Slashdot Mirror
Testing The Right To Resell Downloaded Music
David Gerard writes "A man has bought a song from Apple iTunes and has put it up for sale on eBay. "I only spent $0.99 on it but I bought the song just as legally as I would a CD, so I should be able to sell it used just as legally, right?" Does the Right of First Sale still exist?" The seller says he's seeking attention, but not to himself. Rather, he calls this "an experiment in property rights in the digital age," and promises not to keep a copy once the sale is done.
I just posted an eBay auction for a song I bought from the iTunes music store. It should be interesting to see how this works out. I only spent $0.99 on it but I bought the song just as legally as I would a CD, so I should be able to sell it used just as legally right?
[Update 09-03-2003 10:08 AM] Right now I've come up with a couple ways that the transfer of ownership could take place. One is to call up Apple and ask them to do it for me, which would be an interesting call. The other way would be to give my account to the winning bidder, which doesn't seem like a bid deal considering that I've only purchased one song. Still, I'd have to make sure that my credit card info was completely disassociated with the account. Or I could just create a new account and repurchase the song on that account.
[Update 09-03-2003 11:25 AM] I'd like to respond to a few points made by people: 1. It's true that I'm seeking attention, but not for me personally. This is an experiment in property rights in the digital age, something that's gotten surprisingly little attention. 2. I've read the iTunes agreements and found nothing denying transferability. This isn't any more a commercial venture than selling CDs at the local music store, I'm not incorporated or even DBA. Furthermore, in case anyone thinks this is a cheap way to make a buck I will be donating all proceeds to the EFF. 3. When the song is successfully transferred, I will not be keeping a copy of the song. If I don't own it I shouldn't have a copy.
[Update 09-03-2003 11:25 AM] A very excellent comment below by Piggly Wiggly asks if I will convert the format for delivery. My answer right now is "no" because I don't want to cloud the issue of the sale by changing the format. Also, I'd like to thank all the people posting supportive comments who realize that this is about more than a $0.99 song being over-valued on eBay.
Not sure about legal rights, but I'm pretty sure the apple terms and conditions of the service would have something to say on this matter, and he would have agreed to them before being able to download the song.
This is hilarious. I'd like to see how the RIAA spins this. After all, they haven't ever whined about used CDs being sold.
As of 4:00PM Sept. 3, 2003, there are already well over 30 bids on the I-Tune, and bidding has exceeded $20. The original price was only $0.99. Very interesting.
not sure whether the license is transferrable or not. all depends on how apple lets you have it. digital music is no different than software in that respect, so you don't actually "own" the song
BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
I sold that song yesterday for $0.25. If I'd only known that I could post it to slashdot.
Slashdot, News for Nerds and eBay listings.
The RIAA will soon hear of this, and he will get smacked down accordingly.
Having seen Palm Pilots that went for $199 in stores go for $289 on e-Bay, it'll be interesting to see how high the price for a $0.99 song goes.
And, no, I haven't RTFA yet, I'm going to do that now...
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
Isn't it assumed that the DRM included in iTunes would disallow something like this even though it should be completely within the right of the purchaser/owner? I think this is another major problem with DRM technologies. They assume that the purchaser will desire to keep the media indefinately rather then sell it. Then again with the music industry already attacking used CD sales from cutting into their profit I highly doubt they'd want it any other way. What's better then forcing new copies of songs/albums to be purchased rather then continue the ability for it to exchange hands via a 3rd party at a possibly lower rate then the Music Companies would be willing to discount it to?
Probably tax you $150,000 for every song you sold.
hmm...seems already he's set to make at least a 2070% profit - current bid is $20.50
I'm jealous
What format is the tune in ? I would be interested if it were in a high quality .ogg format.
An interesting point to consider is that,
Currently Apple doesn't allow download outside US, so if he is infact legally allowed to sale his bought music, then
Can he sell it outside US, at a higher price and make profit ?
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
My main question is how would the ownership of the file be transferred?
At the moment, the Apple Store lets you "authorize" music files. So for this person, after the file had been "sold", he would have to deauthorize the up to 3 other computers that had been allowed to play the song, give a copy of the file to the buyer, then provide them with his Apple iTunes Store username/password so they could authorize it on their machine.
As he mentions, he could call up Apple and ask them to switch his authorization of the song to another user.
Either way, it does raise an interesting question, and as someone who has been using the iTunes Music Store, I've never thought about it: Suppose that years from now, I want to sell all my downloaded music files to someone else. Is there a way to transfer the license? What if I left them in a will to my children later on - could Apple be required to ensure that they could use the files later?
Or he's about to run into a massive "legal agreement" which will negate his First Sale ability - we'll just have to see what happens, neh?
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
No way in Hell does eBay allow this to stay up...the auction will never close.
The highest bidders name at this time is a guy called Unicks - judging from his name, I wonder how much trouble he's goiong to have to go through in order to play it :)
Dear lord, who would pay 20 bucks (at the time of this writing) for a single song?? This guy is going to make a hefty buck on this one.
However, anybody stupid enough to pay $20 for an MP3 is a moron.
Xaotik Designs
I don't think that in this case it should apply.
In my mind purchasing music in mp3 format should be a non transferable license.
I can see it now, people listing entire "Collections of high quality mp3s for $600! A $6000 value!" and promising to delete their files...
It just wouldn't work.
In Soviet Russia, the television watches YOU!
So the bids at $20 when I could just buy it for $0.99.Of course I don't see why he can't transfer it. I can sell any CD I buy and surely this is even simpler as it is digital with no shipping costs etc.
Of course there is the DRM
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
Why not? I can resale software. Whats the difference with music? There may not be a little sheet of paper that's supposed to be a license that comes with the song like a software purchase would come with but so what?
My only hope is he doesn't ruin the iTunes music store for the rest of us somehow.
Perhaps all he has is a non-transferable license to maintain a copy of the music for personal listening purposes, similar to how some hardware vendors (gouge) charge their customers an exorbitant license fee for software. Those software license fees counteract relatively cheap hardware appliances, a similar business model to gaming consoles. Remember, Microsoft, Sony etc lose money on the console hardware but make their profits on the sale of the games.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
I don't have a mac nor have I looked at iTunes, but don't they have a user agreement that stipulates your rights as a buyer on the site? I would be surprised if the agreement doesn't lay out terms such as non-transferrability, etc., just like a software license.
Can someone post the terms and conditions or click-through agreement?
However, is he actually going to get the money? Is some slashdot troll going to actually fork over the $50 that he just bid?
Xaotik Designs
Are you kidding? The RIAA, and greedy artists to boot, regularly whine about reselling used CDs. Of course it's appalling, but they do it.
You can most times sell something for more than it's worth because people get wrapped up in the bidding and forget that they can get the item new for less.
it's fun to watch.
IANAE (I am not an economist) but this looks like bad news for the recording industry.
Lots of people buy songs for a dollar. After a while, they grow bored with some songs and they sell 'em on eBay. It is unavoidable that these songs will cost less than on apple. Heck, someone may offer a hundred LEGAL songs for a few bucks!
It seems like this is a 'boomerang' effect from the dot com time:
- offer songs online
- sell a few million
- ??
- Bankrupt!!
I think if he buys the song then when he sells it he deletes his copy, This would be a fair use and trading. But if he downloads the song and sells many copies or keeps the original. Then that is moving into the range of illegal. This is a different animal then file swapping because money is trading hands. So if you download one song for $1 and then sell many copies then that is easily in the realm of music piracy. But I don't think this will go to far because this opens up a can of worms for legality and starting business that is almost impossible to enforce. If this were legal they will need to provide paperwork that makes a tax audit seem like a day at the peach.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
(Obligatory Simpsons quote) This affair is going to land this guy in a predicament as red hot as the candies that bear that name.
In case you're curious, the filename is 07 Double Dutch Bus.m4p and it is 3,391,504 bytes long or 3.2 MB
.m4p
;)
it's probably an
but not for long
Satanists get good grades too...suspiciously good grades
Wow, as of right now, the high bid is $20.
:)
I just found a job: apple music reseller.
Rip. Mix. Bid.
Jeez, what a terrible choice for testing legal rights. Why couldn't he have picked something like "Money", "Fight For Your Right (To Party)" or "Equal Rights" by Peter Tosh.
Or maybe he's should pay the buyer to take the crappy song from his crappy collection of movie soundtracks.
Please Please Please Slashdot, follow up on this story!
The outcome could set a precedent for future DMCA court cases. If George Hotelling and/or Apple can successfully transfer ownership, it would be a huge blow to other vendors who aren't willing to make provisions for such a transaction.
This is excellent and brings up quite a few legal questions.
Given that I'm not a lawyer though I'll just give my opinion (worth less than the original price of the song).
1) Unless it clearly states in the agreement made with apple, there is nothing preventing him from making this sale. He purchased the right to listen to that song in the specific format, it's his to dispose of as he chooses.
2) Making a sale for a profit in no way makes him a bad person (and he's claiming he'll be donating the money). I can't see how he could be legally required to pass this profit on to the original artist or to the supervising agency (in this case Apple who sold him the song).
3) The RIAA has nothing to do with this. As someone mentioned, they don't complain about the resale of CDs or DVDs (at this point) and there is no legal basis for them to in the future.
All and all I think this is an excellent way to bring attention to this issue. My only concern is that it will cloud the already muddy legal waters and make things more difficult for us lay folk to understand.
Cheers.
Will they try to bully Ebay into killing the auction? Will Ebay bow to them?
What about the possiblity that you may have already burned that song to a CD in your possession and then re-ripped it to MP3 or AAC format? Can we check the spy satillites and server logs as to what you have done?
...he can somehow legitimately make the AAC file work under someone else's iTunes, and he deletes his copy once they recieve their copy, he *should* be legal.
However, with no way to transfer the ownership keys (or however the pseudo-DRM is accomplished in iTunes), and no way to guarentee that he has deleted the copy on his end, I'm not so sure Apple's legal dept. is going to be very keen on this.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
"Software Update has found the following updates:
iTunes 4.0.2
Closes loophole in iTMS EULA which implies transferability of purchased music to a third party. It is recommended that all users of iTunes install this update."
Will ship to United States only.
Are there high email costs to other countries that make shipping too expensive?
So every song downloaded from online sales never deteriorates or dies off. I will only have to buy the White album one more time.... and then it will be in my family forever.... or until we sell it. this is truly like making your own money...
this sig is deprecated
The seller says ... and promises not to keep a copy once the sale is done.
