A lot of people heard Mumford & Sons this year. The London-based folkie foursome played 15 cities in the U.S. this summer, ruled Spotify (they were one of the top 20 most-streamed bands of 2012), and their album Babel was the biggest debut of the year, selling 600,000 copies in its first week. With numbers like that, it seems like Mumford & Sons really want people to hear their super-earnest brand of roots rock. They just don't want anyone to loan their record to you.

Hidden in the fine print on the back of Babel is an odd provision that clearly states: "The copyright in this sound recording and artwork is owned by Mumford & Sons. Warning: all rights reserved. Unauthorized copying, reproduction, hiring, lending, public performance and broadcasting prohibited." Most of that all seems legit, but "lending"? Since when can't people let friends borrow their records?

Typically albums have copyright notices – most simply state the year the album was first released and who holds the copyright. Most also include language warning against unauthorized reproduction, and some even include the extra-scary FBI anti-piracy warning. But at this point, we all get the gist of what they mean: You can't go and duplicate your newly purchased CDs and sell bootlegged copies out of the trunk of your car. Or whatever. But lending them to your mom? Totally legit. And as San Francisco-based copyright attorney Andrew Bridges pointed out on Twitter, the odd language on Mumford & Sons' CD is probably invalid.

"I'm a lawyer, I love fine print; I read fine print," Bridges said in an interview with Wired. "I bought the Mumford & Sons CD [recently], and I pull it out and I see an unusually big fine print and I say, 'Holy hell!'"

Where the language comes from is a little unclear. When asked about the copyright notice on the album, a spokesperson for the band's label Glassnote Records responded via email, "We are checking with our lawyers who had instructed us to do this," and then didn't respond to any follow-up queries. But for a Grammy-nominated band that got massively popular based on fan support – "The attitude of Mumford & Sons is that fans really do come first and word of mouth is important" Glassnote founder and CEO Daniel Glass recently told MTV – it seems odd that they wouldn't want their supporters to spread the gospel. And curiously other previous releases on Glassnote, like those from Childish Gambino and Two Door Cinema Club, don't carry similar warnings. So maybe it was an accident? Or a mistake? Or it was placed there with a different understanding of the definition of "lending"?

"It is outrageous that a record label would want to treat music fans, and their rights, with such disregard – that's no way to build a fan base," Corynne McSherry, the intellectual property director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation said in an email to Wired. "A [label] that simply prohibits 'unauthorized lending' raises more questions than it answers – after all, lending a record doesn't need to be authorized by a copyright owner when it's authorized by law, specifically the first sale doctrine."

The highly-confusing but incredibly important "first sale" doctrine in the Copyright Act states that the buyer of a copyrighted work – whether it's a CD, book, or otherwise – can re-sell or loan that particular copy of the work in any way they want without the copyright holder's permission. Ever sold your Collective Soul discography to Amoeba Music for candy money? You've exercised your first sale rights.

Interestingly, the doctrine is currently before the Supreme Court in a matter that has nothing to do with music. In Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. entrepreneur Supap Kirtsaeng was sued for copyright infringement by Wiley for selling books on eBay that were bought at lower prices overseas. A New York federal jury found Kirtsaeng liable for copyright infringement and the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the decision.

The case may have nothing to do with Mumford & Sons but Bridges, who noted that in all his time reading fine print he'd "never seen this language before," said that there's a chance the decision before the Supreme Court could apply since the crux of the court's decision will hinge on whether the first sale doctrine applies to works manufactured overseas. If the album was made outside of the U.S. and imported for sale and the court upholds the decision against Kirtsaeng, *Babel'*s copyright notice could hold more water.

"If this disc was made in Mexico, then it may be that I don't have the right to lend it to anybody under the plaintiff's view in the Kirtsaeng case," Bridges said. "That actually highlights the importance of the Supreme Court's pending case."

Of course purchasers of Babel aren't the only ones who could be impacted by the Supreme Court's decision – it could affect business like eBay and your local used bookstore too. But that still doesn't explain why a band or their label would put a copyright notice on an album on the off chance that a court case would change the nature of the first sale doctrine, especially if it could alienate fans by telling them how they can enjoy your band's music.

"There are two issues. One is a legal issue: Is this prohibition binding, and if it is not binding, is it fraudulent? The second is the policy issue: Do we want an environment in the system that would enforce this kind of prohibition?" Bridges said. "And third is a social issue: What were they thinking?"

Yeah guys, what were you thinking?