does first sale limit shrink-wrap licenses?

Does the first-sale doctrine limit shrink-wrap licenses? If so, perhaps a clever enterpreneur could start an "unwrapping" business. The enterpreneur would buy the CD-ROMs, unwrap them, then resell them at a slight markup. The markup would represent what the end-user was willing to pay to be free of the restrictions of the shrink-wrap license.

I would prefer, though, that shrink-wrap licenses did not exist or (perhaps this would better balance all the interests involved?) that the conditions such licenses were allowed to impose were strictly limited by law.

Tim Phillips
<hrothgar[_at_]telepath.com> Received on Thu Jun 25 1998 - 16:14:10 GMT