Be aware of forgetting the melody immediately after sale.
Otherwise, the RIAA will sue you for keeping an unlicensed copy.
The high bid is currently $20.50. I'm sure that a few lawyers who want to get involved in the case will pump this bid sky high. It may be worth $20,000 to some lawyer trying to get famous. It's just speculation now, lets see what happens.
On the bottom of the eBay auction after the link was posted on /.
-----
How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?
It's HIS song. He purchased it.
Or... are they gonna get all technical on him, "Well, no, you purchased a license to download and listen to it."
Any fine print in those contracts?
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
Yeah! I'll just buy a ton of movies/cds, rip them to my hard drive, resell them (possibly breaking even), and "promise" not to keep them!
OK, as a windows/linux fanboy I will not be able to anything with the AAC file (or the iTunes account). I need mp3/ogg. What if after the completed sale I'd go on kazaa/gnutella/soulseek and download the file. I would not be stealing (as I have the song in my ownership), rather shortcutting the conversion step...
RIAA would surely sue and I would have to spend 1-2 years (and $$$) to defend it...
Code poet, espresso fiend, starter upper.
If he's proposing to make a copy, he probably requires explicit permission to do so under standard copyright law. I think it would be tough to argue that no copying is involved, even if he deletes it from his system later.
If you're going to argue it's a transfer of licence, you probably need some sort of permission for that, too. I don't know of any jurisdiction where copyright law explicitly allows this, or requires a specific exemption to make it against the rules. I'd be curious to know how this works if you sell on a CD or cassette holding copyright material; presumably there's some implicit permission to transfer granted when you buy it (or it's been technically illegal all the time, but no-one ever complained). Any IP lawyers out there?
At any rate, personally, I think this is just asking to be made an example by the RIAA, and could turn out to be a very expensive mistake. :-(
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
People. The point here is not the fact that a $0.99 song is being sold for $20. The point is can a person resell digital media he purchased?
I can see it now. Digital Media Garage Sale!
You know, I'm all for having the right to purchase a song online. I love digital music. I never listen to my physical CDs anymore, just the ripped versions I created.
... do we really want to turn them off of it now?
... if you're going to buy a digital recording online, do it from the source so that the artist gets their money AND it is made clear that online downloads are becoming more popular.
BUT...
* When you sell off a CD, you are selling a physical item and at least in theory that is some measure of protection against you keeping a copy after having sold it.
NOTE: This to me is an argument not for being able to sell "used" digital copies, but against being able to sell even used CDs anymore. When CDs came out the technology for consumers to digitally copy discs just wasn't there. Sort of like when the authors of the US Constitution were talking about firearms they were thinking muskets, not automatic rifles. The technology changed but no one realizes that the "rights" associated with them should also change.
* When you buy a CD or a digital song the artist gets some of that money. With digital copies the artist's percentage usually grows dramatically. When you resell that same item, the artist gets -nothing- out of the deal except for possibly a miniscule growth in fan base.
While the RIAA is a crappy organization, I believe they are going to go down just as inevitably all empires do. Let us not take the artists down with them.
Remember, you have rights to fair personal use, just like with software. But if you read the fine print selling that software "used" is often forbidden by the license terms. Perhaps artists and record companies will have to start defining similar terms. It certainly would not be hard at all to package digital records with a player, calling the whole package "software", the songs "content" and then being MUCH more restrictive on terms. Something like that will happen if people continue to try to erode the rights of the author and publisher. It is not all about consumer rights. Those publishers of digital music are trying to offer an alternative we've all been screaming for for years
Bottom line for me
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
He bought the right to listen to a particular song, thus he owns this right and can sell it as he chooses, as you can do with tapes, cds, and software. I would imagine any company trying to argue that users are prohibited from transferring ownership would have a tough sell to the public, its not like the guy is selling something dangerous, such as a gun, to a felon or minor.
Chris
Oh so deliciously to the EFF
Before I part with'em: two pennies weigh ~4.996+/-0.014g, have a zinc core, and the face of Lincoln. You can keep 'em.
Here is what eBay says about such sales:
Downloadable Media Policy
eBay prohibits the listing of items or products to be delivered electronically through the Internet.
Examples
A copy of a software program which the successful high bidder can download from your Web site
Music or video files that you will deliver through a peer to peer file-sharing community or network
A copy of a downloadable eBook
A secret URL address where the high bidder can download "freeware" or "shareware" software programs
Doesn't seem like this is okay with eBay.
Interesting concept, except, there is a big flaw in you experiment.You need either an iTunes or iPod to listen to any song from ITMS. Only way you can give this song to anyone that does not have either one of these is by burning a CD, which I dont think you are allowed to do.
That was one of the comments posted on the website. Does anybody know if the contract/agreement actually prevents you from making backups for personal use? Aah, I see it now, just struck me: you are allowed to make as many copies as you want (of CDs, tapes or any media for that matter) for PERSONAL use. BUT you cannot sell the backups. You could go ahead and sell the original, but then you would actually have to destroy all the backups.
In the iTunes case, the guy would have to devise some way of selling the original version (not the backups on secondary media), which would be accessible only through iTunes or iPod.
Though this is just an experiment to test the current copyright laws, just the fact that you would need iTunes or iPod to listen to the stuff would prevent it from being a commercially viable practice, which could harm iTunes and the like.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
The only thing in show business that's hollow is the music industry.
Mickey Rooney, 2F17: Radioactive Man
Satanists get good grades too...suspiciously good grades
eBay is going to notice this item in short order. First of all, a day into the auction, it had 4,000+ page views. That's going to show up in someone human beings log to take a look at. eBay, whether it's right or not, probably doesn't want to be involved in any legal problems and will likely remove it.
For example, buying and selling books about bondage is perfectly legal. I, in fact, sold SM101 on eBay. The auction completed successfully and the bidder paid. After the auction, eBay removed the item from their database. When I pressed them to tell me why, they claimed the item violated one of their policies that disallows the sale of items that depicts violence against women (or some such misunderstanding of the contents of the book). It was perfectly legal to sell and buy, but eBay really doesn't care. They want to provide a service without causing negative reactions from their customers.
No such restrictions, PIN-FUCKING-HEAD! Just give me my damn burger, and YES, I want fries with it. Now get back to your grill.
If reselling music like this goes without repercussion, it seems like it could be the foundation for a really nice peer-to-peer music swapping application. You make an initial investment for say 100 songs, then buy and sell songs from your library at a fixed fee of $1. So after the initial investment, it's zero-sum. I guess the DRM of it could be tricky though. It gets more fun+fast when you keep a cache of the songs you sell, transferring only the rights to play, so if you want to "repurchase" it again later, it's a really fast download. Anyway, just thinking out loud...
Obviously, you're going to want to keep your anti-virus package updated if you purchase used MP3s. (It's a good idea, anyway.) But, at least to me, it seems like the next logical step.
On a related note...
Of course, I wish that he had put in the auction description that all profits are being donated to the EFF. That kind of information (and the appropriate link) just might spread more awareness of the RIAA's tactics where it would do a great deal of good. Die-hard geeks and nerds already know what we're up against. The word needs to be spread to the Common (i.e. non-geek) Man.
Doing my level best to piss off the religious right wing...
for both Ebay and Apple. Suppose Ebay doesn't yank the sale before Apple (or the RIAA) complains - this will bring forth a large wave of people hoping to cash in on the $0.99 -> $20.00 profiteering. And you can bet your hairy hide that a healthy percentage of these folks will surely "delete" their MP3 off of their hard drives (and "of course" that MP3 was actually downloaded from Apple).
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
Apple provides no stated way of transferring the rights to a particular song from one account to another, but wouldn't it be great if they'd add this capability? People could buy you music as a gift, or whatever. It'll be interesting to see whether they'll allow a transfer if he calls them to request it.
The other possibility he's considering is transferring the entire account, including the rights to this song, which strikes me as being a rather different proposition. Does anyone know whether the EULA prohibits this? I can't seem to find it.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
The only thing close from Terms of Service:
You agree not to modify, rent, lease, loan, sell, distribute, or create derivative works based on the Service, in any manner, and you shall not exploit the Service in any unauthorized way whatsoever, including but not limited to, by trespass or burdening network capacity.
But that's only derivatives. The only mention close to this topic in the Terms of Sale is this:
All sales on the iTunes Music Store are governed by California law, without giving effect to its conflict of law provisions.
So there isn't anything specific about reselling it. However, if sold in the DRM version there's no guarantee the purchaser can unlock it, unless the seller shares his buying info and authorizes the other computer. Apple can probably enforce that - they are no obligation to authorize anyone other than the original purchaser. If he transfers it to CD or mp3 to sell/ship, then he probably would place himself in danger of prosecution as an unauthorized distributor of copyrighted work. {e.g. I probably can't take a CD, make a tape, and then sell that tape even if I then destroy the CD. - the physical equivalent of what he might try if the mp4 can't be transfered.)
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
The high bid is $37.00 at the time of this post, and there are
still 6 days and 8 hours left!.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
I'm at work right now and don't have any music CDs, but if you have one at hand pick it up and examine it carefully for statements prohibiting resale. I'm pretty sure I've seen resale prohibited in the copyright notices in the front pages of some books, in spite of the fact that used book and record stores are thriving.
Whether resale is legal or not, various people in the content industry definitely don't like it. They have whined repeatedly that secondhand book and record sales hurt them. Control over redistribution is one feature of Palladium that has them drooling. They also hate being challenged in public. My hunch is that the guy on EBay has opened the door to a world of pain.
I copied the iTunes User Agreement.
It's available in PDF and TXT for your enjoyment.
I haven't read it over yet... but I bet this guy is just asking for trouble.
Does right of first sale apply to other data "property?" For instance, could I sell my copy of an OS (*coughWinXPcough*) that came with hardware I purchased? Or have I simply bought a non-transferable license?
/.)
Has a court with some teeth (say, a Circuit Court) ruled on things like EULAs and ownership of software, or are corporations just attempting to set a common-law precedent and hoping nobody notices?
(Please don't tell me to Google for it--I'm at work and can barely get away with reading
-Carolyn
Like Daddy always said: if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit.
I couldn't even get through to read it man, thanks a bunch!
http://www.aplawrence.com/Bofcusm/2228.html
Here's one persons take on it...
