Doctrine of First Sale

Doctrine of First Sale

Posted Sep 29, 2005 2:47 UTC (Thu) by ncm (subscriber, #165)
In reply to: Free the Cell Phone! (Wired) by zotz
Parent article: Free the Cell Phone! (Wired)

Right, the Uniform Commercial Code and the Doctrine of First Sale override any license restrictions that you didn't specifically agree to before you forked over the cash. Even if you did sign something (as may be common for cell phones) the UCC nulls any provisions that are not reasonable and expected for such transactions. When you pay for a phone, you own it and have a fundamental right (and license) to use it. No piece of paper in the box can take that away. Nothing you do to the phone to make it useful to you as a phone can violate any copyright or patent license: you paid, you're authorized, period.

(The decision that copying data from ROM to RAM is covered by copyright holds in only one circuit (of nine) and hasn't been affirmed elsewhere, so it's on shaky ground. Likewise for the one that says shrink-wrap licenses, and the "no refunds" insult on your movie ticket, hold.)

IANAL, this is not legal advise.

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