Universal Attacks First Sale Doctrine

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "In Universal Music Group v. Augusto, UMG is attacking the first sale doctrine. The issue concerns some promotional CDs that were mailed out, and later found their way to eBay. According to UMG, the stickers on the discs claiming that they still own the CD give them a legal right to control what the recipients do with them, and thus, UMG should be able to dictate terms. The EFF has filed an amicus brief countering that claim, saying that because they were sent by US mail, unrequested by the recipient, they are in fact gifts, no matter what the sticker claims. If UMG somehow wins this, I plan to send them CD of copyrighted expletives with a sticker informing them of the contractually required storage location. We discussed a similar issue with e-books a couple weeks ago."

Comments

Same BS argument

[edwardpickman]

My Troll a day to keep mod points away. This is that same bullshit argument that seems to keep coming up. It okay for some one to make a buck off music and movies so long as they didn't have a financial interest in creating the work in the first place. It's cool for some one to sell it on Ebay but the record company is evil for selling music and not giving it away. The whole point is promotional copies have been around from day one and the same rules have always applied and that includes posters. Technically you aren't supposed to sell them in spite a thriving industry selling old movie posters. The industry has looked the other way but music sales have dropped like a rock so probably a lawyer told them you better get this under control. The point is they may now start to require agreements with radio stations and such before they will give away promotional copies. Everyone benefited because they got their music out there and the radio stations kept costs down since they saved tens of thousands on buying CDs and replacing them. Yes I know technically, blah blah. Why is the guy selling a CD he boosted for free the good guy and the music company that was providing it the bad guy? What will be the result no matter what happens in court is the process will change and it will hurt everyone. The guy was being a dick selling a freebie copy that the record company was nice enough to provide. Would everyone be happier if there were no promotional copies? The record companies have always looked the other way when DJs handed them out to friends when they were supposed to be used in on air promotions and for air play but a lot of the tolerance may be drying up. They feel they are fighting for survival. Yes I know good riddance. All the garage bands will happily provide for all your music needs. Well here's food for thought, if you can get all your music from garage bands then why do you care what the music companies do? I know the fantasy is you'll eventually get slick studio music from top artists for free and the record companies will one day cave in and give away all the music no matter what it costs to produce. Time to wake up it's an industry and without profits they will do something else for a living.

Re:Read this carefully.

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll have to share it with your four sockpuppets though.

Oh, the person who moderated you up probably didn't know that you're the current running joke on Slashdot. They'll figure it out soon enough.

Re:Didn't we already see this with the cuecat

[Anonymous Coward]

what's up with the asshattery dude? you put the name of the "cat-something-or-other" just fine in the title but forget the name a whole sentence later? is that suppose to make you look like an unaffected hipster who couldn't care less? frankly, it makes you look like a stooge. i guess that's probably what passes as cool around here anymore.

Re:What are the long-term effects?

[sm62704]

The question on my mind is, where does Universal get these incredibly stupid lawyers, how did these incredibly stupid lawyers get their law degrees, and if someone sues me how can I ensure that the person suing me has an incredibly stupid lawyer?

Considering yesterday's story about MediaSentry's ignoring a court order, ALL the MAFIAA lawyers are dumb as a box of rocks. If they ever sued me I'd just get a local shyster (maybe the one that handled my divorce) and take the SOBs to the cleaners!