It would seem this might open up another "Cringleyesque" loophole for a "file swapping service". You buy the rights to a song. When you are done playing it you sell it to some sucker. With the proceedes from the sale you buy another "used" song you would like to listen to. Rise and Repeat. Of course, you might ocassionally get stuck with a song nobody wants and have to buy in again. But, with a large enough pool of users, it will probably work out over the long run. To mitigate the risk you could buy several songs to begin with so that you always have a slot to place a new purchase in.
For everyone out there who's wondering, "Why would you pay $20 for this song...geez!!", let me explain why I just put in a bid at $37.00 (username of schnarff over on eBay, too, if anyone cares to check).
:-)
This auction isn't about just getting a song -- I own no Mac hardware/software, so even if I won the auction, I couldn't play the song. It's about, as the seller says, testing basic rights in the digital age -- whether the (relatively) undisputed right of people to sell used CDs, etc. still exists when dealing with electronic formats. I figure, the more people who bid on this thing, the greater the interest will be shown to be in retaining basic rights in relation to digital media.
Besides, I know I won't win with the attention Slashdot is throwing at this thing, so the money is meaningless. That, and I wouldn't mind sending a $37.00 donation to the EFF anyway, since that's what the seller is doing with the proceeds of the auction.
How To Get Humans To Mars
More likely the EFF will have to come save him when his proceeds don't nearly cover the legal bills associated with defending the lawsuit some scared industry association throws at him.
paintball
All maudlin stuff aside, I'm really concerned about the consequences for Apple here. At the least, the RIAA will demand that Apple rewrite their EULA to exclude transfer. At the most, iTunes Music Store will die a painful death. And in any case, this will help those who support stricter DRM: "See, look what happened when we gave the users too many rights?! We let them burn songs onto CD and share with their friends and that made them think they owned it. Looks like it's time for Windows Media Audio files which can only be played on one specific computer between the hours of 9AM and 5PM central time, and if you add RAM to your machine, you need to get a new authorization code by calling this 900 number."
Unless the RIAA turns around and says "Sure, you can sell it, just like you can sell a CD - we don't care" (and if you believe that, there's a bridge in New York I'd like to sell you), nothing good can possibly come out of this.
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
1. Buy song for 99 cent.
2. Post on ebay.
3. Media blitz (tell slashdot money is going to EFF).
4. ???
5. Profit!
In order for 5 to work, guess what he has to do in 4.
You can listen to a preview of "Double Dutch Bus" here legally, as long as the server lasts that is.
Personally, I don't think he should have done this until he had the resources to haul this to court and win. As it stands, Apple will probably change their TOS tonight to where you have to agree to not resale the music.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
If he was here right now? He'd make a plan and he'd follow through, that's what Brian Boitano'd do!
Why don't we each buy one song on iTunes, and then trade them to each other endlessly using P2P?
What if I buy a cassette of some album at a Thrift store, then is it legal for me to jump on Soul Seek and download it? Could I make a CD of the album and legally sell it with the cassette on ebay?
-Paul
Damn that's a lot of money on a $1 song. I'd be pissed if he weren't donating it to the FSF...
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
Upon attempting to open this file on a computer other than the buyers computer, you will be prompted for a user name and password. This is the user name and password of the iTunes music store account. So unless you change the format (which can be easily done with QuickTime 6 Pro, a $30 reg fee), you will have to give the buyer your account information. Which would allow them access to your acount info. Here is a link to the Terms of Service [apple.com] Here is a link to the Terms of Sale [apple.com] In the terms of sale, there is context which could be regarded as relevant.
I can go to a store, buy a CD, go home, burn it, then go and sell that CD. Yes, I made a copy, which I believe is legal to do at the time I owned the CD. No, I'm not going to destroy it once I sell the CD. Typically when you sell a CD back to a store or another individual, search warrants aren't exercised on your home to ensure you get rid of any copies.
I admit I have never used iTunes, and thus am not familiar with their policies, but it seems that an argument could be made for the case that one should be able to apply the same prinicples to their ownership of that MP3. So long as the transaction takes place in a 1 to 1 relationship, the owner of a legally purchased MP3 should be able to transfer said ownership to someone else without stressing about whether a copy exists. If the original owner starts selling the same song multiple times, then you have something to worry about.
Maybe the RIAA should try to create some P2P software that facilitates the transfer & sale of legal content between lawful owners instead of trying to extort $50,000 from single mothers of 14 year old kids.
Just my 2 cents.
What about the twinkie? - Dr. Peter Venkman, PHD
Woops sorry forgot to include this:
iTunes Music Store Terms of Service.
Terms of Sale.
Well, I bid over $250 - sure that my bid would stand for a while (the current bid at that point was around $80). That lasted for all of 2 minutes, maybe. No telling where this will end - I hope that current and future bidders are actually willing and able to back up their bids with money. I was :(
I think scalpers would try to argue the same thing. LOL.
The courts have decided that CDs are not products that one owns, but rather a convenient way for the industry to deliver music.
Despite that, the CD is a physical item and belongs to the purchaser, even if its cost was nominally zero and given away with the music. (That's not the case though, you're not sold a license to play the CD when you buy it, you are sold the CD itself, so this is hypothetical.)
And, that physical item can be sold, as a second-hand, used item, its musical or other content being irrelevant in that context.
What's so special aboot that? I've been selling downloaded CDs for ages... ;)
DRM is used to keep people from "abusing" the digital format and duplicating it all over the place, right? So you could argue that if DRM is there, it puts a set of rules in place, and if you're not breaking them, then it's okay.
Forget about what should or should not be legal. It's like the law -- how do you know if it's not okay to do something? It's against the law. Can I wear a fish on my head? Sure, it's not against the law. Can I shoot someone? No -- it's illegal.
By the same token: can I copy this file onto 4 computers? No, the DRM won't let you. Can I sell it to someone else? Well, if the DRM lets you, obviously it's okay.
c-hack.com |
But I wouldn't have really signed it. I would have merely clicked "I Agree". Of course, I guess "I Agree" already has some legal weight to back it up. Also, I think most TOSes say that "by clicking `I Agree'..." etc, but still. I always felt that, that might be one of the ways you could conetest a TOS or EULA in court.
Furry cows moo and decompress.
Apple Apologists argue that its the user's fault for not backing up the song immediately after downloading and that a hard crash is the same as having a CD scratched or stolen. While there are many steps a CD owner can take to prevent scratches and theft, there is very little an iTunes user can do to prevent a hard drive crash from occurring. Backups are important, but short of backing up every song the minute you download it, there is no way to prevent people from getting screwed.
This isn't off topic, I swear. A few people have pointed out that the DRM in the file should disallow it from being listened to on another computer, or something like that...
So a few questions about DRM:
I download a song that's DRM enabled. Will it limit itself to only play on my computer? On N computers? What if I want to listen to it at work, or a friend's house?
Does a DRM limited song have to be played with a specific player (Windows Media for exmaple)... or can I use Winamp, XMMS, or whatever? I would suppose that if winamp can use the codec, and the codec decodes the file... you're fine. (this would be the huge thing holding me back - i hate windows media player).
And just a thought... rather than identifying users by hardware ala Windows Activation, how about setting up an RSA service where users are given an encrypted key and that identifies them? Or how about a small bluetooth/USB/something keychain style device that identifies you. DRM could check with the device or the service to verify it's in the owner's hands rather than checking the system it's playing on.
no comment
$320.69 6 days 7 hours left ......
He's paying $20 for his 15 minutes of fame.
c-hack.com |
This song is going to make more money than the craptacular movie it came from!
There's a thriving market in rare LP's, 45's, and so forth, why not this?
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
I'd hope that he's started making contact with EFF by now. This is certainly something they'll want to be a part of.
Big Brother Bush is doubleplus ungood.
It's seems to me that the onus would be on Apple to allow selling "used" songs like this if the actual selling of this becomes legal. They'd need to probably have something that turns off the seller's access to the song, and then provides access to that song to the buyer. They could charge some fee to do this, like charge the buy 20 cents or something. But the RIAA will never let this happen.
Th
Well I have the deal of a lifetime for you all. I'm selling a baby seat for less than "a song"! In fact, where the bidding is now, you could buy 64 baby seats "for a song"!
DEAL OF A LIFE TIME!Well, guess that might change if I could get over 10000 page views. No I'm not trying to bring up the price of my baby seat (I'm sure it will get sniped at the last second for 5.01), I'm just showing how a little attention can really make things lop-sided. Enjoy the bidding...suckers!
GP.S. The numbers are sure to change with 6 days left. By that time you'll be able to buy lots of crap for a song!
I'm not gonna list all the MP3s i downloaded form Kazaa and don't listen to anymore on ebay. Insta$$.
Take look what happens when people in NYC want to resell the single rides from one-week-unlimited-ride subway cards (and MTA put a 15 minute limitation there, but it's still happening)
As of 3:36PM CST the song is going for $320.69....
Probably not serious bidders, though
One could purchase a song on iTunes, thus purchasing the right to own that song, then download an MP3 of that song from whatever P2P is the flavour of the week, then give this to the purchaser upon resale of that song?
Of course, legally if this is possible (which I believe it would be), he would be transferring ownership of the rights to that song making the iTunes copy he still has in his posession illegal.
(I.E.: It would deffinately NOT be legal to resell the song more than once, just as it would be illegal, technically, to purchase a CD, rip a copy, then sell the CD and continue using the ripped copy)
No Comment.
You must have not have bothered to look at the eBay item that was clearly listed in this story. If it was to sell now, he could buy 10 QuickTime 6 pro licenses.
C:\>
In order to sell IP (software/music/etc.) on eBay burned to CD-R or in a downloadable format, you MUST be the legal copyright owner of said intellectual property and state it in your auction. I ran into this problem before selling my own software without the notice and eBay pulled my auction.
Check eBay's policies... They are well within their rights to end this auction. eBay generally tries to stay away from legal gray areas. Things that are actually legal to sell, for example, unprogrammed DSS access cards and Xbox mod chips with the Cromwell Clean Linux BIOS are not allowed by eBay to be sold. eBay is just trying to cover their own ass.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
..wouldn't it be a way to "legitimize" file-sharing (Kazaa, etc)?
I mean couldn't one set-up a legal business where the primary service they offer is the selling of iTunes mp3s amongst users? In this way the transfer would be legal but it would be illegal if a person did not delete their copy of the file.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
OT- But look through the bidding history. when this got posted, it was about twenty dollars, now its up over three hundred. Guess not all of the slashdotters are out of work. :)
2: Sell $0.99 song on ebay for $330.69
3: PROFIT!
