By jacqui@arstechnica.com (Jacqui Cheng), Ars Technica – January 04, 2011 at 07:05PM
Collect all those promo CDs you managed to pick up at bars and clubs and get ready to make a trip to your local used music shop: the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that it’s legal for you to sell those CDs. In the case of UMG vs. Augusto, the appeals court upheld a lower court’s decision, saying that a mere stamp on the CD label isn’t enough to force the recipient into a license agreement, and therefore people can resell the CDs without the record label’s permission.
This case goes back to 2007 when Universal Music Group (UMG) sued California resident Troy Augusto, who made a living by selling promo CDs on eBay. UMG claimed that it had merely licensed the CDs to Augusto—the label insisted that it had never officially transferred ownership, and therefore Augusto did not “own” the CDs. As a result, UMG said he was committing copyright infringement by reselling the CDs—after all, they did have a line printed on the label saying they couldn’t be redistributed.
Read the comments on this post