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Apple Responds To iTunes "First Sale" Question
atallah writes "It looks like Apple has come out and explained its position on resale of songs. It is interesting that they didn't flat-out reject the idea.
Check out this Business Week article."
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Legal considerations are beside the point; it is very near impossible at this time to sell an iTunes song without also selling your Mac...and your credit card. There's always ripping from a CD burn, but at that point it isn't an iTunes song, it's a below-quality CD rip.
that's because apple wanted to see what they could *really* charge for online music
Apple comes out looking like they (a) understand copyright restrictions and took that into account already, and (b) still don't want to be the RIAA and crack down on this sort of thing. This is called "design". They made it difficult enough to sell iTunes songs that they don't need to worry about reselling, even if it is legal. That said, someone's going to find a way around it eventually, if current trends hold.
This is my sig. There are many others like it, but this one is mine.
They keep saying it's impractical to sell the songs...well, how about trading songs with other iTunes users? I'm sure there is some right somewhere where you can give stuff away that you bought a copy of. (Basically sell it for $0). So...the real question is...why can't i just forward my legally purchased songs to Jim Bob the same way i could hand him my physical CD.
In stores which buy my used cds, they offer me a fraction of the price for the cd. If I payed $12, then they offer me $4. Why cant I do the same with the music I buy from Apple? Sell 10 tunes for $5? Especially if they sucked.
Notice how cleverly Apple sneaks in how it will not assist in transferring the song's ownership.
Thus, it neatly avoids entangling itself in the 'first sale' right issue by making it entirely an issue of 'practicality'; without offering a mechanism to transfer the Apple ID, Apple locks you into ownership.
-Alex
Economically, I don't believe there is going to be much of a market for resold music...We just don't see it as that much of an issue
Wrong! Many many people will buy mp3s if its only 10 cents an mp3 and they would not mind a "used copy". Someone reselling can put the price so low if he has rights to the song after he is done listening to it.
New year Resolution: Don't change sig this year
They would have to have something set up that can operate outside of iTunes to handle the transfer of ownership over these files. Maybe they should start to ship licenses on demand for individual files. Nothing huge, just business-card sized licenses to prove ownership.
Why yes I am paranoid! Thanks for asking!
Apple says it's impractical because a song is $.99. However, what happens in a few years when someone has 100 songs that they no longer listen too. Wouldn't it be practical to sell that lot of 100 songs for $50?
we don't approve!
The Kingdom of Retarsia
So basically Apple has said that it may or may not be legal to resell a song, but it would be technically difficult to do so, and it only cost 99 cents in the first place so why would you want to? Thanks for not answering the question! Maybe I do want to resell a song. Maybe I want to sell my entire iTunes music collection. Maybe I'm clever enough to overcome the technical difficulties. Would it be legal or wouldn't it? And if Apple established that it was, wouldn't I feel better about buying from the iTunes music store?
Deny everything. Apple has put their fingers in their ears and are sitting in the corner singing "la la la I can't hear you". Technically they are probably right, this is not very practical - but the legal validity of such a sale still needs clarifying as it has ramifications for other applications of copyright law to digital (by which the lawyers seem to mean "downloaded"[0]) content.
[0] They don't (yet) seem to claim this legal dilemma would apply if the music was on a CD, only if it's downloaded... This, to me, seems nuts - why does the medium in which you obtained the content make a difference?
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
First of all the whole idea of selling songs on the digital media is bad atleast until all the DMCA act and all others like it get really tested and amended to remove some that silliness that they have incorporated. Second like any other online sale digital music should also be allowed to be sold just like any other piece of junk music we buy. Until them paying a $ for each crappy song is still too much. besides the artists get few cents. Scew RIAA and the DMCA . Boycott CDS for a while which would force them to come with a better business model.
Technical issues could be overcome with an addition to the Apple Music Store authorization system that let you give your song to someone else, deauthorizing you in the process. No major technical difficulties there. The real problem comes in verification that you have not made copies for yourself. If you have, then the "re-sale" is simply a fraud. The only way they could do this is have every computer that is authorized on the account report back whenever the song is burnt to a musics CD - it would be worthless as a data file (unless you manually drop it on your iPod...), only allowing you to sell songs you have never duplicated. However, I don't think Apple wants to keep track of everyone's CD burning, and people are just as unlikely to be interested in the prospect.
Of couse, you could get around this by using a program that grabs the audio stream during playback and acheive the same end result.
I understand Apple's position. Even if it isn't the greatest solution, they have stated that they believe in the "first sale" right, even though it isn't practical to implement. Their stance can be noted when the time comes that support for those rights is needed.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
They seem to be handling this pretty responsibly. Most companies (and people as well) will go on the attack when this sort of thing happens. The MMORPG companies have been particularly mean about this sort of stuff when they probably could have done things in a much more responsible way. I'm really not a fan of Apple, but it's nice to see that somebody keeps doing things right when everyone else seems to be sueing, legislating, lying, bribing, bombing, terrorizing, and so on.
-dbc
Translation: We will make full effort to sue our way into the marketplace if we are wrong. --SCO
Since no music can ever become out of print or rare at iTunes, that removes another incentive to buy "used" songs. People would have to sell them for less than 0.99 to make others interested and to compensate them the complexity of buying the song on eBay instead of the convenience of iTunes. That would make sense with large collections and, I believe that once this will really become important for iTunes customers, Apple will do something. After all, lack of a resell market for digital songs would somewhat limit their value and make people hesitant to spend money on them.
But in any case, iTunes is a doomed venture. Unrestricted MP3s/OGGs are the way to go. Eventually it will become obvious, although Apple might get a fair profit alongway.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Serious collectors frequent estate sales. They're good places to find collections which are of no interest to the survivors of the deceased. Books and music are often overlooked.
