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Selling Used MP3s Found Legal In America
bs0d3 writes "After some litigation; ReDigi, a site where people can sell used MP3s has been found legal in America. One of the key decisions the judge had to make was whether MP3's were material objects or not. 'Material objects' are not subject to the distribution right stipulated in "17 USC 106(3)" which protects the sale of intellectual property copies. If MP3's are material objects than the resale of them is guaranteed legal under the first sale' exception in 17 USC 109. Capitol Records tried to argue that they were material objects under one law and not under the other. Today the judge has sided with the first-sale doctrine, which means he is seeing these as material objects."
You could. If you deleted all of your copies, and if only one person was able to download them.
The main reason for this ruling was that it obeyed the first law of economic thermodynamics - products were neither created nor destroyed, only transferred.
You can. You just have to use some sort of atomic transaction scheme like ReDigi does to ensure that no more than one copy is accessible at a time.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
What you're missing here is that to "sell" the MP3, it is necessary that you give the MP3 to the other party. This is a "move" not a "copy", meaning, you must destroy your current copy. Yes, under the "material object" logic, you could "give" it away, as in "sell it for zero", but you give up any rights to it yourself.
With P2P, your copy stays on the machine when another downloads it from you. You now have an illegal copy (assuming you GAVE it to the first downloader).
This decision is going to be challenged, directly or via changing of law, because it's a huge loss for the RIAA. I suspect it will be an important legal precedent, if it is not overturned.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
After some litigation; ReDigi, a site where people can sell used MP3's has been found legal in America.
Punctuation it: can go, pretty; much? Anywhere,
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
What is the mass of an MP3?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The judge simply denied a motion for a preliminary injunction against the defendant which means the case will go to trial.
Actual source of information: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/02/judge-denies-record-labels-request-to-shutter-used-mp3-store.ars
In short selling of used mp3's hasn't been answered yet (the summary is wrong).
The title of this article is wrong. Everything I read shows no decision has been made yet. The Judge ruled that there is no need for a prelimenary injunction.
What is the mass of an MP3?
An African or European MP3?
I makes me wonder how this would apply to other digital media we buy.
* I'd think, say with DLC, the producer of the material wouldn't be obligated to assist in a content transfer so DRM keeps them safe for now. But are we now otherwise allowed to transfer that material to someone else? If so, do anti-circumvention exemptions now apply to the new owner?
* [requisite ianal, etc]
Completely wrong response. Following this judge's decision, you can indeed give them away, so long as you are only giving away the copies that you purchased.
Whats stopping you from xeroxing your favorite new book and mailing it to your friends? Nothing. Except the law.
Most of piracy is a problem in how companies treat customers, availability, restrictions (the pirated version has more features, is more usable) and cost.
If books started to cost more money, people would start xeroxing them to each other. Its how it goes. This is all a reaction to the RIAA thinking they can dictate terms to the masses and rake in money. You have to respect your customer and provide value.
GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
I parsed that last bit as "then == ale", and realized it was time to go home. Then does in face equal ale.
Just a few hours ago Slashdot reported that a judge had refused an injunction against ReDigi, and now they are supposed to have won their case? I'd say there are two possibilities: One, that we have a judge who can run at speeds exceeding the speed of light, because that's the only way a case could have finished so quick. Or second, that the submitter is a clueless twat you didn't understand a word of what he is actually submitting. Since there is no link to any real information, I assume the latter.
ahh, but could one not argue that at one point, however short, existed two copies?
So RAID 1 is illegal.
This story is bogus. It looks like yahoo news misquoted a arstechnica acticle. Then some blog sourced the yahoo new article. There was no ruling on First Sale. The ruling only states there is no need for an injunction. The judge is going to rule on First Sale in a few weeks.
True, but then if I sell my copy of a book there's no guarantee I haven't photocopied it and kept the copy either.
Bear in mind that it's not so much an argument over whether MP3s should be treated as material objects or not. It's that the record companies want them treated as material objects for purposes of one section of copyright law (Section 106 covering distribution of copies) but treated as not being material objects for purposes of a different section (Section 109 covering sale of copies). The counterargument is that the record company can't have it both ways, and the judge agreed that if the record companies want it to be considered a copy then defendants are entitled to treat it as a copy even when the record companies would rather they didn't.
No, selling used mp3s has not been found legal. If you trace the link's back to the original source you get this article at Ars:
**Judge denies record label's request to shutter "used" MP3 store**
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/02/judge-denies-record-labels-request-to-shutter-used-mp3-store.ars
The judge still thinks ReDigi's arguments are likely to fail and that Capitol Records will prevail. The only thing that is significant is that ReDigi's case isn't over yet at the motion stage.
I parsed that last bit as "then == ale", and realized it was time to go home. Then does in face equal ale.