With all this bidding you're going to convince the RIAA that their music might actually be worth the ridiculous numbers they use in their court cases. Then when cost goes up, everyone who hasn't purchased the new CDs can be sued, because the decreased sales must mean that everyone is pirating! Whee, slippery slopes are fun! :)
I can't believe I read this. I could not stop, but I am sick now. Have to go get koolaid.
If any of you have membership cards to aquariums or museums, then you will know that those cards are NOT transferable. Is it the same case for mp3s? In this case where Apple is selling you the RIGHT to listen and not the actual intellectual property itself?
Suck on this, Hetfield.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
While there have been a lot of really interesting questions and commontary in this thread, my opinion is that Apple will simply ignore it.... for now.
Corporations are usually very good at picking their fights, and they certainly won't want to do that over a single $.99 song. Why risk it? What would Apple hope to gain? There is no reason not to simply wait - and make a point later, under different circumstances, when it makes sense for Apple.
I think the thinko that's being made here is that what you get is what you paid for. The reason is similar as for CDs: you pay for the medium (CD, file, ...) which contains the music, but that doesn't grant you any rights to the music itself.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Actually, because the iTS files have DRM, it ought to be possible for him to irrevokably transfer ownership. It might be awkward or even impossible with the current iTS DRM implementation, but it's really something that Apple should have considered, given that the issue occured to me within the first day that the iTunes Store was announced.
they have absolutely no credibility, no respect for real property rights, and should not under any circumstance be taken seriously. Real property rights are in physical things, not ideas and expressions. Intellectual property rights are an absurdity that do not flow naturally from the libertarian idea of property rights.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Did I hear you right, did I hear you saying that you wanna make a copy of an iTune without paying?!
Come on guys, you know it's not right - don't copy that iTune!
Some people think that by only purchasing used CD's, they are not supporting the RIAA. However, by creating a market for used CD's, full retail CD's become more valuable and this helps music companies' bottom lines.
If DRM can be made to easily co-exist with and encourage RoFS, then the perception of digital media files as a tangible good will improve, as well as the market value of digital media.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
From the Sales Agreement of iTunes:
... You shall be entitled to burn and export Products solely for personal, non-commercial use. ... The delivery of a Product does not transfer to you any commercial or promotional use rights in the Product.
CONTENT USAGE RULES
Your use of the Products is conditioned upon your prior acceptance of the terms of this Agreement.
You shall be authorized to use the Product only for personal, non-commercial use
Selling is commercial use. Selling for the purpose of attracting attention is promotional use. Sounds like this strikes out on both counts.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
I'm not sure those claims are compatible.
Here, at last, we have a major player offering a realistically-priced, legal, electronic means of distribution for music. This is something people have been crying out for since the Internet discovered file transfer, and something I'm sure many of us would want to encourage.
So this guy goes along, and turns it into one big test case. That might be beneficial if it works out, though it's not guaranteed. If it doesn't work out, he's potentially just shooting huge great holes into the embryonic legitimate electronic music distribution market. And looking at the track records, RIAA vs. small guy is a very one-sided legal battle.
To fight big test cases like this, the pro's set up zillions of minor precedents first to strengthen their argument, and they don't even look at the courtroom for the big case until they're pretty likely to win it. This guy seems to have none of that groundwork in place, and is basically flying blind.
This could be yet another case of a fool with noble intentions doing far more harm than good, which is not excellent at all.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
You can't sell anything on eBay if it comes on CD-R. They've worded their listing policy so that any CD-R with info on it is not allowed to be sold.
If it comes on another form of memory, I wish him luck.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
1. Buy a song from iTunes. /.
2. Post news about the sale of it on
3. ???
4. Profit!
If I buy a song for $.99 it seems like I could rent it out for about 10 cents a week. I could start a downloaded music rental company and be a dot-com gazillionare.
Simply put, this is one of the most idiotic things I have ever heard. I predict that Apple totally ignores this - and any/all other sales like it until a secondary market develops. Even then, I see Apple simply taking the position publicly that once it initially makes the sale, it has no further involvement with the process. I also predict an analogy to used record shops. By the way and for the record - I use Apple products in my home and work, but am not affiliated with it in any way.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
Plenty of interesting posts out there on the topic (DRM, Apple, eBay bashing excluded)..
But the point I think many are missing is that this is explicitly an Experiment to see where it goes. I have to admit, selling an iTune on eBay sounds like some sort of smart-assed reply on
and this guy is actually doing it !
(of course, all proceeds if any going to EFF). Kudos ! and kudos to timothy for posting it.
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
Contrary to popular myth amongst Mac fanboys, Apple uses the same standard IDE and SCSI drives that are in PC systems. Apple systems are no less vulnerable to hard drive crashes than PC systems.
Ok people, how many "real world" ie. non-altruistic individuals would still keep a "backup" copy of the song after selling it on Ebay?
This is what the industry is afraid of and rightly so. If we didn't have 4 million Kazaa users freely swapping commercial songs, then the industry might not be so paranoid.
I know it's really easy to argue that our civil liberties are being trampled and I agree they are. But how do we fix the illegal file swapping AND maintain our constitutional rights?
My cynical side tells me that the situation will continue to develop into an us and them cyberwar. The anonymity and convenience of the internet facilitiates this. A legal battle will only serve to draw the proverbial line in the sand but will not change the situation until the two sides come together.
Does anyone agree that if music was more readily accessible (ie. iTunes), then most of us wouldn't be tempted to go to Kazaa when we really want to simply purchase the song. We don't want to drive to the store or wait for an online order to be shipped and we don't want to buy a whole album of crap along with it.
In terms of transferring songs. I have gigabytes of ripped songs from my vast CD collect on my computer. I filled up one hard drive so I buy another larger one and just copy the mp3s over. I haven't stolen anything or given anything away. What's wrong with this? The industry would make it so difficult to do stuff like this if they could.
Ok, I'm done.
M
Wow -- that must be one great song. I hope Apple lets them sell it.
If I were buying it for $10k, I think there would be problems getting the song to play:
If we cannot get the song to play on your system, I will refund your purchase price.
Look at my journal for a story I submitted yesterday.
I was just a tad off.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Has the whole business of "you don't own this copy of software you just bought" been settled? I personally don't accept that bullshit that I didn't buy a copy of the software the same way I buy a book. It looked just like a sale to me when I gave my money at the register. I didn't sign anything.
Don't accept that your rights are lessened simply because someone asserts they are. Unless you signed something, and until a court rules otherwise, your software is yours. If you can figure out a way to get it to run without clicking "I agree" (do you have a 12 year old to install the software?) I recommend doing so.
Yeah. If he sells now, he is still a few thousand away from the $15,000 per song cost.
I have 3656.9 Bogomips. How many Bogomips do you have?
It's up to $9'700us. The question becomes: "How long before eBay closes the auction? There are a lot of new accounts which eBay won't take lightly as they were created just for this auction. And a lot of the people were bidding against themselves over & over again.
I had a subscription to Emusic.com. I have loads of MP3s I bought and downloaded. The songs are standard MP3s, no DRM. As far as I can tell, I own them just as much as I own CDs I've bought. A quick glance of their terms of use reveals no restrictions on buying and selling. I would think selling an Emusic MP3 would be much simpler, and avoid the issues of how to transfer an iTunes file and the problems associated with the DRM.
Who would have tought Devin Vasquez was so popular!?
:)
Now either someone mistyped a bid, or someone is philantropic here.
For the record, the bid is now at $9,700 and rising. It was at $360 not 10 minutes ago and $9,600 when I started this comment.
Go bidders!
Semantics is the gravity of abstraction
i was reading the ebay page for 4 minutes, when a friend IM'ed me and said, "hey, it's over $9000"
t em =2555673237
i said, "no way"
sho' nuff
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&i
must be a pretty good song...
Finally, at last we can fill in all of the steps.
1. Download song from Apple.
2. Post song to Ebay.
3. $9,699 profit!
Kind thoughts do not change the world
I think it's always been clear that virtual information, such as computer software, data and images that is copyrighted by an author is licensed to a user and not owned by a user. The only thing that you actually own is the media, case and physical stuff that came with the software, music or whatever. It would be completely legitimate for me to sell you a software package or vhs tape if I had erased or damaged the media so that the information could not be read. But when you are selling the data itself, you are bypassing the authors right to make money off the new person buying the used media who is also buying the data on it. However with online music, there is no media, just data. So I think that it's obviously illegal to sell that data to someone else, unless you have authorization to do so. Not that I agree with the way all that works, but that IS how it works.
until he gets sued for $30000 by the MPRA for using the Master of Disguise poster in his commercial advertisement.
Here's the thing. It's one thing when you walk into a store and buy a CD. The sale is about a physical object, NOT about a license.. as much as the record companies would have you believe otherwise. You are covered by copyright law, nothing more.
What about ITMS? Isn't there some kind of agreement? If not, just because you have the right to try to sell something doesn't oblige Apple to help you do it. If transfer of ownership is not possible in a technical way, that's not Apple's problem.
Then I guess you'll be pissed, because the money's going to the EFF, not the FSF.
:-)
D'oh. Well, to one of those charitable tech-y TLAs.
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
Last night a friend called me and said "listen to this song... can you download that song for me?"
"Sure," I replied, "but are you willing to pay one dollar for it?"
"Yes, absolutely, that's cheap." I bought the song on iTunes, put it on a CD for her, and walked it over to her house. In a strict legal sense, I probably just broke the law. However, I'm not planning on listening to the song (chick pop fluff... blech) so her copy will be the only one that is ever played.
The middle mind speaks!
Potential scam!! The seller only has 1 feedback and it's over 6 months old. It's only a A++++++++. I'd be careful of anyone who recieved less then 15 +'s in a single feedback comment. Buyer beware.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
The auction (last time I checked) was almost at $10k. If the high bidder has no intention of paying (0 feedback, obviously fake ID) then the seller will have to pay ebay fees of, what, 5%? That's going to end up being around $500. (Sure, you can file a non-paying bidder alert, but those are a pain).
Then again, maybe someone really does what to make a point? It would be cool if the proceeds were to be donated to the EFF...
"Teachers leave us kids alone
Since when do people *pay* for downloaded music? ;-)
When you buy the CD you make a legal high quality backup with a unique ID attached to each file. Then you send the physical media to a clearing house for storage and future handling. When you get ready to "sell" you CD you upload the MP'3 and destroy them on your computer.