The Apple spokesman dismissed the resale potential of a 99 cent download. He overlooked the value of a 1000 song collection, where transfering the license keys would be well worth the effort.
So if I'm allowed to do that, I can hand over the portable copy that I was allowed to make by law (along with the player) to the buyer, as long as I destroy all other copies I made.
I don't see the technical problems behind selling a song, unless they take away my right to create copies/backups for personal use, to play where/how I want to. If they do allow me to do that, I don't see why I would need to hand over my account details to the buyer.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Is this really something that apple will be able to totally control? Maybe the artist's whose music is being sold at apple's site wouldn't want their music continually being exchanged. I don't know much about copyright laws, but does the artist have any sway (besides somehow not letting apple sell their music) in the final distribution of their IP?
This includes digital media.
So its not technically feasible? People may have said that about DRM a few years ago. If its not technically feasible at the moment get your smart guys together, get the thinking caps on, and make it so.
Heck, if you want, charge 5 or 10 cents per song for the added feature.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
It needs clarifying, perhaps.. but it's not Apple's problem to clarify. As far as they are concerned, their business was delivering that file to you, in the format they designed. Everyone is expecting apple to do something wrong here.. but they haven't yet. If it's inconvenient for you to sell that file to someone else.. it's not their problem.
It's hard and impractical to resell individual songs that we never envisioned needing the extra clause in the TOS. Please mull over how to transfer your songs while we add the clause.
Thank you,
Apple
They would create an ebay like system directly in iTunes that would allow me to sell my music to other people. Both music I created and music I've purchased from itms. They provide the audience, I provide the bandwidth and content, Apple would get a cut which would go towards paying the artists and record label if one were involved. The rest goes to me, and lets say for each sale of an individual song the overhead of label costs would decrease for each time the song is sold. Obviously the centralized listing of sellers would have to be seperate from itms, but I think it could work. Think napster with a twist.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
(40gigs / 5mb a song * $.99 a song) + $500.00 ipod = ~$8,500.00
No. No, it isn't interesting. What's interesting is that press-releases like this, manage to say absolutely nothing, and it's just accepted that press releases are pointless these days...
If you aren't going to say anything, don't say anything. Don't avoid the issue with major abiguities, and pointless jabber.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I'm just going to sit here with a cold one and let all the armchair lawyers hash it out. Game on. -M
today is spelling optional day.
just plug a short cable from the speaker port of ur computer into line in... viola copy protection broken. sure the quality isnt perfect... but if u want that then go code something to hack the music out of the file. never tried this but its gotta be possible...
One problem with geeks is they read, but don't understand.
What Apple is saying is "we don't want to get into that."
The reason Apple is saying that should be obvious to anyone who bothers to think about it. For those of you that don't, the reason is this:
They want to sell you music.
In the legal system, there are fictions that are there so things can get done.
In technical terms, there are hacks in place that everyone knows are skanky, but nobody wants to look to closely at them because they make stuff work. The technical equivalents are things like DNS, SMTP, etc. They suck, but what can you do?
In the same vein, Apple wants to keep selling music. It does this by playing both sides of the fence - negotiating licenses with publishers, and allowing loose licensing by the users.
As long as nobody looks too closely, well, everything's OK.
Users can do whatever the hell they want, but Apple has to play a game, and play it well.
Its called the PC users market. Frankly, I'm surprised that an astute entrepenuer hasn't set themselves up with a iTunes account, and resold music to PC users at a slightly marked up price. Since PC users don't have any truly competitive program, this entrepenuer could make a killing.
one has the right to reverse engineer in order to exercise his right to the material.
Therefore, while you may not reverse engineer Apple's format for the sake of generating high-quality mp3 rips, you may reverse engineer it for the purpose of selling your music or playing it on a better OS.
Apple is not as moronic as the RIAA, MPAA, and SCO. They won't jump to piss off customers and/or die in a blaze of bitching glory. That said, they are still as business that will break the law or piss off customers if they think it serves their purposes.
disclaimer: I am neither stating nor implying that the DMCA is anything other than a pile of dog crap smearing the constitution.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
You see when the trustee sells something back to the bankrupt person it has still been legally sold, with the estate of the person the benifitee. Bankruptcy or deceased person's estate, either one can settle this legally. All it will take is one person who lists that they bought 5000 of these things, and for the trustee to demand payment. This is where people should watch for first sale doctrine to be fought. Hint, you'll need to root for the trustee. Kee[ in mind that trustees can sell things that could not easily or otherwise be sold.
That's one of the key features of iTunes music store, you don't necessarily have to buy -anything- that sucks. If you did, well... you had a chance to sample it.
Giving a listener a 30 second segemnt of a 6 minute long song is like offering an elephant for sale to a blind man, but handing him the trunk for evaluation. The blind man isn't going to be very happy when he gets his new python home only to find out that it is somewhat different than he expected.
"Economically, I don't believe there is going to be much of a market for resold music...We just don't see it as that much of an issue," he said.
Gee, tell that to the used CD stores I've bought dozens and dozens of CDs from over the years.
"People" using "unnecessary" quotes should be "shot".
What if I purchase a song and decide that I don't want it anymore. Can I give it away?
Sound waves should be free!
medium: An intervening substance through which something else is transmitted or carried on.
so you sell either your harddrive or the internet. for $.99?
now you know why he said it's impractical.
but if you feel up to it, i call first dibs.
I wouldn't be. Apple likely planned this from the onset. If they made it easy for people to simply buy another cheap copy for 99 and technically difficult to resale that copy they guarantee themselves additional sales.
Why does the transfer of the electonic version of the song need to be free? Considering the (realtively) small amount of time it would be used (less than 0.0001% of sales) , I can easily see the cost of the transfer being $2-5 per song. Transfer accepted, but not cost effective.
