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RIAA Doesn't Like the "Used Digital Music" Business
An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica reports on the developing story between the RIAA and music reseller ReDigi, 'the world's first online marketplace for used digital music,' who first came online with a beta offering on October 11th, 'allowing users to sell "legally acquired digital music files" and buy them from others "at a fraction of the price currently available on iTunes.'' If the notion of selling 'used' digital content is challenged in court, we may finally receive a judicial ruling on the legality of EULAs that will overturn the previous Vernor v. Autodesk decision."
Now the RIAA has flip-flopped by acting as if these digital files are NOT equivalent to physical items...I guess their position will be where the money is, regardless of what's logical or their prior actions.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
They've already been trying to do this.
In the PC games market, tying games to Steam - I bought Portal 2, and discovered it required me to install Steam to get the install and get the fucking software to run.
What does this mean? Well, I can make it run. But I can't, when done with it, give the copy (serial and all, uninstalled from my computer) to a family member or friend as a gift.
iTunes does much the same thing. You can't buy something and then send it to someone else, in a "deleted from your account, credited to theirs instead" transaction.
The cartels salivate at killing the used market because they think it means more sales.
Lots of considerations should go into this. What happens when someone passes away, does their mutli-thousand dollar music collection somehow become magically worthless? What about someone going through a divorce or a bankruptcy? Can these be considered assets and taken from one person and granted to another?
The first sale doctrine needs to apply in common sense situations like this. If you buy something, including a license, it is only common sense that you would be able to resell it. That being said if a license is sold the original terms should also be accepted. I'm not advocating simply sharing it, I'm talking about removing it from one place putting it in another.
People would never tolerate the loss of first sale doctrine in any other aspect of their life as it would be absurd. Can you imagine toyota demanding a transfer fee or the right of first refusal when you want to sell your car?
Either intellectual property is a physical good that can be legally acquired, owned, and resold as a used item, or it is not, in which case stop fucking calling it theft.
No. The hint is in the name: copyright, i.e. the (exclusive) right to make copies of a work. The copyright owner has the right to make copies. When you buy a CD, you may get (either implicitly or explicitly, depending on your jurisdiction) the right to make a single backup copy and the right to copy portions of it into the memory of a playback device as required to listen to it, but you don't get the right to make arbitrary copies. Whether you sell the copy or give it away makes no difference. When you buy a track online, a copy is created, but by someone who is authorised by the copyright holder to make copies.
It's going to be an interesting legal case because (practically) every 'move' operation on a computer is really a copy-and-delete-the-original operation, so the idea of selling the original doesn't really make sense because the original was an ephemeral copy in your network stack - the version on your hard disk is a copy of that, the version on your media player or on a backup disk is a copy of the copy.
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You're exchanging a use license. If the original user continues to use the data then they--so the theory goes--would be the violator and subject to litigation. I suspect this company is largely an attempt to test the laws regarding digital property rights. Along the way they probably hope to make some money to pay for the lawyers and with any luck continue the business model having won the recognition that digital and physical property rights may be considered one in the same.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
There's no way to stop a user from retaining a copy of the file without yet *another* level of some nasty DRM
How is this any different from used CDs? There's nothing stopping you from copying the CD and then selling it. In fact, there's nothing stopping you from just downloading the music and skipping the buying step altogether except the idea that you need to own a license to the music, and that license is what they are selling, the file itself is largely irrelevant.
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But how do they determine that I have not kept a copy? That's the crux of this. Who cares if I bought it legally. I still don't have the right to sell it to someone else unless I no longer have a copy. Who can prove this to be true?
What happens when someone passes away, does their mutli-thousand dollar music collection somehow become magically worthless?
I always thought that it would be instructive for someone to stand in front of congress, hold up an MP3 player or phone and say, "There are 30,000 songs on this device. The Recording Industry insists that every one of those songs is worth at least a dollar. I have a great deal here for some lucky congressperson today - who wants to buy $30,000 worth of music for just five hunnert dollah?
"Do I have any takers?"
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
That is not my problem. If the business model they have set up is not technically and realistically workable then come up with another model. Part of that new model will ahve to accept that the value of a digitial music license for which I have no transfer rights is then much less than the value of a physical music license which i can transfer via selling the phsyical storage medium.
That is the real crux of this whole issue and one of the many reasons the ??AA like to play both sides of the fence. It prevents them having to address head on the loss of value inherent in a non-transferable license. The same goes for e-books BTW.
I have no trouble with non-transferable licenses, but don't try to charge me the same price for it.
If you can't be good, be good at it!
Except the fair use doctrine allowed for copies to be made. You were allowed to make a tape copy of an LP for your own use (this was challenged by the record companies of course).
a CD, a downloaded MP3, and a book are all identical as far as copyright law is concerned
Until the RIAA realize they can't get money this way and a new revision to the copyright is suddenly introduced in Congress.
All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents
And a digital file is a copy, even if it's your only one.
A book is a copy, even if it's your only one. Yet none of the anti-digital arguments work against print media. "You can't sell a book because nobody can prove you didn't photocopy the thing in its entirety before selling it." Nobody at the used book store cares, yet music sellers want selling music to be illegal because nobody can *prove* there wasn't a copy made.
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