Usually, the EFF’s newsletter is a rather boring, legalese thing that one reads to stay current. However, their last issue contained the gem below:

A bit of explanation: in Austria, a weird sect called Watchtower Society/Jehova’s Witnesses has plastered the streets with critters who hand out weird free “newspapers” called Watchtower and Wake Up! The funny thing(and where UMG gets into the picture) is that these peddlers always try to talk you into holding onto such a paper forever and never throwing it away(as if it were a handheld ;)):

In a brief filed in federal court, Universal Music Group
(UMG) states that, when it comes to the millions of promotional CDs (”promo CDs”) that it has sent out to music reviewers, radio stations, DJs, and other music industry insiders, throwing them away is “an unauthorized distribution” that violates copyright law. Yes, you read that right — if you’ve ever received a promo CD from UMG, and you don’t still have it, UMG thinks you’re a pirate.

This revelation came in a brief for summary judgment filed by UMG against Troy Augusto. Augusto buys collectible promo CDs at used record stores around Los Angeles and resells them on eBay. UMG sued him last year, claiming that the “promotional use only” labels on the CDs mean that UMG owns them forever and that any resale infringes copyright. EFF took Augusto’s case to fight for the proposition that a copyright owner can’t take away a consumer’s first sale rights just by putting a label on a CD. In other words, EFF believes that if you bought it, or if someone gave it to you, you own it.

For EFF’s legal perspective on the issue of “promo CDs” in UMG v. Augusto:
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/umg_v_augusto/AugustoMSJBrief.pdf

For this complete post by EFF Senior Staff Attorney Fred Von Lohmann:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/04/umg-says-throwing-away-promo-cds-illegal

Nice to know that the UMG now adopts sect-like marketing techniques. I guess that Gong! now has an entirely new meaning…

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Tam Hannas PalmOS blog - TamsPalm for short - has been founded in November 2004 and has been an enormous success ever since. Covering different topics concerning Palm handheld users, it has received lots of attention from the community! Currently, nine authors supply first class content.

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