The dogcow says "Moof!"
Let's see, you pay 99 cents for the song and now you're going to resell it. Unless it's no longer available why would I pay you more than 99 cents for the song or pay you at all when I can just as easily get it from a trusted source: Apple.
And why would you charge less than 99 cents for it? It's a dollar. Most people aren't so scroogish about their money that they will try to get a dollar back. And most on-line money transfer places don't make it economical to sell something for a buck. The fees are too high. With PayPal you'd only end up with 66 cents on that dollar. And it's quite a hassle to mail you a dollar in which case I'm paying an additional 37 cents at least.
Apple got it right. The technical restrictions and the low cost make it a waste of effort to try to resell to regain the cost of the product, much less make a profit. They quite literally made it impossible to be undersold.
If songs ever stop being offered by Apple then one may have a business opportunity. But that would require buying numerous licenses of each song to make it worth it and require some foresight into what's going "out of print" that people will still want years from now in order to avoid wasting money on songs you'll never be able to sell once the market swings your way to check out what you have.
Instead of fighting Apple in this worthless pursuit of pennies, you'd be better off forming an allience with indie bands and set up a business being the first time sellers of their music. There's a huge market for that.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Please show the court the object you purchased.
The doctrine of first sale doesn't apply just to copyright.. it applies to everything. You can only sell something once.. then it's not yours anymore.. the same goes for a book.
Apple isn't weaseling out of anything.. they are merely showing that something is not their problem to solve.. they were up front about what you were paying them for. The rest is up to you.
has anyone read it? you know, its the one you agree to when you first decide to shop the itunes store.
personally i have not, but i wonder if this is "handled" by the contract you agree to. you go in knowing about the ownership and trasferring it to other computers, etc. since you know and agree to this, isn't this argument silly?
all the comments are people saying that you can do this with cds, books, etc but you dont have an agreement like this so i dont think you can apply the same logic.
just my 2 cents
It's very refreshing to see a company actually talking about the issue, instead of suing over it.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Ssshhhh...don't give BuyMusic.com any ideas.
for $0.99 you get not only a product, an encoded AAC audio file with an album cover graphic and meta data describing the song, but you also are buying a service.
That service is the key. (pardon the pun)
Apple is providing the means to manage the unlocking of the file - presumably for as long as you own the AAC file. But Apple's service is limited. Their service does not include the management of your license. Their service does not include a utility to transfer ownership or will AACs to your heirs. One much booed but accepted limitation is that it doesn't include the ability to re-download the songs you purchased, so you have to archive them yourself.
There are lots of alternatives out there. Apple has bundeled the product and service they feel is most compelling to the marketplace. 10,000,000 songs have been purchased so some people are compelled. Yet there will always be the OGG zelot or the eBay seller who really needs to push the limits of the license. To both groups as it turns out, I recommend they but the CD, rip it to OGG, and when they are done, delete the OGGs and eBay the CD for half what you paid. You might even come out only paying $0.99 a song that way.
As for me, I'll stick with iTMS which gives me more than I could ask for, and all they ask is $0.99 (plus tax).
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
only untill the end of the year
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
I can sympathize with Apple's position here; the effort to setup some kind of (ideally) automatic system to transfer the digital rights and still prevent piracy isn't worth it to them. However, when you're talking about multiple files, it quickly becomes relevant to the owner who wants to sell.
Issues like this is why I still buy a CD whenever the impulse strikes. I just don't buy as many as I used to; I'm much choosier about who I'm supporting.
You see, as far I as I'm concerned, CD's are future-proof. I can rip them into whatever format I want to use. Right now I'm using AAC in iTunes, but that could change. I may want to sell the music, or let my partner listen to it on his office computer. Digital files are definitely the future -- who can doubt it -- but for right now, the CD (or other physical media) is the safest investment.
is that if you can sell itunes, it could rapidly snowball into a napster-like music sharing service. Imagine a sort of electronic library of legally purchased itunes songs. For every song you've bought and contributed to the library you can 'check out' one song. Instead of buying every album yourself, you share, much like loaning out a cd to a friend. It ought to be perfectly legal (and no more likely to encourage unlawful copying than scanners and OCR software are with books, BTW), but with changes in law recently I doubt it is anymore.
Of course this's just the sort of thing the Record Industry wants to put an end to. Turn your stereo into a pay for play juke box and all that stuff.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Assuming that resale of online music becomes legalized, practicalized, and widespread, this could mean the end, or at least reasonable limits to the mass-consumption pop crap that floods the music market.
With resale available at the press of a button, after the initial catchiness has worn off and the latest Britney song has become just as sickening as the rest, the User A can release his copy for a resale at the going market rate. This rate would depend on the original track price, number of copies for sale and the number of potential buyers.
User B, who hasn't become sick of the song yet, can pick up A's used copy instead of buying another new copy. This curbs the sale of a song to the number of unique users actually interested in the song at one time.
Instead of releasing lowest-common-denominator slop to try to appeal to all people at once, recording artists will be forced to make solid works aimed at specific listeners, who will want to hold onto it for a long time. Or at least it will even the field between those who do and the slop-shovellers at Sony.
It could even start a futures market -- people buying thousands of copies of a song at a cheap point, hoping that it will regain popularity at some future point. This could redefine the term "entertainment industry" as we know it.
Of course, this is all based on the above (false) assumption that companies have their consumer's interests at heart. Since they want to sell as many songs at as high of a price as possible, Apple will design iTunes to make sure that this never becomes possible.
By "grow up" I mean they must change with the times. The nature of digital media is that it is meant to be easily copied. This is why it's digitally encoded so that duplicates can be made without losing any quality. THAT IS BY DESIGN.
Growing up with digital computers (and being trained as an Engineer, who designs and sells software) I will always believe that any digital data stored on my private mediums (hard drive, CD, flash memory) is my data to copy as I wish.
