YODA Bill

[bbmike]

Now this is an interesting article. If this applies to PCs maybe I could leave my Steam library to someone?  :D

And please, no linking to that Weird Al Yoda song.  :P

[LongBlade]

Hmmm. Seems like a good move.

[Martok]

Hmmm. Seems like a good move.

Seconded.  Here's hoping it passes (although the cynic in me automatically doubts it will happen). 

[Boggit]

Disclaimer - I have not looked at this for a while, and I haven't checked the detail of the law on this for QUITE a while - do not rely on it. If you want to pursue a matter consult a lawyer currently working in Intellectual Property Law for up to date advice.

In a nutshell, this is my understanding...

It's not actually that odd. We have had a similar set of provisions for Intellectual Property Law in the EU for many years now. It is known as the Doctrine of Exhaustion of Rights. As I understand it, it operates very similarly to the first sale principle, and naturally manufacturers do not like it, as it is regarded as consumer protection legislation, and permits a second hand market to flourish.

Essentially, you buy a license to use. Providing (and this is the nub) that once you've paid for a license (the original seller having made their money on the sale, they exhaust their right to charge on subsequent sale of the right/asset in the licence), you are free to dispose of the rights given in the license, as you see fit - e.g sale of the rights conferred, by gift, by rental. HOWEVER, before making any disposition of the rights conferred in the license, as the purchaser, you must first divest yourself of any benefit conferred (i.e. you take it off your drive, and do not keep any copies for personal use. Failing to do so would imply an intention not to have divested yourself of the benefit conferred in the license, rendering any subsequent disposition illegal, being an infringement of a manufacturers intellectual property rights, as well as breach of the terms of the license).

In no way does this doctrine constitute any waiver of the intellectual property rights inherent in the license/product, this it does not permit any breach of copyright/patent/trade mark/design right, which remains in the ownership of the manufacturer, so making multiple copies, selling while retaining a copy, reverse engineering etc, would be a breach of law. It only deals with the transfer of the benefit of the license once the purchaser has divested themselves of the benefit of the license - as described.

Enforcement of the interest of the manufacturer is clearly difficult, since ensuring compliance on the part of the consumer is likely to be a nightmare both in terms of the commercial cost of checking up, and in terms of the volumes of individual licenses that would to be monitored. A million units sold around the world illustrates the point.

Here is an interesting article looking at both the EU and US interpretations as regards digital content...
http://www.taylorwessing.com/download/article_exhaustion_of_rights.html
And the strict EU interpretation...
http://www.acc.com/chapters/euro/upload/103-1rights.pdf