iPod May Become Next Fair-Use Battleground

jaredmauch writes "USA Today is reporting on a trend of selling iPods on eBay which are preloaded with music and movies. This raises interesting questions about the legality of the files, including those that offer seemingly legitimate services of transcoding DVDs for the iPod video (while selling you the DVD disc as well)." An example from the article: "A 60-gigabyte video iPod loaded with 11,800 songs, with a starting bid of $799. The iPod alone would cost about $400. 'I don't see how it's different than selling a used CD,' seller Steve Brinn, a Cincinnati pediatrician, wrote in an e-mail to USA TODAY. 'If the music industry asked me not to do it, I just wouldn't do it.'"

Comments

distinction...

[ecklesweb]

I think there's a critical distinction to make before you can decide if it's legal or not:

Is this someone selling many of these iPods, making many copies of digital songs when they don't have permission to? That would seem pretty clear-cut illegal.

Or

Is this someone selling their iPod and the only copy they have of the songs, which they acquired legally. How can that possible be illegal?

In the case of the article, it's clearly someone running a business with pirated music. But, if I wanted to sell my loaded iPod and don't have copies of the music elsewhere, is there really a law on the books that stops me?

I also think the question at the end of the article is apropos: If you own a DVD, can you legally put the movie on your iPod at all given DMCA restrictions?

Not a fair use issue

[Dachannien]

This really isn't a fair use issue at all. If he were charging to pick up someone's CD collection, transcode them, and load them up onto an iPod, it would be an issue of fair use. If he were doing that except instead of loading each CD individually, he was taking them from a pre-transcoded library, it would be an issue of fair use (though perhaps more shaky, considering past rulings). But this is just plain old copyright infringement, and for profit, no less.

Re:Meaningless

[JudgeFurious]

I'm kind of surprised that ebay doesn't pull those auctions and tell the seller to cut this crap out. I see this all the time with computers on ebay and I think the same thing. Some dipshit is selling his Powerbook with every piece of software that was ever written for OSX on it (licenses and media not included of course) and he thinks this is going to justify his starting bid of $1700?

  The obligatory "You must delete all of this as soon as you get the laptop if you don't own every piece of software ever written for OSX" line is a hoot too.

  This is wrong. There's no justification for it. If I were calling the shots on ebay this would get your auction shut down. A second offense would get your account shut down.