Trying to control the nature of digital copying (with DRM, processor or BIOS-level rights management like TCPA) is pure stupidity. You can't impose these artificial controls upon what is supposed to be the primary ability of a digital computer. I hope you see what I'm getting at; this isn't specifically directed at laws or morals or anything. I'm just saying: has bits, will copy.
Notice how we all gain a very important reason for telling people to not do business with Apple, iTunes, and any DRM-encumbered technology. Apple wants it both ways here, they want to get you into a system that somewhat mimics what you could otherwise do with CDs but leaves out some of your rights. This reminds me of Adobe's eBooks--the eBook license on many eBooks prohibits things you expect to be able to do with a physical book: reading the book aloud, or copying more than the prescribed amount of data from the book, to name a couple things. The system Adobe created for reading eBooks enforces some of their prohibitions. I think it's time to reread "The Right to Read".
Digital Citizen
I often download iTunes songs, burn them to CD, and then rip them. The quality sounds fine to me. I don't personally do it for resale or illegal copying; I'm a jazz musician, and when I want to practice and memorize a new song, I make versions of it that are electronically sped up and slowed down so that it's in 6 or 7 different keys, so that I can practice playing along with it in all those different keys. This of course falls under the personal use exception to copyright, not the doctine of first sale.
The cool thing is that when you have a digital technology that doesn't have a bunch of plastic padlocks built into it, different people can do different things with it, and they don't have to say "Mother may I."
It was interesting that the article claims there are legal decisions from the copyright office saying first sale doesn't apply to digital stuff -- that's the first I'd of heard that. Can't say I really care, though: Congress gave me the right of first sale, the personal use exception, and the fair use doctrine, so a bunch of unelected bureaucrats can take them away from me when they pry them from my cold, dead hands.
Find free books.
someone should purchase an itunes file from someone who has already purchased it legally. then they can legally break the drm apple has in place in order to use the product for which they paid. i believe there are provisions in the dmca for this. it would be an interesting test for the dmca.
as for the practicallity of it. i dont see a problem with an entity purchasing "used" itunes audio files and then reselling them like used cd stores do. shure you could have copied the music file before you sold it to the online reseller. you could have copied the cd before you sold it to 'daves music mine'. you should still have the right to sell that for which you paid. if this really messes up apples' business model, it's not your fault.
-- john
Are you dead yet?
About as happy as the women when they got their 'pythons' home as well...
The Mothership
We accuse the RIAA, MPAA, and other big special interest groups of not adapting to the internet and clinging to outdated paradigms. Aren't you doing the exact same thing, applying a paradigm that easily applies to physical property but can't be applied (or is technically unfeasible) in the digitial realm?
The articly has pretty much highlighted that Apple has a flat head. Nothing more, nothing less. I think it's pretty fair for them to say that "It may be legal (or illegal), but it's pretty darn impractical!" Sure it would be much nicer if there was an easy way to re-sell the music files, and I do believe that it's legal, provided you follow a few common-sense steps such as not retaining a copy after the sale.
A lot of slashdotters are probably gonna complain that Apple needs to create a method for transfering ownership, and all I can say is, no they don't. I have every right to sell my DVD collection to a friend in England. (I live in Japan.) He has every right to go out and buy a DVD player that can play them, or modify his own, since it's a different region DVD. Yeah, it's a pain in the ass and almost evil to have region coding, but that has nothing to do with the copyright of the DVD in question.
The only difference with the DVD and iTunes file is that with DVD's, the "impracticality" was put there on purpose, which in my mind means the organization(s) responsible for the region coding are a bunch of assholes. As for the iTunes file, the copy protection method was put there so that Apple could manage to
1) strike a deal with the labels,
3) deliver what the consumer wants (downloadable legal music), and
2) still manage to maximize consumer rights. (CD-R burning.)
(And yes, 4: profit!, but there's nothing inherently wrong with that.)
I'd say Apple did a damn good job at it, even if it's not perfect. Truth is, the reason it isn't perfect is more or less the record label/RIAA's fault and not Apple's. If you don't like it, don't buy it.
I'm speculating a lot here, but I get this feeling that if you made a CD from the iTunes file, and sold the iTunes file AND the CD together, Apple could care less. Apple is merely providing a SERVICE in exchange for a small percentage of the sales. It may be legal grey zone, but it isn't damaging Apple's sales (as long as you're honest and delete your own copy after sale). Hell, it probably isn't even damaging the RIAA member's that much either, and is within the owner's rights. (And if it's within the owner's right, then it isn't even "damage" any longer.) But for some reason they make a fuss over it.
So what we have here is a very odd scene, really. "Holy shit, a large corporation using common sense! It must be a conspiracy!!" And it just as well may be, except it's a conspiracy that is backfiring on the RIAA and in return making Apple look pretty slick.
C'mon guys/gals, it's just common sense.
The article has pretty much highlighted that Apple has a flat head. Nothing more, nothing less. I think it's pretty fair for them to say that "It may be legal (or illegal), but it's pretty darn impractical!" Sure it would be much nicer if there was an easy way to re-sell the music files, and I do believe that it's legal, provided you follow a few common-sense steps such as not retaining a copy after the sale.
A lot of slashdotters are probably gonna complain that Apple needs to create a method for transfering ownership, and all I can say is, no they don't. I have every right to sell my DVD collection to a friend in England. (I live in Japan.) He has every right to go out and buy a DVD player that can play them, or modify his own, since it's a different region DVD. Yeah, it's a pain in the ass and almost evil to have region coding, but that has nothing to do with the copyright of the DVD in question.
