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: British glam-rock band The Sweet (best known for songs like
: Block Buster! and The Ballroom Blitz ) seemed pretty damn
: bitter five years ago when guitarist Andy Scott sued an Austrian
: man, Dietmar Huber, for selling a single used CD on eBay at a
: price of one euro. At first, he claimed it was a pirated copy
: and asked for a €2000 fee, but Huber refused, insisting it was
: a legally purchased disc that he had every right to sell.
: Amazingly, Scott kept pushing, and went to court asking for
: €36,000. When Huber proved in court that it was his CD, Scott
: still didn't give up! He changed his claim to say he owned a
: copyright on the name , and all used sales had to be authorized
: by him.
:
: Huber, as the victim of an utterly ridiculous string of legal
: attacks, continued to fight back, and now Austria's highest
: court has confirmed that he did nothing wrong and the band must
: pay his legal fees to the tune of £50,000.
:
: This isn't really surprising - most jurisdictions recognize that
: it's always okay to re-sell something you legally purchased. Of
: course, we do see some companies pushing back against this, most
: notoriously video game developers. But even they'd (probably) be
: smarter than to engage in such a Quixotic legal quest. And
: that's the surprising part here: that the guitarist kicked off
: this circus and forced it to keep escalating. Used records have
: been a much-loved part of the music world for decades - did he
: think he was going to change all that? More importantly, does he
: think this is going to help him sell more albums? In reality,
: I'd guess people are going to be a lot more reluctant to buy a
: Sweet CD in the future, since they know they might get sued if
: they want to re-sell it later (because, given his dogged pursuit
: of this dead-end lawsuit, I am not optimistic that Scott has
: learned his lesson).
:
:
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