The Sweet Taste Of Defeat: Band Must Pay Legal Fees For Frivolous Lawsuit Over One Used CD On eBay
from the tilting-at-windmills dept
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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Filed Under: andy scott, austria, first sale, the sweet, used cd
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Except the US.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101213/09353512255/supreme-court-ruling-you-may-not-be-able- to-legally-sell-product-first-made-outside-us.shtml
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Re: Most
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Swwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeettttt!
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Yeahhh!!!
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Re: Yeahhh!!!
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Re: Yeahhh!!!
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Re: Yeahhh!!!
Scott's legal theories were frightening
But the ruling was soothing
And now Dieter is grooving
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
And the man at the back said
Everyone attack and it turned into a courtroom blitz
And the girl in the corner said
Boy, I wanna warn ya, it'll turn into a courtroom blitz
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Re: Yeahhh!!!
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"Ignite" being my favorite song by The Damned.
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Glad to see there are still people who think used markets are a problem and should be excised.
You wouldn't prohibit someone from reselling a car.
... Actually, scratch that, I'm sure they'd love to if they could.
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"Speaking after the court ruling, Wolfgang Maier, the German lawyer for Scott, said: 'The end result according to the final court of appeal is that copyright and intellectual property protection in Austria is far short of what it should be.'"
I'm thinking its time we wall Germany back off again.
They brought us speculative invoicing aka copyright trolling, GEMA, and now the idea that Copyright and IP means artists should be paid forever every time their work changes hands.
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Not really, because what this case now gives us is legal precedent. Scott would be pretty damn foolish to try something similar again when this precedent is there for all to refer to.
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Even with all of the media coverage people are still paying off copyright trolls.
You just have to have a scary letter, and keep the demand lower than what it would cost to hire a lawyer and you get a payday from a percentage.
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And don't worry, Scott or someone else like him will try this trick again. :(
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Reverse psychology?
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Re: Reverse psychology?
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No way to promote sales
If this were to be accepted into law, wouldn't that mean that any physical item found to be associated with a copyright could not be sold? Wouldn't the same restriction apply to any physical item associated with a patent?
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Uh?
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God Bless Dietmar Huber!!
You suck and your band sucked, you always sucked and you always will. That noise you called "music" and your image were utterly atrocious and an insult to mankind. You couldn't play a guitar to save your spent life. Your ancient noise still makes me want to vomit all these decades later.
Now just foad you stone-aged make-up encrusted talentless relic!
If you want to sue anybody, sue your fucking former record company for not compressing that horse-shit you called music enough - one can make out some of that awful ugly noise - despite the lowest known dynamic range on the planet.
I will NEVER buy anything with your bloody name on it but I will download as much as possible for free and distribute with total abandon because of your ignorant actions, you make-up encrusted old tone-deaf creep!
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Re: God Bless Dietmar Huber!!
Save the world from it.
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Re: God Bless Dietmar Huber!!
Actually, compression/limiting removes dynamic range by removing spikes, so lack of compression would not contribute to Sweet's lack of dynamics.
It's more that they sucked anyway; on that I agree.
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A puzzle...
http://www.algonet.se/~sweetfa/cd_box_legend.htm
According to this webpage the first CD of the set had no The Sweet material on it.
The second cd had 2 non The Sweet tracks.
So I am wondering if maybe the anger was just misplaced. That ACD/Eurotrend released something they weren't authorized to or was crap, and so Scott was cranky. But the CD was released in 1997ish so it seems a little late and totally wrong to go after a guy selling a cd he purchased.
Then I read The Sweet wikipedia page and found out that 2 members of the band were touring as The Sweet at the same time and it gets sorta confusing.
While it is possible the CD was felt to be counterfeit, this wasn't the proper forum or target. Suing someone who was a fan of yours for buying material he thought was legit isn't a smart thing to do.
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I'd say he was a washed up rock star but he was never really a star to begin with now was he. A couple of songs that got out there and it was over.
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I'd say he was a washed up rock star but he was never really a star to begin with now was he. A couple of songs that got out there and it was over.
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I'd say he was a washed up rock star but he was never really a star to begin with now was he. A couple of songs that got out there and it was over.
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For years he's regaled us with the mantra of "Show us the real losses of the copyright system not some made up numbers."
Now he's handed a incontrovertible FACT that copyright has cost an actual artist real money and all we hear is mocking.
This guy thinks he can just sell a CD. That CD might as well be Scott's child. You wouldn't sell the kid that mows your lawn, would you? Selling used CDs is just like selling someone's child...to a cyber-terrorist.
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I know your mom on a DVD almost covered that pack of gum from the bargain bin...
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Not exactly, since Brian Connolly died in 1997 and leukemia got Mick Tucker in 2002.
This is all on Andy.
1972-1978 Sweet: best rock band ever.
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Less likely?
How could we be less likely to buy it? We'd never heard of the band until today...
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Re: Less likely?
That makes two of us...
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Now, we've heard of this band and their jackassery. Now we know to avoid them completely.
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1973
/Gollum
Ps.
I also want my ring back.
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And I know of one band to avoid now, for sure. Even though I never sell my old CD's anyway.
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Huh?
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WTF
Ballroom Ditz
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah...
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I like some of his songs, but I never knew the name of the band and I'm 51, and heard this music growing up
(WLS, Chicago am radio)
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