Wherever you are, it's well past time to go home. ;)
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
So if I own lots of MP3s, millions of them including multiple copies of popular songs-
Could I sell one to you, then a few minutes later buy it back as I sell you the next MP3 on your playlist?
I can see having any song available on demand from a music service for a small monthly fee becoming a viable business model, where previously only radio-style playlists (you don't get to pick every song) have been available free or cheaply.
this is just a case of them trying to have their cake and eat it too, when they'd really much rather HAVE their cake than EAT it, if given the choice. So the judge had to make a call, and it was called EAT it. So now they find themselves in pretty much the worst possible scenario. By their own involvements they've gotten MP3's judged as material objects.
And now have an almost impossible to police or defend position of having to identify and prove that you don't still have a copy after selling it. Serves them right for trying to double-dip. They would have been much better off to have claimed it was exclusively not a physical object - at least then they'd have more applicable laws to erm... abuse.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Yeah, and informed account of that decision by the actual lawyer for ReDigi was
posted on slashdot just this morning.
There has been no definitive ruling by the courts in this litigation. The judge only denied Capitol Records request for a preliminary injunction against ReDigi to force them to cease operations while the litigation proceeds. That, most likely would have forced ReDigi out of business, which may well have been what the judge was thinking about. We won't have any real answers about this until after a trial and, presumably, the inevitable appeals.
More Info here and here
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
The particular service in question, ReDigi, works with iTunes. Once the song is removed from your iTunes account transactionally, you cannot use it anymore.
You're free to copy a pirated version back into iTunes, but iTunes won't recognize it officially and you won't be able to download the song elsewhere from iTunes servers. So it is, in some ways, an inferior product. And its illegal, and once you make the cost and the penalties fair, people will understand. There will always be a few who pirate, but that isn't the issue here; THOSE PEOPLE ARE ALREADY PIRATING MUSIC, and will continue to do so. Furthermore, those people are not lost sales, but that is an argument for another day.
GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
Exactly. The first person in Hollywood to realize it is going to make trillions. All market evidence shows this, but they seem to be too entitled to admit it.
See all of Valve's latest experiments, where for instance everybody told them "you cant' sell in Russia, its full of pirates." When they started doing proper, good localizations to Russian, and started releasing games there at the same time as the States, piracy completely fell off the map. They're still making 3x as much money in Russia as any analyst expects them to.
Or the steam sales, where offering a product at a fair price to market perception caused UNBELIEVABLE number of purchases. Valve's minds are literally blown by how much more games sell when you slash the price in half. I mean, a sale traditionally increases how much people buy, but we're talking over a hundred-fold more. Thats why you've seen sale after sale after sale on Steam; by charging LESS, they actually make MORE.
GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
The linked story is from some fly-by-night news site that cites a Yahoo! news posting that totally misinterprets an ArsTechnica posting that actually analyzes the actual decision (which is hosted on Wired.) Somehow in this online news game of telephone, it went from the actual story, posted accurately earlier in the day by NewYorkCountryLawyer, that the judge denied the plaintiff's motion for an injunction to the sensationalist story that the judge had ruled in favor of the defendant and ruled that their business is legal. Denying the injunction means that ReDigi gets to keep doing business during the trial. That's it, nothing more. They could still lose at trial. The trial hasn't even started, let alone been decided in a way that would mean that reselling mp3s is legal.
In short, this is a misinformed dupe of the story posted by NewYorkCountryLawyer earlier in the day. Read and comment on that one because this is sensationalist garbage. Nothing to see here. Move along.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
So, there are 5 links in the summary. One is a previous slashdot story, one is ReDigi's homepage, two are just links to law texts, and the last one is, I guess, TFA. So I followed it, and found a shady ass blog post hosted on some random site on port 82. It had links though, mostly the same links as TFS, but it added what seemed like a source hosted on a Yahoo blog. Better, but still not really reliable, and the facts were starting to change. So I followed that blogs source, and got to Ars. OK, now something vaguely reliable. But the facts were a lot murkier, and it sounded a lot like the same story from two days ago, linked in TFS. Ars has two relevant, recent links. One is to Wired, so now it really starts to sound legit, except the Wired article is from February 2nd, and says "a ruling could come any day now". The other Ars link is to a pdf ruling. Finally, the truth will be revealed. Here is the text of the brief, in it's entirety:
RICHARD J. SULLIVAN, District Judge:
For the reasons stated on the record at today's conference, Plaintiffs motion for a preliminary injunction is HEREBY DENIED.
As directed by the Court at today's conference, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED THAT, by Monday, February 20, 2012 at 4:00 p.m., the parties shall submit a proposed case management plan and scheduling to my chambers at the following email address: sullivannysdchambers@nysd.uscourts.gov. A template for the order is available at http://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/cases/show.php?db=judge_info&id=347. SO ORDERED.
