Here's the ticking time bomb from the Eminem lawsuit:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.B....ermath_Records
Quote:
The court then discussed whether or not Aftermath licensed the music to third party distributors, making extensive use of the Copyright Act of 1976, including references to sections 17 U.S.C. § 114, 17 U.S.C. § 115, and the First-sale doctrine as expressed in 17 U.S.C. § 109. The court reaffirmed the fundamental differences between a sale and a license, particularly pointing out that "a 'sale' of a work may either be a transfer in title of an individual copy of a work, or a sale of all exclusive intellectual property rights in a work."[1] Relying heavily on the Supreme Court's interpretation of these statutes, the court of appeals thus ruled that Defendants' dealings with third parties were license agreements and not sales. This was mainly based on the fact that Defendants' transfer of copyrighted material to third parties did not include ownership title of copyrighted material, and that Defendants reserved the right to reclaim copyrighted material at any time, therefore no sale was made.
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Again, retailers cover their rears with the legalese in the TOS but many publishers accounting systems (notoriously dated) don't.
If this suit isn't squelched fast it may very well spread industry-wide.