[78-L] Sale of promotional product

[Cary Ginell]

Some of the major record companies forced eBay to regularly search listings for key words such as "promotional," "DJ," and "demo" and terminate listings without warning, along with a threat to excommunicate repeated offenders. I know that MCA and Sony did this in the early 2000s.

Cary Ginell

> Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2011 14:51:19 -0500
> From: mbiel at mbiel.com
> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
> Subject: Re: [78-L] Sale of promotional product
> 
> On 1/6/2011 1:36 PM, Cary Ginell wrote:
> > http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118029772?refCatId=1678
> >
> > So the record companies finally lost this battle. Now we'll see if eBay stops terminating auctions of promotional LPs and CDs.   I doubt it.  Cary Ginell 		
> 
> Since this case was specifically about someone who sold promo CDs on 
> Ebay, I would hope that the next step would be this person's resumption 
> of listings to test the waters -- and sue ebay if they pull the 
> listings.  I don't know if it was part of the evidence in these cases, 
> but there are numerous examples of the record companies themselves 
> selling records marked as Promotional Not For Sale.  The Warner Bros 
> Loss Leaders are prime examples.   This case seems to have rested on 
> both the First Sale doctrine -- which the WB Loss Leaders would fall 
> under, and the receipt of unsolicited items which you are always 
> entitled to dispose of in any way you feel fit, including sale.
> 
> Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com
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