Bovingdon Market trader caught with cannabis (From Watford Observer)
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Bovingdon Market trader Lincoln Millwood caught with cannabis
9:10am Saturday 23rd March 2013 in News By Court Reporter
A trader at Bovingdon Market was spotted by police openly smoking cannabis from his music CD stall.
The officers then saw 31-year-old Lincoln Millwood hand over a clear plastic bag containing a green substance to one of his customers in exchange for £10.
The customer and Mr Millwood were arrested and two more small packets of cannabis were found on him, along with £420 cash, St Albans Crown Court heard yesterday (Friday).
Prosecutor Gavin Pottinger said when the CDs, which were being sold for between £3 and £10, were examined they looked like copies with artwork that was "not of a good quality".
The 790 CDs were seized and when they were examined only 24 were legitimate. Many were for recent albums and one bootleg copy was of an album that had not been released at that time, said the prosecutor.
Millwood, who lives in Hackney, pleaded guilty to possessing cannabis, supplying cannabis, possessing criminal property and three charges of infringing copyright on Saturday, October 6, last year.
Defence barrister Daniel Lister said some of the CDs were live recordings from rave events and others were a consolidation of tracks from different albums.
Judge Stephen Warner told Millwood: "You have to earn a living, but this is not the way to do it."
He passed a 12 month Community Order with a two month curfew between 9pm and 5am. He must pay a £450 fine and £150 prosecution costs, along with a £60 victim surcharge.
Comments(13)
Jackitate
says...
12:41pm Sun 24 Mar 13
LSC wrote:It seems that LSC is fairly deluded imo. Caffeine, along side nicotine and alcohol, are all drugs. Using extremely high profile strategic sampling techniques and statistics it is most likely that you probably drink alcohol yourself. Every now and then or daily? Are you an immoral individual LSC? Or do you have a job, alongside a family like many other cannabis smokers and chronic alcoholics? Moral standards have nothing to do with smoking a proven, non-harmful, herb. I don't remember the time I came home and beat my wife or skipped work when I smoked cannabis.
Once again, drugs go hand in hand with a lack of moral standards. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Do drugs make you immoral, or does immorality lead you to drugs?
Andrew Turpie
says...
2:53pm Sun 24 Mar 13
Before anyone takes the moral high ground on this, everyone who's wacked their CD collection onto their mp3 player is acting illegally as format shifting still hasn't been made legal yet within copyright law.
LSC
says...
3:41pm Sun 24 Mar 13
Jackitate wrote:Perhaps not. But one day you might not come home at all because you are doing something illegal and get locked up. You will then miss work.
LSC wrote:It seems that LSC is fairly deluded imo. Caffeine, along side nicotine and alcohol, are all drugs. Using extremely high profile strategic sampling techniques and statistics it is most likely that you probably drink alcohol yourself. Every now and then or daily? Are you an immoral individual LSC? Or do you have a job, alongside a family like many other cannabis smokers and chronic alcoholics? Moral standards have nothing to do with smoking a proven, non-harmful, herb. I don't remember the time I came home and beat my wife or skipped work when I smoked cannabis.
Once again, drugs go hand in hand with a lack of moral standards. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Do drugs make you immoral, or does immorality lead you to drugs?
I do not have that worry about that with my personal caffeine and alcohol intake, but such is your craving for this drug you risk your employment and family in order to take it.
Doesn't seem too bright to me.
I'm not actually that bothered if cannabis is legal or illegal, but as long as it is illegal, anyone who takes it is a selfish idiot who risks a criminal record, limited employment and the breakdown of family. Not to mention the personal mental health risks.
LSC
says...
3:53pm Sun 24 Mar 13
Andrew Turpie wrote:I'm talking morality,not law, yes. Shifting your own collection around is not, in my opinion, immoral. Selling it to someone else for personal gain is.
Are we talking immortality linked to pirate CD's?
Before anyone takes the moral high ground on this, everyone who's wacked their CD collection onto their mp3 player is acting illegally as format shifting still hasn't been made legal yet within copyright law.
Andrew Turpie
says...
5:59pm Sun 24 Mar 13
LSC wrote:I know, but i remember you a while back said you always liked to be on the right side of the law. Get those illegally converted tracks sent to the recycle bin lol ;-)
Andrew Turpie wrote:I'm talking morality,not law, yes. Shifting your own collection around is not, in my opinion, immoral. Selling it to someone else for personal gain is.
Are we talking immortality linked to pirate CD's?
Before anyone takes the moral high ground on this, everyone who's wacked their CD collection onto their mp3 player is acting illegally as format shifting still hasn't been made legal yet within copyright law.
Its hypocritical that people complain about illegal drug use, but will go out and buy music create by artists off their t1ts on it. Not one notable iconic piece of music has been written in the last 50 years would exist without illegal substances.
Oh one exception Paul McCartney gave us the frog chorus after giving up drugs. Go figure lol.
LSC
says...
11:58pm Sun 24 Mar 13
But I can claim the high ground on the music: I only listen to music on radio, online (which presumably someone has passed as legal) or via my DVD drive for CDs I legally bought.
In my experience, many bands did indeed use drugs. Their best stuff was before they started in most cases, and that includes The Beatles.
garston tony
says...
10:03am Mon 25 Mar 13
Big step/difference from transferring music to an MP3 player and selling bootleg cd's and illegal drugs anyway!
Andrew Turpie
says...
12:52pm Mon 25 Mar 13
garston tony wrote:Garston Tony,
Andrew Turpie, I understand that the law does allow for the owner of a cd to transfer a copy of the music to an mp3 player. You certainly wont be prosecuted for it, sometimes the law of common sense applies before the written law catches up.
Big step/difference from transferring music to an MP3 player and selling bootleg cd's and illegal drugs anyway!
The law still stands, unless there is a process to facilitate a legal back up (which I have seen on a few DVD's and CDs, this is at the discretion of the copyright holder and will be displayed on the jewel case) - it's still illegal format shift en masse, most of the time you would have to circumnavigate protections systems like DRM and Ripguard to do so (which copyright holders invest a lot of cash in to stop it happening).
Would be also interesting to see a successful prosection for the rave CD's, as the majority of tracks written never really made it passed the white label test press which means no copyright exists. Most rave artists apart from the few who sold out to the pop charts created the tracks for the scene and never cashed in.
garston tony
says...
3:24pm Mon 25 Mar 13
Its in effect a meaningless law
garston tony
says...
3:30pm Mon 25 Mar 13
Like its legal to shoot a Scotsman with a crossbow on the first Tuesday of every month or its illegal to have a door mat out on a Sunday in Kings Lynn
Andrew Turpie
says...
3:55pm Mon 25 Mar 13
Meaningless to yourself and to me, but it must protect the artist and labels etc. I deal with PRS,MPLC and PVSL licencing (amongst others) on a regular basis and there are artists,lables and distributers who will aggressively prosecute any misdemeanour if found (found being the operative word).
But it does go to show that we as humans will only obey the laws that we as a personally agree with whether it be drug,traffic or copyright laws :)
Andrew Turpie
says...
3:56pm Mon 25 Mar 13
LSC says...
12:12pm Sun 24 Mar 13
Do drugs make you immoral, or does immorality lead you to drugs?