The Sea Is Made Of Salt
Universal Music Group (UMG) is now challenging the First Sale Doctrine. Originally established a hundred years ago by a Supreme Court ruling, and later written into the Copyright Act of 1976, the First Sale Doctrine is the right to sell or give away your personal property without consideration to copyright holders.
See, UMG mails out unsolicited promo discs to DJs and people like that. The guy they're suing has a business on Ebay, buying old promo discs in used record shops to resell to collectors. Now they're claiming that they still own these used discs, because the label says "promotional use only" and they didn't give the person they originally mailed them to permission to sell them, give them away, or throw them in the trash.
In this new RIAA fantasy world, selling used books is illegal without the permission of the copyright holder. Used record stores would be shut down. You could be sued for selling a computer, hard drive, or iPod which still contained songs you bought from iTunes. Corporate copyright and licence would become more important than your right to your own property.
Personally, I made the conscious decision never to buy another new music CD six months ago. That's when the RIAA won its first online file-sharing lawsuit and proudly announced its intention to collect a quarter of a million dollars in damages from Jammie Thomas, a single mother of two children (she was found guilty of putting 24 songs in her Kazaa upload folder). I think we've reached the point today where nobody can buy new music from the RIAA with a clean conscience. Buying CDs now funds blatant attacks on your basic civil rights, in addition to ongoing malicious lawsuits against ordinary people.
uTorrent
The Pirate Bay
btjunkie
Lala
Limewire
The Hype Machine
See, UMG mails out unsolicited promo discs to DJs and people like that. The guy they're suing has a business on Ebay, buying old promo discs in used record shops to resell to collectors. Now they're claiming that they still own these used discs, because the label says "promotional use only" and they didn't give the person they originally mailed them to permission to sell them, give them away, or throw them in the trash.
In this new RIAA fantasy world, selling used books is illegal without the permission of the copyright holder. Used record stores would be shut down. You could be sued for selling a computer, hard drive, or iPod which still contained songs you bought from iTunes. Corporate copyright and licence would become more important than your right to your own property.
Personally, I made the conscious decision never to buy another new music CD six months ago. That's when the RIAA won its first online file-sharing lawsuit and proudly announced its intention to collect a quarter of a million dollars in damages from Jammie Thomas, a single mother of two children (she was found guilty of putting 24 songs in her Kazaa upload folder). I think we've reached the point today where nobody can buy new music from the RIAA with a clean conscience. Buying CDs now funds blatant attacks on your basic civil rights, in addition to ongoing malicious lawsuits against ordinary people.
uTorrent
The Pirate Bay
btjunkie
Lala
Limewire
The Hype Machine