The only difference with the DVD and iTunes file is that with DVD's, the "impracticality" was put there on purpose, which in my mind means the organization(s) responsible for the region coding are a bunch of assholes. As for the iTunes file, the copy protection method was put there so that Apple could manage to
1) strike a deal with the labels,
3) deliver what the consumer wants (downloadable legal music), and
2) still manage to maximize consumer rights. (CD-R burning.)
(And yes, 4: profit!, but there's nothing inherently wrong with that.)
I'd say Apple did a damn good job at it, even if it's not perfect. Truth is, the reason it isn't perfect is more or less the record label/RIAA's fault and not Apple's. If you don't like it, don't buy it.
I'm speculating a lot here, but I get this feeling that if you made a CD from the iTunes file, and sold the iTunes file AND the CD together, Apple could care less. Apple is merely providing a SERVICE in exchange for a small percentage of the sales. It may be legal grey zone, but it isn't damaging Apple's sales (as long as you're honest and delete your own copy after sale). Hell, it probably isn't even damaging the RIAA member's that much either, and is within the owner's rights. (And if it's within the owner's right, then it isn't even "damage" any longer.) But for some reason they make a fuss over it.
So what we have here is a very odd scene, really. "Holy shit, a large corporation using common sense! It must be a conspiracy!!" And it just as well may be, except it's a conspiracy that is backfiring on the RIAA and in return making Apple look pretty slick.
C'mon guys/gals, it's just common sense.
You licensed the song from Apple, if it isn't Apple's job to tell you whether it is permissable for you to sell the song who's job is it? It is, after all, a simple enough question. At the very least this muddies the water for those who assert that copyright infringement is somehow "stealing".
Yeah! That's what surprised me too. I have never heard the "Right of First Sale" doctrine questioned before when it comes to digital works.
If this is, indeed, the case - and the courts do decide that digital works aren't covered by it, that really opens up a whole can of worms.
Among other things, it means Microsoft is right after all, when they want to stop you from reselling unopened/unused OEM versions of their operating systems that were originally bundled with new PCs. (First Sale doctrine is the main argument people had in their favor, when trying to recoup money lost when they were forced to buy their new laptop or desktop system with Windows pre-loaded on it.)
Even the "personal use" exception seems to be under fire these days, as the publishers of digital works keep trying to find more ways to milk extra $'s from people (DMCA, etc.).
Unless things change, one of these days, you just might find it has become illegal to practice existing music without paying for a "musician's license" from the recording industry. (We're sorry, but without a license issued by the original copyright holder - you're simply engaging in attempted illegal reproduction of our copyrighted works, Mr. Musician!)
Hmm. Let's see here.
I have, in my hand, a copy of a Harry Potter book.
In my other hand, I have a digital camera. Watch, as I take a photo of page 52.
Oh my, it appears the text is readable. Here, let me just share this out on Kazaa... (As a matter of fact, most popular books are shared right now)
What was the difference again?
Reality check here. Copyright applies to patterns of information. ALL patterns of information can be digitized and copied at (practically) zero cost.
The real difference here is that the book publishers' war to outlaw libraries, used bookstores, and reselling was lost centuries ago. Nobody will even take them seriously if they try to put that genie back in the bottle.
Meanwhile, the RIAA/MPAA/BSA etc. still think they can win and create a world where they control all sales and uses of their products, and thus can have absolute control over pricing. If they beat the "new, digital era" drum loudly enough, they think they can get new laws rammed through guaranteeing their profit margins forever.
Sadly, it looks like the governments of the world may actually be so stupid as to let them.
That would still be opening a can of worms for the seller, who has agreed not to allow that kind of thng when buying the track from Apple:
A sale like that would be "encouraging" someone else to break the DRM, y'know?
Creating such a marketplace and policing it would take considerable time and effort. Just figuring out how to track how many times a song had been sold (and making that count hack-resistant) would be a big task. The margins would be lower than the iTunes Music Store, and there would be all kinds of litigation just waiting to be sprung on their ass.
Plus, there's already an 800-lb gorilla in the online auction world. They're called eBay, and they've already shown that they'll squash anyone who tries to enter that market.
Such a marketplace might be nice for a few consumers, but I doubt that most music lovers would be interested in bidding on individual songs. The genius of the Apple Music Store is that it makes it ludicrously easy to purchase, download, and use music. Adding more complexity to the equation would erase that advantage and confuse their customers.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Again apple shows other corps how to play.
Business and ethics can mix; but don't in modern times. Its nice to see some companies still doing things right. All these corporate terrorist lawyers are messing up the world ("civilally.")
Where did the old saying go?
"Its not wether you win or lose, its how you play the game."
Apple is 1 of a few who remember this. This is just another example of Job's influence; and also why apple will never win.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Think about it. If there existed a tool that could remove copy protection from an AAC file, what would be the result?
1) Some would argue that it is a useful tool that facilitates the legal owner of a digital work in their right to re-sell the work. Much like DeCSS was a tool that facilitates a legal owner of a digital work in their right to access it.
2) Others would argue it's an illegal violation of the DMCA that enables piracy by allowing someone who may be the legal owner of a digital work to then distribute copies of that work. Much like DeCSS was a tool that allowed a legal owner of a digital work to distribute copies of it.
The big question: Will the result be different when we are talking about music instead of movies? Would people see the logic in being able to have full access to their digital library?
When iTunes Music Store was announced, it would have been a complete flop except for one thing: Apple had successfully negotiated what seemed like very generous DRM terms for their customers. Compared to the other options, most people were happy to plunk down their dollars and reward Apple. But no one bothered to ask what happens when someone wants out and looks to offload their collection.
If Apple were to continue its example, it would provide users with a mechanism to transfer songs. If Apple does not or cannot provide this...then really it's terms are not as generous as they advertise. There might be a compelling class-action lawsuit in this. Apple never said they prohibit the transfer, but they are the only ones capable of performing a transfer without encouraging their customers to use DeCSS-type tools that violate the law.
