This is an important story for all you media types out there. Especially those who like to boost their meager earnings by selling on promo copies of CDs they are sent for review (who are these nasty people? Selling on promo CDs, it's a national disgrace etc etc). The Universal Music Group has defended its decision to sue an eBay seller who was reselling promotional CDs distributed by the record company.
The major have commented on their litigation against Troy Augusto after the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a lobbying group who more frequently clash with the record companies over their P2P policies, said that Augusto was within his rights to sell the promo CDs on the auction website even though the major had put stickers on the CD box forbidding resale. The lobbying body told reporters: "Universal is mistaken if it thinks that it can trump these rights simply by putting a label on a CD".
But Universal disagree, telling Digital Music News yesterday: "Mr Augusto was selling promotional CDs that were the property of the record company, were licensed for personal use only, and were not permitted to be sold, as is clear from the plain language on the CDs".