Its Mine Now!

Chris Johnson

What if you were forced to keep everything you were ever, given as a gift, found, or purchased? Even when you were tired of it and ready for something new, you still have to keep it; your only option would be to give it away to someone else free of charge. Not only would your home be full of junk, you would be unable to purchase many new items because you could not make money off of your old ones. Obviously this is an absurd idea. I believe that once you purchase something it is yours to do any legal thing you’d like with it. This is the issue at hand with the First Sale Doctrine and Universal Music Groups suit against Troy Augusto. Augusto makes a living buying and selling CDs on Ebay, and Universal is trying to say he is breaking the law because these CD’s are theirs. In past cases involving both purchased items and items given as a gift, the First Sale Doctrine has been upheld and the owners were able to sell their items as they pleased. I believe this is the way that things should be. If the Supreme Court were to deny Augusto the right to sell his CDs they would open up a can of worms that would be difficult to deal with. Anyone who ever made something would be able to deny the owner the right to sell. People would be complaining everywhere. I don’t think it is a serious issue if someone doesn’t want something they made sold, but this should be made clear to the person who receives it before hand. Any sort of sticker or written document that states the provisions of the agreement would ensure that the sorts of issues don’t arise.