What would happen if everyone who purchased music on iTMS told their credit card companies to dispute the charge because they didn't actually get the legal copy they expected? Maybe someone should try it as a test case like this resale.
- JoeShmoe
.
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Is that the eBay guy is sill $0.50 ahead buying a $0.99 song that he doesn't like and not being able to resell it, rather than buying a $3 single he doesn't like and selling it back to a record shop for $1.50. Easy and practical resale is one of the advantages you get for shelling out the extra cash for a physical copy (and of course there are a lot of disadvantages to physical copies as well).
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
No shit... what's that got to do with the current situation? Apple isn't claiming ANYTHING about what the contract allows, or saying you can't do something... and neither am I.
This isn't about an EULA that does something illegal.. it's about a technical measure, a technical description of what you were sold... not about what you are allowed to do. If you find a way to do what you want wiht their stuff, to get around their DRM, and THEN they complain, you might have a case of them restricting trade.. but as it stands, Apple is not preventing you from doing anything with what you were sold, contractually.
But you could do more than that. There's no reason you need to own a piece of music you're not playing right now. You should be able to rent out anything you own but aren't currently playing. Automatically.
If a bookstore didn't let you take books out of the store, they wouldn't be selling books.
In this case, apple is not TELLING you what you can do.. apple is selling you a digital media, that by DESIGN, and they told you this up front, only works under certain conditions. They are in no way saying "Reselling this is illegal".
Just because you want to sell something is no guarantee it can be sold.
Apple would not be "legally required" to make it possible for users to resell things. Just as "fair use" rights do not mean DVD companies HAVE to make it possible for you to copy their discs..... it's a technical stumbling block, not a legal one.
First sale was about not being able to contractually olblige you not to resell something.. something that is sold is no longer the property of the seller.
This is a TOTALY different matter, despite the fact that it looks the same initially.
Apple sold you some data, that works a certain way, in a certain player.. and they were up front about that fact. If you find another way to use it, apple isn't saying you can't. If you find a way to transfer it to someone else, Apple isnt' saying you can't. They are just saying it's NOT their problem.
Wrong. They will by no means be required to facilitate a free transfer function. Just because you have the right to do something doesn't mean that they have to help you do it---and certainly not for free. That would be like saying that a record company should pay your postage if you sell your CD over eBay.
I think you could do a pretty good case when you show that Apple is refusing to acknowledge a change of ownership in their DRM, and so directly ignore the doctrine of First Sale. If you want the physical analogy, it would be having the right to sell your propery - only it is biometrically locked to you. And you have a company that can modify that lock, only they refuse to do so stating they have no legal obligation to help. Do you think that would be acceptable?
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The way iTunes DRM works makes things much simpler and less controlling but also takes away the user's ability to transfer songs. When you download a song, Apple attaches a DRM "lock" to the actual music file. Then, when you register your computer with Apple they give you the "key." That way, you only need to be online to get your computer the key. Other than that, iTunes never phones home about any use of the songs. In order to transfer a song, Apple would need to make the original purchase invalid and create a new one. There is no way to invalidate just one purchase under the system. You'd have to give the buyer your whole account. Or yourself a whole new account. Even then, you could easily keep all your old (and sold!) music on another machine that hasn't synced to the internet. The beauty of Apple's system is the freedom it gives the user, like true ownership. No cage comes down around the music if you have no network connection.
On the bright side, let's say you want to unload your whole collection of music. You could literally SELL your whole account with all your music after removing your credit info. Now that seems like a realistic sale. Selling just one song 99 makes little sense. Selling hundreds to someone who likes your taste just might work very well. The buyer of your account would know if you were still holding on to an authorization key because iTunes would tell them so.
No it doesn't muddy anything. Selling a copy of a song that you purchased from a copyright holder (or a licensee thereof) is not copyright infringement. Creating a copy from that copy, selling the copy, and keeping the original, is copyright infringement. No muddy. Good game.
Just because you want this to be an issue, and Apple doesn't make it one...doesn't change a thing yet. Be patient.
Somehow I don't trust the government's taste.
Well, have they?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
And I can't figure out why everything thinks this is a Good ThingTM.
So lets say it actually went to court and the ebay reseller "wins". (You'll see why wins is in quotes in a minute.) So Apple is forced to provide a way for its iTunes customers to easily resell song keys purchased. Ok. Lets think what this will really do. Will Apple change it's iTunes service? Yes, and drastically too. This will probably (speculation, but we all know the RIAA here) render Apple's right to distribute the music online null and void. The iTunes ToS is invalid so the RIAA/Apple deal is invalid. Good night iTunes.
So where does that leave us? Apple will probably just shrug its shoulders. It didn't win or lose here, made a little money had some laughs, game over. The RIAA will come out pointing fingers talkin' bout, "See they don't want a fair way to do this, they just want free stuff." Will this make the case for digital copyright stronger for the user or for the copyright holder? Remember, public perception counts when it comes to elected officials (and even judges too), and I gotta tell ya I think the RIAA could spin this mighty negative against the online crowd.
So who "wins"? Well, I suppose the few people who purchased iTunes would have won the right to resell an item which cost US$0.99 in the first place. We will all have secured the RoFS for digital formats. But the RIAA wins in that they have one more reason not to offer their stuff online, and they can again portray the whole p2p/digital/geek crowd as a bunch of fringe arses who just want free stuff and only pretend to be about rights so they can get it.
I just don't see an upside to forcing Apple's hand here. What is the upside?
Hope I'm not biting bate here but these AAC files are an iTunes product. They are worthless (barring illegality that would hinder said entrepenuership) outside of the iTunes environment as it handles all the DRM issues. In addition, Windows users will have their own iTunes well within a year. For the above reasons; the parent is a bad, dumb post.
