Monthly Archives: May 2007

It seems Florida has a law that makes it much more difficult to re-sell a used CD. Among its provisions is a prohibition on stores paying cash for used CDs — they can only give store credit. And stores must hold CDs for 30 days before reselling them. Worst of all, if reports are to be believed (I haven't seen the statute) stores must subject sellers of used CDs to the third degree:

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.

On top of that, stores that want to sell used CDs despite all these discouragements will have to post a $10,000 bond!

CDs, even used ones, are a form of speech covered by the First Amendment. The idea that one must register to traffic in speech strikes me as presumptively unconstitutional. I wonder how this statute could survive strict scrutiny (which I assume would be what applies?) given the assertion at ars technica that in fact there is “no proof that [stolen CDs] is a particularly pressing problem for record shops in general.”

Cites to the text of the bill, or thoughts from First Amendment mavens most welcome.