The EFF recently sued Universal Music Group, after they made eBay remove an auction for some promo a guy was selling after buying at LA used record store. UMG claimed that the CDs were the property of Universal Music Group. The EFF said UMG was abusing the right of first sale doctrine, which allows you the right to resell CDs or books whatever that contain copyrighted material.

Well now Universal Music Group has really gone overboard and filed a legal brief claiming that not only was the man breaking the law by selling the albums, even the act of throwing them in the trash would have been committing music piracy. ARE YOU SERIOUS?!

Basically what UMG is trying to establish is that your purchase is essentially of a peice of plastic and the music contained on it will forever be the property of the label. If the court agrees, this could be big, effectively killing all first sale doctrine for ANY work of art, performed or other. Record labels, publishers, visual artist could then include disclaimers on everything and basically create their own copyright law. No longer could book stores sell used books, CDs, movies etc. You couldn’t even give or throw them away legally.

You may be saying yeah right. That’s not going to happen but hasn’t the precedent already been set with Apple and iTunes? When the sell you music files you’re actually just licensing it. You don’t have legally have the ability to resell or even giveaway the files you download. Will the big bad music biz get the last laugh after all?