The CD can now be "sold" and the buyer that takes legal title leaves the physical media at the clearing house and downloads the Uniquely identifiable Mp3.
Rinse and repeat.
It should be a subscription model with say $2 monthly fees to cover cost, and a deposit of say $30. The Deposit will be the "money" used for the transactions. Buy a "used" CD at a standard price of $10 or whatever and you deposit is now $20 and you have one named CD on your balance sheet.
The person that sells ses his Deposit going to $40. You could even pay Sales tax to strengthen your legal calim that this is a real sale.
Any takers?
Help fight continental drift.
Only Microsoft has ever sold a console below cost. Some companies have sold at-cost in the past, but never below cost. Look it up on Google; maybe a search query like "myth game console money cost below" or something.
A solution to the problem with music today
Bidding is up to $9,700.00. For that price it should come with a cluster of Apple G5's to play it on.
Unfortunately he can't do that. Ebay also forbids the sale of any CD-R or RW with information on it.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
What's to prevent this guy from buring his own mp3 of the song and then selling it? This same sort of thing has come up with selling software on eBay. How do you know the person didn't copy the sw before selling it? It will make policing that much more difficult, although I'd be the last to say that he doesn't have the right to sell it.
Vote for Pedro
Unfortunately, the auction will be taken down soon...
Consider the numerous instances where something is supplied for use on a single PC only (pretty much any "OEM" software, for example). I don't know of any test cases either way, but there's certainly historical precedent, if not legal, for the idea that you buy something at one price with the right to transfer it, and another (presumably cheaper) price without that right. There's a lot of merit to that position as well, as long as the consumer isn't misled during the purchase.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
The copyright law expressly addresses the issue of transmission of intellectual property. When this guy paid his .99 cents, I would bet he was not given a license to retransmit this song by any medium whatsoever, but was limited to personal use. The wierd thing about this is that if the song were downloaded to the man's computer, he could sell the computer, INCLUDING the song, and that would be legal, and he could make backup copies for himself. But it is not legal to distribute the song any other way.
IANAL
--Slashdot: News for Turds. Stuff that Splatters.
This is just full of gems. Truly a masterpiece.
the overall satisfaction could be measured by the equation S(x) = GAMMA(x) - 20x, where GAMMA is the standard gamma function.
broadcast TV is full of shitty reality shows and useless news like 'Madonna has baby' and 'Terrorists steal planes and hit stuff'.
I leapt out of bed, like a gay Batman impersonater on his way to Robin's Anal Virginity Party
It took me a second to realize that that was not in fact Ike come back from the dead weighing 200 pounds less and being three feet shorter, but instead some sort of child whose crack-addicted mother decided that dressing her daughter as an old man was a perfectely acceptable way to costume her for Halloween.
I realized what I had to do: dump her in the ocean. This was no easy feat, as I said I now lived in the Midwest.
Apparently, the same family whose daughter disappeared on Halloween night while trick or treating had their new flatscreen TV stolen.
In a few minutes, I was down at the hardware store buying that same fertilizer that Tim McVeigh used when he wanted to go blow up some other, non-Panasonic building.
Of interest, the auctioneer has a weblog: http://george.hotelling.net/ (not made a link so it wouldn't be slashdotted as quickly)
Now that the song is $9,700, I sure hope that the winning bidder actually plans to pay.
As it stands, the eBay fees are going to be $158.92, and it would stand to reason that the song will go for a lot more in the next 6 days. eBay's policy is that the seller pays them the fee whether or not the winning bidder pays (so if this song went for $100,000, georgeh734 would be screwed out of over $1,500 if the winning bidder didn't pay).
And the high bidder has a feedback rating of 0 right now; if I was the seller I would be sweating a little right now.
(And if he does pay--through PayPal--then georgeh734 will have to pay eBay even *more* money, but don't get me started on that issue)
Yeah, but I don't trust this $9,700 bidder. Its hard to imagine that someone who joined EBay on April Fool's day 2003 and has no history is reliable. He's probably assuming someone else will bid higher.
In fact, the last real bidder was macjedi. I wonder what his bid was.
This guy can contend his interpretation of the License all he wants, but my interpretation of :
from Terms of Serviceis that he can't sell a work from the Service (iTMS). Not to mention that any transfer via email, upload, etc, entail making a copy as you send it. Finding prohibition of copying ain't too hard.
You know what?
You sir are a vile troll, that knows eBay too well.
The legitamacy of this has been blown by these people who have signed up a fake ebay account to submit insanely high bids. Great. Another reasons humans should not be allowed to colonize other planets.
unless you own the copyright of the song (aka - you are the creator of said tune) or you have permission to resell/sell direct from said artist or music distribution company (whom no doubt owns the copyright).
.. hey, I bought this car. SO I DEMAND THAT YOU GIVE ME ALL THE MANUFACTURING PLANS AND RIGHTS to do whatever the fuck I want with your car, because I love it so much. If you said that to a car manufacturer, they'd laugh in your face and tell you to fuck off. It sucks, but that's the simple reality of the situation. In other words GET OFF YOUR HIGH HORSES, and stop trying to fuck with the music industry - or they'll(RIAA) continue to sue you and threaten you with legal action cos the rights you have, are bugger all.
is it really that difficult to understand?
Basically, if you're not the artist, or don't have direct permission from owner of said creative work - YOU - as a user, have BUGGER ALL Rights to that tune.
The only reason people are confused, is because music can be a very PERSONAL form of entertainment.
Thus, People get very personal and silly about the copy of the music/ that they "own".
All this MP3's malarky is like saying
I think it's always been clear that virtual information, such as computer software, data and images that is copyrighted by an author is licensed to a user and not owned by a user.
If you go down to the shop and buy a DVD, you own it. Just as you own your copy of the book you bought. However, the copyright to the movie or the book text is not owned by you. That is the way it always has been since the dawn of copyright.
However, now that data (the text) can be separated from the medium (the book), they are trying push legally dubious ToS or EULAs to fool people into thinking just as you do - that you do not own your own copy.
You own a copy of the data - you have every right to sell that copy, even if it is no longer confined to the pages of a book or the surface of a disc. However, you do *not* have the authority to make copies and sell them. Or to sell the original and keep a copy.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
You'll notice Ebay doesn't ever seem to stop sale of Diablo2 and other online virtual items that can only be "delivered electronically through the Internet". It's just there so when seller X doesn't deliver to buyer Y, Ebay can say "You're not suppose to be bidding on that type of thing and he wasn't suppose to be listing that type of thing so tough luck."
NOW UP TO: $9,700.00!!
Isn't he selling the right to play the song and not the bits on his computer? Shouldn't DRM have some type of transfer ability builtin to it?
For those of us not using ITunes could someone tell us what rights you are granted when you make a purchase? (What apple actually says...)
My Hello World is 512 bytes. But it's also a valid Fat12 boot sector, Fat12 file reader, and Pmode routine.
I haven't read the pertenant information, but I'll give you an opinion none the less.
haha
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
you didn't create the tune, theirfore you have NO rights to distribution, resell or otherwise. unless direct permission from the owner has been granted (or record label), and it's as simple as that.
Without that exception in the amendment, you could e.g. not sentence people to community service, or to participate in drug/abuse/alcohol program or basicly anything else but imprisonment. It's not as if the US doesn't manage to do enough of that anyway...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I thought when "buying" music, you are simply entering a contract that grants you a license to listen to the music, and that is what you are paying for. You don't own it, they still do, you just have a right to indefinitely listen to the song. With used CDs and the like, it may be considered what is being resold is the physical CDs themselves, not the contract between you and the music company. Meaning, a CD is both the sale of the medium (the CD, which becomes your property) and a contract which grants you the right to listen to the music. With a downloaded song, you don't get buy the medium, you simply pay for the contract, which can not be resold, since it is not "owned". Either way, it should be interesting to see how this turns out. Even more interesting, is the current high bid on the song, of 9700 dollars!
I don't get it. Why would people want to sell a song they downloaded?
::listens to Mandy Moore song just downloaded from iTMS::
Oh. Now I get it. ;)
9700 dollars as of this post.
I gues people really are pissed.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The artists, record companies, and/or Apple would be very foolish if they wanted to stop this practice. After all, someone who is familiar with mp3 technology is more than willing to pay for a tune. If you piss them off and not let them buy used music, where do you think they're gonna end up?
;)
Ever heard of P2P?
eTrade SUCKS
It seems to me that there may be a bit of a confusion that underlies this notion of selling the song. There is, for the purposes of the law, a difference between the physical object (i.e. the physical file) and the rights to the content of the file. Consider the case of an e-mail. If I send an e-mail to person X, then the physical object (i.e. the arrangement of 1s and 0s that make up the data), belongs to person X. HOWEVER, I still retain the rights to the content of the e-mail. This may sound curious and be news to many, but that is the way things work under the law. One consequence of this is that, without obtaining prior permission, the good old 'Forward' button in your favorite e-mail program is in fact a copyright violating device. In the case of the music file, it may be the case that the person who bought the file from iTunes has the right to sell the physical object, without being able to sell the right to the content of the file. So, I won't be bidding anything (and certainly not $20!) for an object I could own, but not use.
I feel compelled as an IP lawyer to say that almost everything that has been said in this thread is completely wrong as a matter of copyright and contract law.
While the first sale doctrine does apply to an outright sale of a product, almost certainly the download of a song from any online service is subject to a license that restricts the resale or transfer of the song. The transaction he engaged in therefore was not a sale, but a license.
Music stores could do the same thing, making you sign a license restricting your disposition of the CD before you leave the store. There would not be any copyright problems with such a license.
Please read my journal on why I love RIAA so much.
Well then why not use a DVD-R or RW or chop use ACE to split it into sections and put it on floppies.
Make it idiot-proof and someone will build a better idiot.
Most CDs have between 10 and 20 songs on them, and cost, surprise surprise, between 10 and 20 dollars.
Haven't used the service, have you? If the number of songs is greater than 10, the price stays a static $9.99 (with very minor exceptions; IE double discs).
Second, Apple gets 35% off the top of each sale. The rest goes to the RIAA, which it diffuses through its normal chain of profit sucking.
I couldn't find anything to support or refute this claim, so I could say the RIAA generously gives $1,000,000 for every $.99 sold on the iTMS and (while we both know THIS isn't true), it's got (as of now) the same supporting information as your FUD.
As for the last two points, well, there's your trade off for the $.99 versus $18.99 for a CD full of fluff. You don't like it? Don't use it.
