Next time your favorite DJ tosses a promo CD from a UMG artist into the trash, he or she should be reminded that the music industry behemoth considers such disposal an "unauthorized distribution" that's tantamount to piracy.
This little nugget from the front lines of the copyright wars comes courtesy of Fred von Lohmann, an intellectual property attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Von Lohmann dug it out of the latest brief filed by UMG in an ongoing legal tussle between that company and Troy Augusto, proprietor of Roast Beast Music Collectibles on eBay.
As disputes involving the music industry and intellectual property rights go, this one appears on the surface to be trivial. In a nutshell: Augusto buys up promo CDs from the music insiders who get them free. UMG says he can't do this because it says he can't right on a label carried by all promo CDs. EFF says UMG is wrong because the possessors of the CDs have a "first sale right" to sell the discs, and it has been advocating Augusto's case.
Why should anyone other than UMG, Augusto, and would-be participants in the presumably burgeoning promo CD marketplace give a hoot.
read more | digg story
No comments:
Post a Comment