CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER

Reselling loaded iPods is copyright infringement says RIAA

iLounge reports that RIAA has warned users not to sell iPods preloaded with music. RIAA told MTV

“Selling an iPod pre-loaded with music is no different than selling a DVD onto which you have burned your entire music collection…Either act is a clear violation of U.S. copyright law. The RIAA is monitoring this means of infringement. In short: seller beware.”

RIAA President Cary Sherman added:

“Unlawful reproduction or distribution is infringement…There is no fair use when someone is getting a complete copy of a work, especially a creative work and especially when it could have an adverse impact on the marketplace for selling or licensing that work. When you buy a CD, you have it for personal use on your computer or iPod, but you can’t give it away and keep it for yourself. That’s having your cake and eating it too. If everyone did that, [record labels] would only sell one CD.”

As a practical matter, the IPKat thinks it would be rather cumbersome and inefficient for users to remove all the music from their iPods before sale. As a legal matter, he wonders if there’s a role for exhaustion here. In Europe at least, if you buy a CD and you get fed up with it, you can resell it. The rights in it are exhausted. He notes that limiting the sale of preloaded iPods could limit the free movement of those iPods around the EU market, so perhaps there would be a justification for extending exhaustion to these circumstances.

EU anti-fraud body's logo used in fraud

Findlaw reports that OLAF, the European Union anti-fraud squad has warned that its logo is itself being used in a scam. Fake letters are being sent out accusing recipients of banking irregularities and seeking payment. OLAF’S press release is here.

The IPKat says, you couldn’t make it up…