OK, the RIAA has just become even lamer

[ButterflyBlood]

My friend has a sort of semi-job in selling stuff on ebay. He likes to dig up and buy old* rare records and resell them on ebay. Usually has around 50 auctions up at a time. Anyway he was also selling a bunch of really shitty pop punk CDs now, and 14 of his auctions for them got pulled. Then he gets an email from ebay saying they were told to by the RIAA. These weren't burnt CDs or anything, just used copies he found cheap and wanted to sell for cheap. Now how exactly does the RIAA have any jurisdiction over this? No copyright violation here. Either way, extremely lame.

*I'm talking old in the punk/hardcore/emo sense here, most of these were made in the mid-90s, but still sell for a lot.

[Syrinx]

1. that's nuts

Did they explain the RIAA's reasoning? There are several stores in this town that sell used cd's (and vinyl too).

[ButterflyBlood]

2. the email was a form one

about how they had a gotten a request from the "legal property owner of the material he was selling and/or legal owner of the property contained in the CD." and that if he relisted them he would be suspended from ebay. Still selling used CDs in stores is widespread this does seem weird.

[Syrinx]

3. seems like to me...

Your friend is the "legal property owner" of the material and he has the right to do with his property as he sees fit. I would like for him to get a lawyer involved, but it would probably be more expensive than it's worth. :(

[madrchsod]

4. yes there is a copyright law--

first it was records ,the next thing is books/research papers,etc,etc. the laws are all ready to be ran through the house and senate. i`ve been posting about this for some time now and it seems no one is listening. check zeropaid and some other websites that deal with filesharing and see what the democrats and republicans are proposing

[NWHarkness]

5. That's crap.

It's an attempt at intimidation with no legal basis.

[metasphere]

6. how can we stop the riaa?

and other copyright nazis from invading our lives?

It makes me so angry to hear about stuff like that.

Which congressmen stand where on the digital rights/copyright issues, does anyone know? I know that Fritz Hollings was the main guy a few years ago in putting together that digital rights act.

Maybe we can do a little lobbying ourselves...