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Capitol Records Motion To Enjoin ReDigi Denied

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The motion by Capitol Records for a preliminary injunction against used digital music marketplace ReDigi has been denied. After hearing almost two hours of oral argument by attorneys for both sides, Judge Richard J. Sullivan ruled from the bench (PDF), holding that plaintiff had failed to show 'irreparable harm.'"

15 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. Greedy Scum by gweihir · · Score: 5, Insightful

    These greedy scum cannot get enough and know no bounds. At least some sanity is left in the legal system as this ruling shows.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    1. Re:Greedy Scum by ciderbrew · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They'll just take it as a crap judge or needing a better lawyer. I don't think they'll go away with any sort of sanity.

    2. Re:Greedy Scum by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Or they will "buy" a new law...

    3. Re:Greedy Scum by Cryacin · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'm just waiting for the day that they try to sue the judge and say that he has caused "irreperable harm" to their lawsuit.

      --
      Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
    4. Re:Greedy Scum by plover · · Score: 4, Informative

      What happened is the judge decided that "if the plaintiff keeps doing what they're doing, they are not doing so much damage that they will send Capitol Records into bankruptcy." This ruling only means they won't be taken down today.

      If Redigi loses the case, though, the judge will still hold them liable for any actions for the entire time they've been operating.

      It's a good sign for Redigi that the judge doesn't think the damages are so astronomically high that they would bankrupt Capitol. But it says nothing about the potential outcome of the suit.

      --
      John
  2. Read Ray Beckermann's motion and enjoy! by Mister+Liberty · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Congrats to NewYorkCountryLawyer.

    1. Re:Read Ray Beckermann's motion and enjoy! by Mathinker · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If someone had told me, when I was 18, that one day I'd be reading court transcripts with great interest, I'd have thought he was insane.

      And yet, here I am! Yet another way the world has changed, since way back then...

    2. Re:Read Ray Beckermann's motion and enjoy! by NewYorkCountryLawyer · · Score: 4, Funny

      And what is being sold by ReDigi is the right to access a file stored upon their cloud storage service which has been offered for sale by the original owner. The file itself is the original taken from the owner, and transferred to the purchaser. The file leaves the sellers PC for cloud storage; It is deleted from the seller's PC by the client software. There is only one copy of the file. The file is assigned a unique identifier to prevent duplicates being sold. The identifier is assigned to the owner's account so they may access the file. When the file is marked for sale and thereby sold, the unique ID is assigned to the buyers' account; The file itself is not copied, moved, duplicated, shifted, or anything else. The new account may access that very same uncopied file, and the seller may not. This is the important distinction being made; The file is the same one the original owner bought the license to own, and it is this file that is on the cloud service, this file (license to own) which is purchased.

      Looks to me like you've been RTFA. Are you new here?

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      Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
  3. Since these are legally purchased mp3s... by larys · · Score: 4, Insightful

    that were purchased through iTunes, it seems, according to what's written here that they are no longer left on your hard drive once you sell them: https://www.redigi.com/download.html It seems you download software in order to use the reselling service and that software (presumably) clears them from your hard drive after selling them. I can understand that it works that way and yet, at the same time, what prevents people from renaming the file or putting it elsewhere in order to keep a copy and yet sell it at the same time? (I'm sure the record companies made this argument) The good thing is that this is the way it would work if you sold a used CD -- nothing stops you from ripping it before selling it, right? So there's nothing inherently different about the process.

    I hope someone things of employing this in the ebook market. As of now, prices for ebooks are still wildly overpriced and without any way of reselling them, they're simply not worth it much of the time. If this were to come out for the ebook industry, it could help sales. I know personally, there are many ebooks that are just too expensive (especially when selling them later isn't an option -- a legal one anyway). This could help individuals to be able to afford the overpriced ebooks on the market by allowing them to make up some of the money by selling them later. It'll probably get just as much resistance from publishers, but good ideas are often thrust back, aren't they?

  4. ReDigi may still be liable for damages by Sqr(twg) · · Score: 5, Informative

    Denying a preliminary injunction is not the same thing as saying ReDigi don't infringe on copyright. All the judge is saying is that this does not cause irreparable harm. That is: He believes any harm done can be repaired by ReDigi paying damages after the trial, so there's no need to shut them down now.

    1. Re:ReDigi may still be liable for damages by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So how come MegaUpload didn't get the same kind of hearing? At the very least there should have been an opportunity for them to contest the shut down of their company in a US court before New Zealand was ordered to send in the elite anti-terror police unit.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  5. ReDigi have done their homework by Pecisk · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Nothing really more to say, haven't followed this one that closely, but as I read in ArsTechnica ReDigi have made sure that their system is according to (their interpretation) of the law, which is still much higher level than Megaupload.

    This case also will be really interesting, because it clashes author rights to control distribution of copyrighted work and first sale doctorine. And juge seems to be sane so whatever his decision will be I will treat with respect.

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    user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
  6. A bigger problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    We should let Capitol dismantle the first sale doctrine, and you know why? The movie and record industries are America's most important source of everything! They bring in billions of dollars, and movies like Transformers underpin the very heart of what it is to be America. I just hope that religious fundamentalists, at home and abroad, don't realize the damage they could do, for example if they were to spray bullets around 1025 F ST N.W, 10th floor, Washington D.C. Oh the tragedy if a plane were to be slammed in to Capitol's offices!

    I really hope they terrorists never discover America's soft underbelly, and in particular I hope that they don't fuck UMG and MPAA executives up their arses with splintered chair legs before setting them alight - this would be a massive insult to Americans! Screw you terrorists! So long as Lamar Smith lives (he draws Mohammed hentai) then America shall not fall! His address is easily locate or online, but he's perfectly safe in Austin or Washington, and is so tough that he requires far less security than less worthy targets.

  7. enjoyable lines thus far by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My favorites parts so far:

    (p43, lines 15-18)
    Mr. Beckerman: There has to be evidence on this side and some evidence on that side. There can't be some evidence on this side and some lawyer speculating as to what he thinks may be going on.

    (p44, lines 10-12)

    [Beckerman continues...]
    where is that evidence? There has to be some threshold for bringing a lawsuit instead of terrorizing people in the first place.

    (aside, is there a Godwin equivalent to equating things with terrorizing?)

  8. Very interesting territory by sohmc · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The large majority of first-sale doctrine cases were about actual objects (e.g. CDs, books, Lego Playset, etc). This case is strictly about a digital object, which both exists and doesn't exist.

    It exists in the fact that a storage medium (a physical object) contains it. It doesn't exist in the sense that the file cannot be handled traditionally.

    I've felt that the law is severely lacking in the digital area but, in all honestly, found that it's difficult to write laws for something that can be created out of nothing. I believe in principle that I should be able to sell my MP3s if I don't want them anymore. There is obviously a market for them. But I don't see how this will work in a world where I can sell the object but still keep it at the same time.

    This is not possible with tangible objects, at least not until the Star Trek replicator is invented.

    --
    We don't live in Shouldland.