But I don't think this is true. All they would have to do is not prohibit someone from developing an application that would take a valid iTunes authorization and the new computer's ID, and create a new authorization for the new computer, and remove the authorization from the old computer.
If they wanted to be really helpful, and avoid the problem of someone being able to make a variant that didn't remove the original auth, they could provide an API where removing the authorization gave you a token that could then be sold or transferred.
-Esme
And is still used on some rom-swapping sites these days. But it's more of an urban legend than anything else since - correct me if I'm wrong - it has no legal weight at all. Instead this '24 hours and delete' has become a particularly hard to kill meme which a great many people seem to believe but in actual fact is pretty much untrue.
You were quite ill, but you're better now - yay! :)
Well, what exactly is the original of a product that only exists in a digital form - like an iTMS song or an eBook, and unlike e.g. the pits on a CD - and how can you sell that and only that? The problem with laws is that they are written with words, and those words have to be followed, not the intentions or the spirit.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Of course, alsaplayer won't be able to play the iTunes files, but maybe the iTunes player can be modified to also do this.
If I may nitpick... Japan and England are both in DVD region 2. Region 2 consists of Japan, Europe, South Africa, Egypt, and the Middle East.
However, if you throw your DVDs away, move to Korea, and buy a new collection, then I'll accept your argument. =)
About as happy as the women when they got their 'pythons' home as well...
I guarantee you those women were happier with pythons than they ever would have been with perls.
Like what I said? You might like my music
I've noticed that apple has removed some songs already.. One song I had already bought has disapeared (pearl jams yellow ledbetter live from stockholm).Although they added new live versions of the same song. I noticed clasical chant music also went away.
I thought it was kinda wierd. But now I have some m4ps that I can't buy anymore..
I don't know if this has already been mentioned (didn't feel like reading all of the replies), but selling a song for $.99 could be useful in some situations. The Apple exec says that it doesn't make sense to sell a song you bought for $.99. What if you wanted one song on an album that was only sold in whole. In this case you could possibly sell off the excess songs and make back the money from those extra songs you didn't care for.
Granted, you probably wanted the one good song on that album and the extra sludge would not sell very well.
If you want the physical analogy, it would be having the right to sell your propery - only it is biometrically locked to you.
You mean I can't transfer the ownership of my Tux-Tattoo ?
If you want to perform a playwrite's work, you have to get permission, which usually involves paying some fee. Sure, putting on a play is usually a much bigger effort than playing a song (unless you can't buy a guitar or something), so you're unlikely to even practice (rehearse) it if you can't get permission to eventually put up a production. But still, my point is that it's kind of unique in music that you can go around reproducing other people's work willy-nilly.
Seriously, though, if you were to record it or perform it for money, that's like doing a production, and you would need permission (license) for that. You wouldn't need permission to practice or rehearse a song or a play, I suppose.
Buy a windows XP folder for your Desktop! Here's a screenshot, incase eBay cancel the auction (which they most probably will).
The screenshot.
I'd appreciate it if people would mirror this file and post the links, because my bandwith limits aren't too high (although the site won't be cut off, I'll be charged a fortune at the end of the month). I'd be very grateful if people check any replies for mirrors first, thanks!
I think this auction is blatantly taking the mickey out of eBay. Maybe if everyone were to set up auction like this, or auctions for digital songs, or anything else forbidden from sale which really should be allowed, then maybe eBay will see sense and stop conforming to the pathetic DMCA. Besides, eBay takes a commision of each sale, so my conclusion is that there must be high politics involved, because they woudln't cut off revenue streams for no real reason.
Look, I realise that we all want a system that's fair to everyone (except maybe the RIAA), but this is just stupid. If you can get the song for 99 cents, just get the damned song for 99 cents. I know this is a big "free stuff" crowd, but I think this is just getting annoying. Mac users, pay your 99 cents. Windows users, now it's your turn to wait for a product to get ported to your platform... welcome to the party. *nix folks... well, I'm not sure what to tell you. Everyone likes to save a buck once in a while, but if you can't spring the 99 cents for that Alan Parsons Project song, maybe digital music isn't your biggest problem. And, what kind of ass bids more than 99 cents on a song that's available for 99 cents? I won't even get into what moron bid more than the cost of a CD. It's 2003 and I do not have my jetpack, hovercar, or vacation home on Mars... Is it perhaps because all the "smart" people are hiding out online bitching about cheap vs. free music? I don't care anymore. Put whatever price you want to on it. If your shitty band's CD is too expensive, I will not buy it. If your music download service is too expensive, or just plain sucks (coughcoughbuymusic.comcough)... I will not use it. That's the whole point of this crazy system, we're supposed to help it evolve by voting with our money. When only 8 people buy the next Britney Spears CD, the label will drop her and she'll move on to her next job, hopefully porn. Hopefully really weird and degrading porn. Anyway, it should be a self-cleaning system to some degree. Apple did a pretty good job of splitting the difference between the RIAA thugs and the free lunch crowd. Just pay the stupid 99 cents and move on.
Someday a real rain is gonna come...
This is the most important thing that has every been said by a company on this issue. It basically admits that the way to fight piracy is to create a market environment where there is little incentive for piracy. And how do we do that kids? By lowering the freaking prices and making the product more accessible to the consumer. Thank you Apple.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
"We don't care about the music itself, as long as we can sell our hardware at a premium."
Can't blame them for that.
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
What about prostitutes?
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Charge a $1.00 transfer fee per song.
Profit.
Create an iTunes account, based on a one-time-use credit-card number
Purchase your iTune
Deauthorize the computer you bought it with
Offer for sale the iTune and the password to the acccount
Purchaser authorizes their computer on the account
No cost except overhead time and effort for account creation.
