Oh, I donno. Common sense maybe? It’s been their family business for 50 years with multi-million dollar annual cash flow, and there’s still doubts about them being millionares? I don’t see how they can’t be millionares unless their profit margin is ridiculously–and I mean really ridiculously–small. Even then, stores with cash flow like that is probably worth millions despite the actual profit. So yeah, I’m willing to bet they’re millionares.

As far as this being legal or not, I can certainly see some legal ramifications coming to light in the next few days.

I’m trying to think of the argument the store may have. But I can’t find any solid legal ground for them. If they weren’t as up front with the concept, it might work. They could not be “responsible” for what the consumer does with the product and could legally institute a 30% “restocking” fee of some sort. But when you say, “Buy it. Burn it. Return it.” (Emphasis mine) that’s when you see legal problems for encouraging the theft of intellectual property.

I would imagine it’s the initial sale of the CD that artists and record companies make money on. So if a retailer orders 10 CDs and “rents” them out–which is basically what is happening–and never orders more CDs, then the record companies and artists would view this as theft and I would imagine a judge would rule similarly. FWIW.

Boo-hoo. A whopping 4% drop! Times are really tough for these two millionares.