Apple Thoughts: Obama's Cheesy Gift Might Violate Copyright Law

"President Obama reportedly gave an iPod, loaded with 40 show tunes, to England's Queen Elizabeth II as a gift. Did he violate the law when he did so? You know your copyright laws are broken when there is no easy answer to this question. Traditionally, it has been the job of the "first sale" doctrine to enable gift giving -- that's the provision of copyright law that entitles the owner of a CD, book, or other copyrighted work, to give it away (or resell it, for that matter), notwithstanding the copyright owner's exclusive right of distribution. In the digital era, however, first sale has been under siege, with copyright owners (and even the Copyright Office) arguing that it has no place in a world where "ownership" has been replaced by "licenses" and hand-to-hand exchanges have been replaced by computer-mediated exchanges that necessarily make copies."

If the RIAA and their ilk wonder why people pirate stuff, they can look no further than the mirror. It's unlikely that President Obama would be charged with anything, obviously, but we aren't all President Obama. There's a very informative post from the EFF linked here, so take a look and you'll be left with the same impression I was: I have no idea if what he did was legal, or not. How hard does this crap really need to be?