Rich Fiscus
12 Jun 2008 5:13
Last year Universal Music Group (UMG) filed a lawsuit against Troy Augusto claiming he was violating copyright law by offering promotional CDs for sale. Now a federal district court has ruled that UMG's copyright wasn't violated by the sales.
At issue is the legal force of warnings on the CDs, which were sent (free of charge) to radio stations. UMG claimed that since they weren't actually sold the first sale doctrine, which allows you to do what you please with goods you've purchased, has no application. The court ruled that the CDs are given as gifts, which in turn means the first sale doctrine does apply and UMG has no say in whether they're sold later.
The court's decision may also be important in the case of Timothy Vernor. Vernor is suing AutoCAD developer Autodesk for repeatedly interfering with his right to sell legally purchased copies of their software through eBay. Autodesk's argument has been that the licensing agreement for AutoCAD makes resale a copyright violation.
This is simlar to UMG's claim that by simply adding wording to a CD they effectively negated the first sale right.