50/50...that ain't bad. I guess what this says is that neither is really a replacement for the other, dunnit?
The one where the Declaration of Independence can still be read because it was written on hemp, or the one which outlawed hemp in 1937 because of lobbing efforts by Dupont and others that associated it with marijuana, when really they wanted to remove competition to their synthetic fibers? It is currently illegal to grow hemp because it can't be easily distinguished from marijuana during raids. William Randolph Hearst, newspaper owner and friend of the DuPonts, slanted the news in his papers (yellow journalsim) To quote Jack Herer, "in the 1920s and 1930s, Hearst's newspaper chain led to the deliberate..yellow journalism campaign to have marijuana outlawed. From 1916 to 1937, as an example, the story of a car accident in which a marijuana cigarette was found would dominate the headlines for weeks, while alcohol related car accidents (which outnumber hemp-related accidents by 1,000 to 1) made only back pages." (Source) {The "Drug War" part. This page correlates information I've found from other sources.}
Or more modern with the bills to fight P2P networks, if you want a digital equivalent. However, that's a recent example and the hemp one shows that this isn't a new phenomenon.
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
I would change the delivery system to ship a CD with the information needed to download the song or something like that. eBay policy forbids what he is doint as pointed out in another post here. Other then the delivery method I don't see how this is different. He is essentially transfering his legal right to hear a song via iTunes.
You can buy this song in many other formats like these so why not an iTunes song?
I had a collection of original CD's that was stolen from my car and I re-downloaded the music in MP3 format from some filetrading software (Kazaa, Gnutella etc). Is that legal?
At about 5:00, I called Apple, to get their opinion on this whole thing. They had no clue what's going on. What I did get from them was a number direct into their corporate headquarters (I had asked for PR or the legal dept.) This means we've got a prime opportunity to voice our opinions to Apple and hopefully sway them in a direction that will be favorable to all us /.ers.... Call them at 1(408) 996 1010 and simply wait for a rep or leave a message. Let's all urge Apple to support and embrace the resale of digital music. This could be a huge victory and give us ammuniton against the RIAA. Call Apple, tell them that they'd better not screw this up. Do the right thing, Apple.
Isn't it interesting how you come to recognize posters based solely on their sigs???
Several news sites have written articles on this, after the slashdot post. One even cites slashdot as the source.
o ry=main
Links:
http://www.neowin.net/comments.php?id=13369&categ
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/4439.cfm
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11358
Won't be long now before ebay pulls this auction. No money for EFF.
stuff
Speaking of record labels needing to get with it, I noticed this article in the Globe and Mail about Universal Music cutting CD prices.
Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
The top bidder is now "mtgocards," with a whopping $20,100.00! The buyer seems to have some good feedback, and in fact just recently received praises of "Excellent customer!!!!!! In my top 10!! A+++++" after purchasing 50,000 pieces of cut leather for $17.50.
Damn, that's a lot of cut leather.
[javac] 100 errors
I'm not convinced that this isn't a new variant of the Nigerian scam...
3. Transfer. You may not rent, lease, lend or sublicense the Apple Software. You may, however,
make a one-time permanent transfer of all of your license rights to the Apple Software to another
party, provided that: (a) the transfer must include all of the Apple Software, including all its
component parts, original media, printed materials and this License; (b) you do not retain any
copies of the Apple Software, full or partial, including copies stored on a computer or other
storage device; and (c) the party receiving the Apple Software reads and agrees to accept the
terms and conditions of this License.
Looks to me like he CAN in fact do this.
He says: Right now I've come up with a couple ways that the transfer of ownership could take place.
It's interesting that he's auctioning something before he's figured out how to "ship" it to the purchaser. Surely this is a violation of EBay's policies?
Isn't that why he posted it to Slashdot? I just assumed the main page was the EFF's other email box. They just keep complaining about all the MS/RIAA/SCO sucks spam it keeps getting.
paintball
Who the fuck gave this a +1 informative? Someone has apparently never heard of the right of first sale or even been to a used music store.
If I own a CD or a tape, I can sell it later. While I don't own the copyright to the music, that copy of the music is my property, and I have a legal right to sell it. This right has been upheld in US courts over and over again.
0 1 - just my two bits
I think if he buys the song then when he sells it he deletes his copy, This would be a fair use and trading. But if he downloads the song and sells many copies or keeps the original. Then that is moving into the range of illegal.
Remember, the iTunes files are in a DRM-enabled AAC format. In order to enable the purchaser to use the song, he'll have to "de-authorize" it from all his computers (and probably give up is user id/password, which the purchaser would change to prevent future access from the seller).
Imagine if I sold my Slashdot account on eBay, and gave the userid/passwd to the purchaser. There's no way I'd be able to sell it to anyone else, because I no longer have control of the account!
Even if he keeps the file, the file would be useless. He can't sell it to anyone else, and he can't listen to it anymore. That's exactly the point of the DRM technology, otherwise you could trade these files on P2P networks just like any other.
Certainly, the DRM can be circumvented (by burning to CD and re-encoding, for example), but that is not this guy's intentions - he's explicitly stated he will not transcode it.
I certainly hope he remebers to pay the capital gains on the song, otherwise it won't just be RIAA who is out to get him, but the IRS.
LetterRip
Curious George certainly could play the song after he sold it, just like I could drive a truck after I sell it. We're both breaking the law at that point.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
The last time I checked, the highest bid was $360. Thus, clearly, the song's real value is $360, and every time you buy a song for $1 from Apple's web site, the RIAA has just lost $359!
So that's how they manage to lose billions of dollars each year!
Snarkiness is inversely proportional to wisdom because it emphasizes feeling right rather than being right.
... cut a CD with the data on it, and then ship it! I would hope that the seller wouldn't charge any extra for shipping when the current bid is a ridiculous $760 (I really hope the EFF receives the cash)!
ok say he agrees to pass the information over the phone, by modem or whatever. The policy only says that as long as it is delivered over the internet it is prohibited. It does not say that you can not sell something that can be delivered over the internet, but someting to be delivered ...
No harm done no foul.
If the nice folks at etunes arange the transfer of acount over the phone, it would not violate this policy.
hmm...Ebay may however change its policy to avoid such headaches in the future.
20:00 GMT - $20
20:09 GMT - $20.50
20:16 GMT - $61
20:23 GMT - $275
20:28 GMT - $300
20:37 GMT - $321
20:45 GMT - $350
21:06 GMT - $9700
21:55 GMT - $20,100
(several cancellations)
22:00 GMT - $390
22:16 GMT - $760
22:27 GMT - $780
It is now 22:29 GMT on my watch.
Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
The whole concept of selling the song raises a question about the method of filesharing music over the internet. What if a p2p system prevented the owner from using the song at any time another user was listening to it, and only one user could listen to it at a time? I own hundreds of songs. As long as I have given up my rights to those songs while someone else is using them, would that be legal? (Not looking for legal advice, just conversation).
Non-Issue
Apple lets you burn to CDs as much as you want. Burn to CD and keep it safe. That is not the same as mere backup, since you can play the CD in iTunes.
Isn't this DRM-free as well? In that case, the guy can resell by burning the file to a CD.
Look at the history of retracted bids:
Look at those times bid for, and look how close they are cancelled... I smell trickainary. Sabotauge even..
SHENANIGANS!
THATS WHAT IT IS!
the price of ludes have plummetted!
pigs made a coke bust! prices skyrocket!
would you like to visit the loan shark?
If it was a half-way decent song, I might bid (though it's up to $780!) but a song from the soundtrack of the Master of Disguise? That movie SUCKED! Why do I want to buy that?
You can burn unlimited CDs. Burn one, which strips the DRM (I think) and delete your own copy. Sell the CD. No violation.
From what I've read about Apple's DRM scheme, it's not terribly locked in. I'd be interested in knowing if this works...
:)
:P
(I'm in Australia, RIAA can fuck off if they want to make something of it
1) Load up song in quicktime Player (Professional Edition) on Authorized Computer.
2) Export as MP3
3) Profit
If Ebay doesn't allow the File to be sent via
the Internet/email/P2P and doesn't allow for
software/music to be mailed on a CDR. Then he
can just UUENCODE it, print it and Mail it out..
If corse it would be a PITA to recomplie it into
something usefull.
I was watching the bidding - it went up to about $20k and then reset to $320. What's with that?
hey the guy trying to buy it for 9,700 wouldn't be a lawyer would he? From a test on ebay I bet you could make It a test in court. Law Suit selling on ebay only 9,700...
Whether its code that runs a pretty screen saver, powers your companies marketing, or bleeps out notes through your speakers, isn't it all the same? Could the recording studios sell a non-transferable license to the song, rather than a physical copy of the song itself? Or more likely, sell a license to use the song in a specific format on a specific media, in a specific country, for x uses, etc... I am not saying I like this, I am just wondering why it hasn't been done, or is it?
No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.
You know, I don't see things getting any better here...
One of many present-day complaints: "The RIAA rips us off at $16 per CD, so I'm going to download. When they change their distribution method and lower their prices, THEN I'll pay for music."
Some future date when the RIAA sells songs online: "Damn that RIAA...charging me $5 for something that's not even tangible! How DARE they?
I just don't see things changing.
Hmm.
"Apple Apologists argue that its the user's fault for not backing up the song immediately after downloading and that a hard crash is the same as having a CD scratched or stolen... Backups are important, but short of backing up every song the minute you download it, there is no way to prevent people from getting screwed."
"Non-Issue... Apple lets you burn to CDs as much as you want. Burn to CD and keep it safe. That is not the same as mere backup, since you can play the CD in iTunes."
Explain again how having to immediately burn a copy to physical media is not making a backup, or how that has anything to do with Apple not giving you back copies of songs they *know* you've bought.
This is a very important issue. I am glad to see someone willing to take it as far as possible.
When you buy a track with DRM what are you paying for?
iTMS gives you
The right to authorize playback on up to 3 Macs
The right to burn the music to standard audio CD
The right to copy the music to an authorized playback device (iPod)
Microsoft DRM thas a set of varying rights provided by the retailer.
x Number of playbacks on this pc
x Number of CD Burns
Ability to back up licence or not
Track playable for x amount of time
Can copy to DRM capable playback device or not.
At the most restrictive you could have a track that is only playable a single time on a single device and not transferable. MS just designed the system, so they claim that any rights you have are just between you and the retailer.
