MemeStreams | Major Copyright Case to test first-sale doctrine

This happened to me recently. I bought a copy of Rosetta Stone in March. Paid 200.00 for it. About that time, our library got it online - for free. So I sold my copy. Or tried to. Well, Rosetta Stone didn't like it, and claimed that I had bought a nontransferrable service and not software, and that it was all in the EULA, that I never saw. I've got a box of books and 3 disks that are mine forever. I looked all over their site - on all their authorized retailer sites - I don't see anything about a service, only software.

SO I, for one, and many other homeschool parents who have purchased 200-500.00 software only to be told we didn't buy software after all, just a NON-TRANSFERABLE serivce....some service resembling a Lewinsky I guess...after the fact, will be pulling for the EFF on this one.

If you take this sort of despotic thinking, and you apply it to books, movies, music, ect....there would be no more record collecting....no more used bookstores...no more libraries.

I hope the courts do right by the American consumer on this one. First-sale simply HAS to be upheld, and fortified.

"The Electronic Frontier Foundation has taken up the case of a California man who has been sued by Universal Music Group for selling promotional CDs. Like other record labels, UMG distributes free CDs to radio stations and music reviewers in the hopes of drumming up publicity. The CDs come stamped with the label "promotional copy, not for sale." Based on this notice and the fact that the copies were given away rather than sold, the labels argue that these "promo CDs" remain the property of the labels and are only leased to recipients for their personal use."

Major Copyright Case to test first-sale doctrine