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Music Industry Claims Throwing Away Free CDs is Illegal

by Tim Stevens on April 10, 2008 at 10:16 AM

Music Industry Claims Throwing Away Free CDs is IllegalUniversal Music Group has filed a rather ... interesting legal brief in a case against a man accused of re-selling promotional CDs he legally purchased used at a record shop. UMG has claimed 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.

The industry seems to be hoping to change the way you buy your music, so that if you purchase a CD you're not buying anything but a bit of plastic. The music on there isn't actually yours and, should you get tired of it, you don't have the right to resell it. This is traditionally known as the first-sale doctrine and is the reason why selling used books, CDs, and movies is legal. So is giving away those items -- for now.

Right now UMG's legal filing covers only promotional CDs, those given out for free to DJs and such, and it remains to be seen whether they'll even have any success making this argument. So, it's not the end of the used music store just yet. However, don't forget that when "buying" music files from stores like iTunes you're actually just licensing it, having sworn away your right to resell anything you download. So before you get too angry at UMG remember that you're embracing this sort of licensing elsewhere!

From TechDirt

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Tags: iPod, iTunes, piracy, RIAA, UMG, Universal

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