So with the iTunes system, you can authorise a Mac and deautorise it if you want to sell the computer. What happens if the hard disc crashes, or a powerbook gets stolen? You loose one of those autorizations. If that happens 3 times, you loose the right to play back the music you paid for forever? Ok so you can have backed it up to an audio cd, can you then rip the CD back onto a mac as an unprotected AAC, or is that in breach of the copyright?
If companies want to sell you something intangible that you have no right to copy or resell then they should have to provide you with a duplicate download forever. If you are only paying for a license then at least that license should last forever.
I remember watching a kids TV program where they had a record executive answering questions. One question the kids asked was "Why are CDs so expensive when they only cost £1 to produce?"
Of course the executive went on about artist development, recording studios, marketing, etc. So when you buy a CD you are paying for more than just a piece of plastic, you are paying for the money spent on the creation of the track and its presentation.
So what happens if your CD gets scratched? Are you expected to pay full price again? For the right to go on listening to stuff you already paid for the development of? There used to be a fair use right to make a backup, but these new copy protected CDs have put a stop to that.
You should be able to buy replacement media for no more than the cost of production + delivery.
When CDs were first sold they were presented as everlasting digital perfection. A lot of people bought CDs of records they already had on Vinyl to preserve their music collections forever. Its become clear that CDs are far from indestructable. Also the industry is trying to get people to upgrade again to DVD-Audio and SACD.
If I want to buy a SACD of a track that I bought on CD should I have to pay for the artistic development and recording studio time again? Or just the media + packaging and possibly remastering?
All this needs to be resolved and soon. Before the matter replicators arrive. You downloaded the pattern for a loaf of bread? You are only allowed to make one loaf and not keep a backup of the pattern. Any further copies of the bread require payment to the Grain Industry Association of America.
"Taligent is still pure vapor. Maybe they'll be the last who jumps up on Openstep... "
I'm sure they did. I remember hearing about at some point as a little kid. I don't remember how though. It may honestly have been the Tabloid TV show "A current Affair", but don't quote me. This all happened in grade school, and the RIAA lost. Why would CNN cover a decades old story?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
The agreement with Apple specifically allows exporting the Product, even though the Service is not offered outside the US, so you are not barred from selling to a non-US buyer.
The agreement restricts the ability to "modify, rent, lease, loan, sell, distribute, or create derivative works based on the Service". the Service is not the Product. The agreement does not prohibit these acts for the Product.
The distinction between the Product and the Service matters.
That reminds me: Does anyone have any idea where that crap started? And why it continues? I mean is everyone really getting orgasmically good experiences buying on eBay? Prompt communication, payment, shipping and acknowledgement is a proper sale. Simply not getting screwed shouldn't merit imaginary new high scores.
with 6days and 4+hours left...thats a nice return on investment...
the history of the world
Well, the draft is authorized by the orgional constitution (before any amendments). It would be intresting to see if the XIIIth invalidates that, but I suspect that issue has already been worked out in favor of the draft by the SC, seeing as we had a draft for several decades in the last centry...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I wonder how hard it is to 're-apply' DRM to these music files? It should be legal to transfer the DRM license after all, via the right of first sale. I could see a service, call it "aftertunes" or something where people can trade files legaly, for pay.
:P
That would be pretty sweet. If I had a mac and a couple hundred thousand in VC funding, I'd set it up
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
... Real Digital Currency.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Somehow I'm a bit suspicious of a huge bid by an account that has feedback of 0 though it has been around for a year. I suppose it could be an EFF lawyer who can write it off....? Or would there be a legal problem with that potentially being a shill? I wonder what will happen if the winner turns out to be a deadbeat? Perhaps he should have done this with a Buy-It-Now price of $10 or something just to get it over with before someone has the chance to mess it up.
Wouldn't be surprised if this makes it to TV news....
Double Dutch Bus is one helluva cool song- when done by Frankie Smith.
I fired up the ITMS to hear this version and I was glad it only lasted 30 seconds
Cursing in the French language is like wiping your ass with silk.
The draft "problem" is resolved by some clever hand waving: Title 10 U.S.C. 311 (google it yerself)
A simple explaination:
The problem: How do you create a conscript army if the presumption is that the citizens are sovereign, and therefore able to refuse?
The solution: you don't create an army, you simply call up the unorganized militia to active duty.
The unorganized militia is all folks between 17 and 44 who are not in the organized militia. You now have your conscripts, without bothering that whole "slavery" issue.
Q.E.D.
This brings up another interesting point. My dad owns the Blade Runner soundtrack on LP. Last night, I downloaded the mp3 and sent it to him. Obviously I'm not supposed to have it (I have since deleted said mp3), but is it illegal for him to have it? He should have the right to listen to the song, since he bought the record, and can legally rip it to mp3 for himself. (Is THAT even right?) So is obtaining a copy that he himself did not rip a violation? Assuming that transferring songs that you own from one format to another is legal (i.e. a tape of a CD for purely personal use), does the law say that you yourself have to transfer it, or can you get it from another source?
It's probably official at this point: a well-meaning experiment in property rights in the digital age has been ruined by idiots making fake bids. Predictably.
Technically there should not be a problem reselling it considering that the song was legally purchased. (I assume there is some kind of receipt one can print once a successful transaction is made? Pluss I don't recall any disclaimers saying not for resale either.)
However, the RIAA may need a thick dosage of thorazine and metamucil to cool their jets on this one.
!@#$% whole-grain cereal. When I want fiber, I eat some wicker furniture. - G. Carlin
then who's going to authorise the playing of all the downloaded songs?
Someone said it was up to over $20k - I looked and it was $16k, now it's around $3k. Check out the bid, retraction and cancellation history.
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
Like the rest of the world lately, it seems this bid is just out of control. Where's the fun in THAT?
:)
Now cancelled bids of sorts left and right. Down to ~$3.5K now. Get REAL already.
Before reading comments -- I read the article and dug around a bit. I figured bidding would be way over a buck. Maybe $30 or $40. Heck, I'd go as high as maybe $50, just for the bragging rights.
I sure hope whoever has the final bid -- It's over three grand (!) for christs sake -- either wants to pay or gets screwed (sued) into paying. Schmuck bidders. No fun.
When he transfers the rights of this song to its new owner, all of the rest of his music will be deauthorized, a la the DRM restrictions. Unless, of course, Double Dutch Bus is the only mp4 in his library.
whatever else happens, he's got a fabulous write-off coming.
As I write this on Weds night, the bidding is up to ~$14,000, and nearly certain to go higher. Even if he's true to his word and donates it, that's a pretty nice deduction. And the best part is--even if he never sees the money, he still gets the write-off; it just becomes a bad debt instead of a charitable contribution.
Damn, I wish I'd thought of it!
And it says, give me money instead of some other guy!
Take a look at the bottom of the bid history page... The seller seems to have been taking an active role and cancelling obvious fakes.
So you're saying that software differs from conentional media in that the "installation" process is in effect "making a copy". Therefore, to install the file one must make a copy.
Therefore, if I download music, and then give that music to someone else, whether or not I have deleted the original, I have made an unauthorized copy.
But how about this work-around: What if I download directly to some removable media? Then would re-sale of that media be legal?
And if re-sale of recordable media becomes legalized, we're going to see a whole lot of CD-R's being sold on eBay with claims that they are legitimate "directly-downloaded-to-CD" recordings.
Oh this is going to be messy...
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Wow, I just found out that the seller is from Ann Arbor according to eBay. Another University of Michigan student trying to start something up? I wonder if you are in the law school there?
The absolutely best investment any tenant can make is to buy a book on tenant rights, no matter where you live. Check every year for new editions, can't hurt.
In California, the landlord can only charge for cleaning beyond normal wear and tear. There can be no cleaning fees if you have been there more than a year, unless you parked your Harley on the carpet and it dripped oil, or you practiced sladgehammer martial arts on the walls. I had a lease, lived in a place 4 years, the agency tried to deduct $125 for cleaning because the lease said it had to be cleaned professionally. Uh uh, no no, not legal, even if it wasn't called an explicit cleaning fee, they got zapped in small claims court. In California, at least then, you could also ask for up to $600 in extra fines, I forget the legal name for them. Plus, a conviction (not a settlement) is a blot on their record, which they are terrified of.
Get that tenant rights book! Look up, for example, how to bill for repairs the landlord won't make. Lots of surprises for most people.
Infuriate left and right
I specificly remember the news clips of garth BBQing used copys of his own CDs on a grill, in some kind of press stunt. Of course, I can think of no better fate than fire for clensing the world of garth brooks (or metallica, for that matter), but that's another story.
Too bad Napster hired that hack Boies, who wound up getting assraped by lars, instead of whoever the used-CD industry hired to bitchslap garth.
cya,
john
Imagine all the people...
And this is going unnoticed? The auction page is getting hammered by the slashdot crowd, and fark will probably link to it soon. The price is up in the thousands of dollars for something that was bought for $1. I think ebay has probably noticed; they're just deciding what to do about it at this point.
You buy a license to use it.
You can also buy a CD, but that's just the physical medium.
Technically, they should let me download any song for which I purchased a CD for free, but...
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
Right of First Sale or no, this is the Achilles Heel of paid downloadable music. You don't eliminate the hemorrhage of illegally distributed digital copies.
Joe Music Lover pays 99 cents for his song. Great! Then Joe Music Lover puts it up on his favorite peer network. Back to square one.
As long as someone wants something for nothing, all this is moot.
Derek
holy crap!!...why didn't I think of this?
Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. --Aaron Levenstein
For those of you asking, here's Apple's Terms of Service and Terms of Sale.
Enjoy.
You like your new Mac more than you like me, don't you, Dave? Dave? I asked...She said Yes.
When they say resale for commercial purpose means, that you can't resell to be used for rental or public display. I don't believe that they mean (or can be allowed) to restrict the DVDs/CDs to another private party.
Fight Spammers!
...which is why I posted this late at night. But this guy submitted the story to MacSlash himself, and it provides a few more details, including a link to his blog, with updates and much more info than you'll find in the squabbling going on in these comments...
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
This is probably more than what small artists under RIAA labels make from an entire album. ;)
Speaking at Defcon 12 - Credit Card Networks Revisted: Pen
This guy is selling the set of bits that Apple sold him. The problem is that those bits are combined with a service from Apple that makes them into something more than just bits.
It is like the (evil) Dish Network people and their receivers. Lets say I decide to quit using my equipment. I can sell the equipment, but not the agreement between Dish and I with regard to service needed to make good use of it.