And, if there was a way for users to create multiple accounts and transfer iTunes among them, it would be practical to bundle up groups of iTunes after purchase, attach them to a transfer account, and sell them.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
An iTunes (AAC) version of Bittersweet Sypmhony by the Verve sold on eBay yesterday for $3.75. It will be interesting to see how the buyer, seller, and Apple handle the sale. Unfortunately, it may be difficult to observe their actions.
You write your nine symphonies, then you die.
Ok, slashdotters, I have a question.
I couldn't find this on the iTunes website, but I wonder if you are allowed to have 2 accounts on the same computer? You, know, for say, 2 roommates who use the same computer. If so, can you have 1000 accounts on the same computer? I don't know if there are additional costs involved - not being a Mac user I haven't checked it out before.
But if you are able to create a new account for each song you buy, then the technical barrier to selling is gone, as you can just sell the account access information for the account which contains that one song. Of course, having to create a new account for each song might be a pain, thereby eliminating the good of using iTunes in the first place, but it might be able to be done in principle...
" The quality sounds fine to me. "
Then you don't have a good ear.
I can tell an MP3 from a mile away. But when you rip it to AAC at 128kb, you're throwing about 2/3's of the information. Then you rip it again to MP3, you're throwing away another 2/3's....
What's ironic is you probably think you have a good ear. You don't.
Great response! :-) I guess he should've said that it applies to all >products, as opposed to services.
Cheers,
-Cybrex
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
What happens when the copyright on a work finally expires and I am free to use it as I wish? Will DRM take this into account as well?
Apple's responce here is somewhat correct. For those who don't know, a quick background of Apple's DRM.
When you buy a song, that file is keyed to be played by a particular ITMS account. You can allow up to 3 computers to each play all songs keyed to account x. This is a system that is fairly easy and trouble-free for the normal consumer (one who just wants to listen, not resell). You only need internet access when origionally authorizing a machine, and never again thereafter, until you want to deauthorize to free up one of your 3 keys.
With this system, properly handling resold music is impossible. Apple would have to guarentee that the origional owner couldn't play the song any longer, and this just isn't possible within this framework. Once a computer has been authorized, Apple can't remove your ability to play a particular song (or all of them, for that matter), even if it wanted to.
Contrast this to almost every other approach (BuyMusic.com? I'm not sure, I can't read their website without a windows machine... lame) where if you stop paying, your songs stop playing.
It's a fundamental flaw in Apple's DRM design. To gain the kind of control they would need to allow resale, they would have to impose a DRM scheme that would, in general, be far more draconian, ie, something that used individual keys for each song (which would also be a nightmare to manage on the server-side).
One thing Apple is doing is driving the costs down until people would rather opt for new than "used". Why bother trying to find second-hand titles with whatever artificial hassle is present, when it is easy and inexpensive to get everything in one place without any question of legality?
For example, there isn't a secondary market for screws and washers; everyone just goes to the hardware store and gets a pack for $1.25. Sure, a person could save a few cents here and there, but the market has spoken: no one cares.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
First, I think that Apple should provide a mechanism for transfer of ownership. The second word of DRM is "rights", and I think you should have the right to sell the product you purchased.
</slashdotcorrect>
Having said that, suppose that Apple created an online method to transfer ownership of arbitrary files. I can pretty much 100% guarantee that within two weeks you'll see a service where:
Basically, someone will create a license server so that up to q people can listen to a given song at one time, and the requested music will flow from owner to owner as people select songs from a playlist and click "play".
In other words, you'd have Netflix, but with the participants providing the trading material.
While I still believe that Apple should allow you to transfer your music as you see fit, I can kind of see why they may not want to make it easy or cheap.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
The DeCSS debacle was about the DMCA.
Nobody claimed "Your contract with the DVD is that you are not allowed to copy it."
They used the DMCA to say that the technology that could be used to exercise what would have been normally allowed under copyright law, was illegal.
They did not say that "Exercising your fair use rights" was illegal.. only that, under the letter of a different law, the software someone dveloped that could be used that way was illegal.
Apple is not telling you what you can and cannot do, they are politely not getting involved. They were up front and clear about what they sold you, and didn't make you agree to any certain behavior.
Now, when someone comes out with something that strips the protection off of ITMS downloads, or some other mechanism comes out to allow the transfer of ITMS music... and Apple launches a DMCA suit against them, THEN I will stand with everyone else and say "Apple is doing soemthing wrong". But at this point, they are 100% correct.
This is just like, say, software... you bought software that is locked to your machine. That was in the purchase agreement... now you want to sell it.. but you can't.. how is this any different?
The "service" was providing you the selection and selling you the bits.
Just like a record store is there to sell you records... they are not the record label, and they don't really care what you do with the CD after you buy it from them... their business with you is concluded the moment you walk out the door.
We're saying the same thing I guess.
So my roommate, who works with some high-end audio software that runs on a Mac discovered something interesting.
If you open an iTune with a particular piece of editing software on the Mac, and click save-as, no more DRM.
I would tell you the name of the product, but I don't remember it (not being an audio nor Mac geek myself). It costs in the $800 range but you *can* find it fairly easily in a semi-pbulic lab at, say, a school has a good audio engineering program.
And no, the arangement doesn't require that you buy the iTune for the computer running the software.
(I really wish I could say that I was withholding the name of the program because of the DMCA, but I am just a big dummy and I cant remember.)
Then again, said "big" corporation making and marketing the "cimcumvention tool" which is also "one of the big names in Digital Audio Production" would make for interesting conflict of interests.
Do you think Lars be happy to know he is using the same software to master his music as the random college hippies are using to steal it?
And no, my roommate is not using this discovery to violate anybodies copyrights, he just mentioned that he'd found the flaw by accident and that it was funny...
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
You're only paying for their services. At best, you can rent them.