Ken Fisher reports for ars technica

New "pawn shop" laws are springing up across the United States that will make selling your used CDs at the local record shop something akin to getting arrested. No, you won't spend any time in jail, but you'll certainly feel like a criminal once the local record shop makes copies of all of your identifying information and even collects your fingerprints. Such is the state of affairs in Florida, which now has the dubious distinction of being so anal about the sale of used music CDs that record shops there are starting to get out of the business of dealing with used content because they don't want to pay a $10,000 bond for the "right" to treat their customers like criminals.

The states of Florida, Utah, and soon Rhode Island and Wisconsin will care more about your used CD collection then whether you should really get a driver's license.

I feel that this is just an attempt by the music industry to end file sharing. The music industry is trying to stop people from buying CDs, downloading all the songs onto their computer and then returning them to the store. I think the actual consequence of the law will be a further drop in CD sales.