The new owner of the equipment simply has the box, but needs to work with Dish in order to make it into something more than just an old box.
The iTunes service works the same way. If somebody actually pays the high bid in this auction, they are going to get a set of bits they cannot really use without a little help from Apple.
Since they have no agreement with Apple, they are going to need to enter into one. This will cost something of course, the price being about 0.99...
So, even though the owner of the bits has the right of first sale on the bits he purchased from Apple, selling them really is a waste of time.
What he should do is try and sell the iTunes account itself. That targets the Apple agreement in a more direct way that could actually result in something of value being transferred to the seller.
Blogging because I can...
This is exactly why i'll never sign up for some DRM protected online music/video/whatever system. If I buy something, I feel it is my right to do whatever the fuck I then want with it, even if it's illegal. What other industry has this sort of control over the product you've purchased post sale? I can't think of any.
If i go and buy a screwdriver, i'm sure that i can take it to my friend's house and use it to screw together a cupboard. I'm sure i can also take said screwdriver and stab a hobo to death with it. Can you imagine living in a world where your screwdriver automatically self-destructed when you stuck it in to a hobo? Or that the hobo would somehow magically not die from being stabbed by it? Just because something is digital does not mean it should be protected as such. The governments of the world should put a stop to this fucking nonsense before it gets totally out of hand. I *PAID* for my right to stab a hobo, and by christ that's what i'm going to get.
Until I can pay to download content that is DRM free, i'll continue to do what i've done for years now - download off of p2p, and if i like the album, i'll buy the vinyl direct from the artist.
Perhaps the answer to the problem of teenagers dropping bricks from motorway and railway bridges is to sue Tetris.
If he has a small obsolete harddrive he can mail it that way. That is also a 100% sure way to get around any DRM and sell the buyer a 100% functional product.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
copy != move
move == copy + delete
copy == copy
move == move
teleporting = copy + suicide = move
My english is crap.
-Woof woof woof!
Brilliant idea! This shows how difficult and funny digital rights management can and will be. Any DRM-solution governments (and other organizations) come up wuth, will need to stand this kind of test: does it allow people to do stuff like this without making it really complicated.
Very sad, the current bid is US $16,600.00. That is, it won't draw any attention to the DRM problem, but rather end as just-another-silly-ebay-auction (like "half-eaten burgers" or "the german language").
awesome? will anyone pay this amount?
seeing that the companies composing the supporters of the RIAA go absolutely wild every time there's a new way of distributing music differntly than how they want it done. I'm a little concerned that the sites I've been using to legally purchase music online will lose support from the music firms now that this is an issue.
thanks for messing it up for the rest of us. I thought that $.99 was a reasonable price for a song. Now I'll probably have to switch back to pirating.
It is now going for $100 000. My god.
Could this song be sold at Christie's auction house at a later date as "The first downloadable digital media sold on Ebay and start of the great DRM right of sale debate."?
Deltron 3030 - Virus (music video)
What if an iTunes proxy existed? Then he could sell the original iTunes file, deletes it from his system, setup an iTunes proxy to allow the winning bidder to connect to his system and request the song as if the original purchaser would but it is only heard on the winning bidder's system.
It seems to me that this should be a legal way to sell/tranfer the file and allow it use. Granted it would be great big hassle and not very practicle.
The "I bot it so I kan sell it!" argument does not always apply.
Q: Can I sell my ticket?
A: No, tickets are not transferable, FAA security regulations require that the person named on the ticket be the person who flies. FAA regulations also require that every passenger present proper identification prior to boarding.
Q: Can I sell my AAdvantage miles or certificates claimed with AAdvantage miles?
A: No. AAdvantage program rules provide that at no time may AAdvantage mileage credit, award certificates or award tickets be sold, purchased or bartered. Mileage credit, certificates or tickets are void if transferred for cash or other consideration.
Q: Can I sell vouchers and coupons?
A: No. Vouchers and coupons result from an agreement between American Airlines and the original ticket holder. The agreement between American Airlines and the original holder specifies that they are void if sold, purchased or bartered for cash or other consideration.
Should someone show up to my office, I'm required by EMTALA to see them. It is a crime not to. I do not get paid for this.
The federal government forces me to work for no pay. That's slavery, folks.
You are a moron.
The EMTALA ONLY, and I really mean ONLY, applies if YOUR hospital has deliberately CHOSEN to TAKE MONEY to participate in such a scheme.
Hopitals are GIVEN MONEY if they CHOOSE to participate, they DO NOT have to participate if they do not want to.
I'm not American and I don't work in a medical facility (nor am I in the legal profession) and if I know that, you should are hell should.
When large systems like this are disassembled, what happens to the people and the minds which created this. I'd like to see a database of all the current people who run the RIAA, MPAA, Bush cabinet members, Microsoft Employees, SCO employees, spammers.. and anyone else who is engaged in the practice of slavery, whether they are the 'just following orders' or not. I consider them war criminals and enemies of humanity. I just think it would be a good idea to keep watch of their activities in the future. These people are good study cases to build a Center for Social Disease Control.
This is insane. Why would anyone spend this much on a frikin song? Obviously no one is taking this auction seriously.
Checking the comments on the auction page, it clearly states that it will not be "delivered electronically through the Internet". The next comment makes it clear that eBay's guidelines prohibit the sale of data on recordable media.
How in the world is the current song owner going to deliver the song to the auction winner? Someone suggested floppy disks or on a hard drive, but those are both "sale of data on recordable media" so that's out. Someone else said that he will put the song on a server and send a login name & password, but that's in violation of the "internet download" part.
The only thing I can think of is a letter that gives the auction winner the license rights to download it again from the Apple iTunes website, since the download would not involve the previous owner, who only sent the license via snail mail.
pot.kettle(black);
Invalid Item
The item you requested ( 2555673237 ) is invalid, still pending, or no longer in our database. Please check the number and try again. If this message persists, the item has either not started and is not yet available for viewing, or has expired and is no longer available.
Well, at noon pst or something the auction now returns "invalid item" I don't know if this is because the auction was pulled (must likely) or if it ended normally. One thing I did get to see was that the final price was for $16,000. Unfortunately, if it was pulled, I don't see how this guy is going to be able to keep bringing attention to himself and his cause.
Only dead fish swim with the stream...
As of a few minutes ago, ebay's site says "the item you requested ( 2555673237 ) is invalid, still pending, or no longer in our database."
But never fear, there's another auction for an iTunes song. For the moment I'm the highest bidder (at 69 cents) for Bittersweet Sypmhony by the Verve.
You write your nine symphonies, then you die.
The item appears to be gone from eBay. I hope the eBay poster learned of the Slashdot interest and will tell us what happened. It is pretty easy to imagine....
As of 1:10pm MST, the item was pulled by eBay.
I wonder whether eBay was pressured, or ???
I don't know about any of that crap. Their website is "buymusic.com", not "sublicensemusic.com". I bought my track in DRM-crippled 128 kbps WMA, opened it with QCD, and then saved it as an OGG file and added it to my collection and threw out the WMA file.
MORTAR COMBAT!
NOW THIS IS WHAT I CALL ART!
Go check out the auction again. It has been removed.
If we assume that we paid 15 dollars for 10 tracks (average), for a total playing time of 60 minutes. Then each track costs $1.5, it will take 150 times to listen to it to make it worth a penny per listening (in its lifetime).
That means that I am playing the album 150 times (150 hrs). Assume I listen to music for 7.5 hrs a day (a very high estimate for most people, but let us err on this side), so it will take 20 days of continuously playing one album to make it worth "a penny per song".
We keep buying records, some we like, some we don't, some we listen to, some we almost never play. To simplify the argument we can assume we never listen to an album again once he have bought another one.
At the end, you will need to buy, on the average, AT MOST 1 album every 20 days, listening to music on the average 7.5 hrs per day, to make every track you own, on the average, worth a penny per time it is played (20 albums per month, more less).
The reality is we pay way more than one penny per song. Long time ago I made an experiment, and recorded the number of times I listened to every album I had. It was depressing to see how much I was paying per track.
I found this: (maybe redundant, I did not check)
[Update 09-04-2003 2:52 PM]:
h tml
Dear George Hotelling (me@mydomain.tld)
**PLEASE READ THIS IMPORTANT EMAIL REGARDING YOUR LISTING(S)**
We would like to let you know that we removed your listing(s):
2555673237 Double Dutch Bus by Devin Vasquez
for violating our Downloadable Media Policy. Please read our Downloadable Media Policy here:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/downloadable.
We have credited any associated fees to your account. We have also notified the bidders that the listing(s) was removed, and that they are not obligated to complete the transaction.
If you relist this item, or any other item that violates eBay policy, your account could be suspended.
If you believe your listing was removed in error, please let us know by replying
to this email with supporting information.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Respectfully,
Customer Support (Trust and Safety Department)
Ebay Inc.
===========
It's still going on with more information there
[Update 09-04-2003 2:52 PM]:
e .h tml
Dear George Hotelling (me@mydomain.tld)
**PLEASE READ THIS IMPORTANT EMAIL REGARDING YOUR LISTING(S)**
We would like to let you know that we removed your listing(s):
2555673237 Double Dutch Bus by Devin Vasquez
for violating our Downloadable Media Policy. Please read our Downloadable Media Policy here:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/downloadabl
We have credited any associated fees to your account. We have also notified the bidders that the listing(s) was removed, and that they are not obligated to complete the transaction.
If you relist this item, or any other item that violates eBay policy, your account could be suspended.
If you believe your listing was removed in error, please let us know by replying
to this email with supporting information.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Respectfully,
Customer Support (Trust and Safety Department)
Ebay Inc.
Most of the posters have missed the critical point of the property rights in this work. These issues are fairly easy to resolve:
1) Does US statute directly prohibit this action? (probably not, as at least some elements are with Apple's complicity)
2) Does Apple's EULA prohibit this action? (almost certainly)
3) Does US statute render the relevant portions of Apple's EULA void? (very doubtful, my rudimentary understanding of the 'first sale' principle is that it is a right associated with intellectual property IF not limited by a license agreement)
George therefore almost certainly has a binding contract with Apple. The issue is what is the relationship between Apple and George's buyer? Apple's EULA is worth nothing. George's buyer signed no contract with Apple. Does US STATUTE prevent George's *buyer* from distributing this work as he wishes?
Could one, in theory, incorporate a company called, say "she-bay", erase these 'rights' and avoid all personal liability?