Dated: February 6, 2012 New York, New York
Isn't Internet news great?
You can't, remember copyright? I have to give a "right to copy" a permission or a license to distribute my digital goods. Software, recordings, photos etc. are all covered here and copyright makes any second-hand market or distribution illegal by default unless authorized by the copyright holders.
I heard there was a recent court ruling that found otherwise, saying that at least in the case of mp3s that they constitute 'material objects' and are thus subject to the First Sale Doctrine exception to the distribution right.
I can't remember where I heard this though.
The enemies of Democracy are
If I recall correctly, the law distinguishes between those copies that are only a technical requirement of storing or playing the work, like RAID1 or copying it to RAM and the sound card buffer, and those that functionally create two copies. Perhaps you can with specialized software argue that this temporary duplication is an technical implementation detail in moving a file, but I doubt your average P2P software would apply. I would think you must show that the software will transfer the bits only once to one person and delete them upon confirmation, which is not the typical mode of operation.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
What if half my 320kbps mp3 to two 160kbps mp3s? do I have two legal copies?
I suppose that would be the difference between you doing something illegal and ReDigi (or another service) operating an illegal service.
Presumably what mattered here is that ReDigi did their due diligence in the process of transferring an mp3 from one person to another, destroying the provided original. If you copied it before that, then you did something illegal, not them. They'd have done what they could to avoid facilitating such a scam.
not a lawyer.
Possession is nine tenths of the Law. BTW, according to several people working as agents of the Performing Rights Society and the British Phonographic Institute, a receipt is not proof of ownership - the only proof they will accept is an original inlay (specifically the side with the barcode) - even if you don't have current possession of the media itself (I mean, how many DJs do you know carries original copies of commercial albums on CDDA? I know of precisely zero).
Disclaimer: my brother is a club DJ, I used to help out occasionally and met lots of other DJs who did the same: carried ready-to-go remixes and pissbreak tracks on a dozen or so CDR or a firewire drive, and several thousand CD back inlays in a couple lever arch files. With the diversity of floor requests, you couldn't possibly carry even a half decent collection of heavy rock or dubstep or whatever on CDDA, you'd need a frickin' truck! (200 CD albums in cases weighs over 28lb, plus the weight of the trunk). Hence, a 500GB drive packed with popular floorfillers (with the requisite accompanying two or three pounds of paper inlays) was an essential addition to his car load.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Wow, that almost sounds like a library.
Would you even have to sell it? You could let someone borrow your music just like you can let them borrow your car. I could see some business creating a website that facilitates this kind of exchange. They charge you a flat rate to access their catalog of users that want to borrow and lend music.
As I have previously posted on /., I don't see why there can't be a digital deeds to all digital products. There are registered authorities that facilitates the exchange of digital deeds for a small fee. All deeds will be signed with an authority's private key. All registered authorities are required to accept deeds signed by other authorities. If you are using a digital product without a digital deed to your name, you are infringing on the copyright. Obviously, this wouldn't keep people from pirating anyway but at least there would be a way to prove that you bought the product fair and square if ownership ever came into question.
Isn't Internet news great?
That's not why we invented in the first place silly. We invented it for porn. When you consider that, the Internet kicks ass and is the most wildly successful invention in mankind's history.
I agree but if I keep backups of all my music they're not going to be able to delete copies of music on a USB drive not even connected to the computer
I can buy a CD, create an image with EAC, then take the CD to any 2nd hand store and sell it to them, no question asked. Nobody makes you sign a document where you state that you have destroyed any backups you might have made. Heck, nobody even asks. Is it legal? Probably not. But that's not the point. Just because I can do this, I am not prohibited from selling said CD. So "possibly having backup copies left" is NOT an argument that can be used prohibiting someone from selling music files they bought from a legal source, e.g. iTMS. I can use my scanner to scan a BOOK. So with that reasoning, you can't sell books anymore because you might have kept a copy.
My concern would be as well is that someone decides to sell their low quality torrented music and you still have to worry about it being a quality version. Even if the 30 second preview is from the actual file it doesn't tell me if it cuts off too early.
Yes, that would be a problem. You never know if it might have been taken from the 2010 remastered edition where MC Master DJ Shitforface decided to master it really "hot" i.e. compressed to death and brickwalled. Perhaps these services should give you the option to listen to the first 5 seconds and the last 5 second, as well as supply all relevant information (including DR analysis, etc. which can all be automated).
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
The transcript of the case is also available. Basically the judge said nothing but, 'there's no irreparable harm, so there won't be a preliminary injunction. Nothing was found legal or illegal, there will be a full case before anything can be said about that. Although the Judge hinted he expects ReDigi to loose the case, he explicitly stated the sole reason for denying the preliminary injunction was the absence of irreparable harm.