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Will Your Books and Music Die With You?
theodp writes "Many of us will accumulate vast libraries of digital books and music over the course of our lifetimes, reports the WSJ, but when we die, our collections of words and music may expire with us. 'I find it hard to imagine a situation where a family would be OK with losing a collection of 10,000 books and songs,' says author Evan Carroll of the problems created for one's heirs with digital content, which doesn't convey the same ownership rights as print books and CDs. So what's the solution? Amazon and Apple were mum when contacted, but with the growth of digital assets, Dazza Greenwood of MIT's Media Lab said it's time to reform and update IP law so content can be transferred to another's account or divided between several people."
Will anyone want your collection of Justin Bieber and Rihanna when you die?
However you may also decide to delete the whole lot, unseen, just in case it contains the sort of "material" you'd prefer not to remember your departed loved one by.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
It's all a "license" now. Ownership, while not entirely a thing of the past, has changed form... or rather, has reverted in form. There is ownership and there is property. The problem is that the property is you and the ownership is someone or something else.
Is this a case where corporate personhood is a good thing?
Does this mean what you should do is fire up a trust and have the trust purchase all the media? Then the trust lives on (and is ownership transfers or was likely already shared with your intended recipient(s)).
Or is that going to get you in trouble with your trust "sharing" its media with you?
...and just one of the many reasons I have hundreds of CDs lying around. I've bought some music and videos from iTunes. I prefer buying CDs because they're physical and tangible. Google or Apple can't decide to "close the service" and take all of my CDs away.
For that matter, there are still recordings only to be found on vinyl. There's either too weak of a modern interest in certain albums or "not enough profit" for record companies in re-releasing them. Either way, I don't see physical media going away anytime soon.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
They are just licenses these days. They are not tangible so it's hard to apply property rights to them.
It's a great business model though - you have to buy it again rather than passing it on through death or disinterest.
This sort of shit disgusts me, so I still buy real books and CDs. If new content is not being produced in this way, there is still plenty to read and listen to.
I have the unusual habit of paying writers directly after downloading their books on warez sites. So as far as I'm concerned, my books are paid for and readable by anyone who happens to inherit them after I die.
Not that I give a toss about what happens after I die, mind you...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
They need to make DRM illegal. Sorry, but once you release something, copyright has always been based on honor. By creating mechanisms to lock down content, it is taking it out of the peoples' hands.
By pointing out that things are "lost" and then correcting the truth to reveal that nothing was "lost" because the notion of ownership was an illusion in the first place proves what has been stolen from under our noses.
Now you have a "license" for particular works on your ipod, but not your car stereo or anywhere else. If you want the same content there, you have to pay again and again. And if for some reason you violate the license terms, you might just lose it all. The point is to note who is in control. Those who are in control are the owners. Since you don't have control over your iPhone or other devices which are locked down, you don't own it either.
These are all truths that people have a hard time accepting.
In the small odds my kindle is still running when I die, I'd be happy to leave it to a grandkid.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
My most cherished possessions are books that have come down through three generations from a great-grandfather.
I wouldn't count on any e-publisher catering to your desire to pass your "possessions" on; indeed, they may finally come out and state it plainly that you're just renting the content. If prodded on the issue that you'd value the ability to pass them on, they'll probably say something to the effect that that this would create real problems for them - since people would use the mechanism to pass books from person to person weeks apart, letting 10 kids in a classroom all read one copy of The Hunger Games - whereas the "legitimate" usage of passing them on at death is not valued by most buyers, as its just too far in the future.
Ironic, that viewpoint, since they also claim that authors need 100 years of copyright AFTER their own death, as they value that so terribly much, without it, they'll never write the book.
Second we really don't know where the DRM movement is going. The only thing impeding the transfer of ownership is the DRM. If there is no DRM, then pretty much no one owns it. We simply pay a sum to reward the stakeholders, and hopefully the creator.
Third, the widespread ownership of such content is relatively recent phenomena. Conservatives outlets like the WSJ want us to believe that this is the way it has always been, and will always be, but that is not true. For books, it has been at most a couple hundred years that cheap books have been available so the average person could have a big collection, and more likely a hundred is a better estimate. We probably had have large collection of vinyl for 50 years of so. Movies has only been priced to sell in the consumer market since the 80's.
So what does this mean? A changing definition of ownership. If I have an LP or a VHS or a book, I only own a copy, nothing else. If I the copy is destroyed or lost, there is not legal right for a replacement of the content. If one had money for a cassete recorder, or a copy machine or a second VCR, one could make a copy, but there are generational losses, and copying on large scales to make a backup of everything was very time consuming. WIth a CD and a computer one was able to own the content for the first time, but that has only been around for less than a generation.This kind of forms a background on why music is not copy protected as much as books and movies.
One may complain that one has to pay $10 a month for movies, and if one does not pay, one loses the collection, but what has one lost? What does ownership really mean in terms of real history, not that made up by the WSJ. It is true that if one has a collection of books those books could be converted to a small amount of cash. The real value of books and music, at least in my upbringing, was the culture and education they provided. This far surpassed any cash value. And think of this. I don't have the vast collection of my father's books and music because he let go of books over the years, as they are very bulky to move, and the records were destroyed in a flood. OTOH if the books and music were on Amazon, and I had his password, I would.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I'm building a pyramid to store all my worldly possessions with my mummified body after I die.
I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
Damn right. I don't expect to live long enough to be a burden on my children, but I can get even by leaving them an attic and basement full of random shit for them to sort through.
My wife and I have promised to come to their houses for dinner and say "I don't like it" before we taste it - and fight at the table.
Already have. For definitions of accumulate=pirate.
As to what will happen to it after I die? Doesn't matter. Anybody that I know who wants a copy can have one while I'm alive. It takes three days just to copy the music (granting that's going from average SATA drive RAID to a USB2 external).
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
As I violently violate the law and strip out the DRM from every purchase. it's mine, I dont care about their TOS, I'm going to get rid of their restrictions and make sure my purchases cant be stolen from me.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
But what about your porn????
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
The concept of 'you don't own anything any longer' or copyright law is not a true law; it's a corporation law. A law 'of the land' for example - Murder - is one that is enforced by peace officers, and the judicial system. It is also very binding too. As in, your ass is in jail for a long time. Corporation law against individuals, on the other hand is nearly unenforceable, and cannot easily be found out. For now, RIAA/MPAA cannot come into your systems and snoop to see if you have the latest copy of Beaver's song, and find out if you bought it legally or not. Probably not even economically feasible. Yes Corporations perform corporate extortion (IE: RIAA saying "pay us $5,000 for our precious copyright infringement or else we'll sue you into economic bondage) but that is becoming increasingly rare and also it's if they can find out. But onto the topic. Copyright law may say "you cannot do anything but kiss our rumps." But in practically, they cannot do a thing to stop individuals from actually making MP3s of every song they own. (and If I pay money for something, I own it.) Or converting every book, DVD, etc to an open, non-DRM format. The WSJ may be a good paper, but they're missing the big picture. Individuals cannot be stopped, and the idea of dying with all this DRM blocked digital works is frankly a dead issue. Only ones who do not want to take a bit of time to exercise their rights and are sheep are at risk.
-- Kevin C. Redden kcredden@ gmail 392992
Yeah, the article's precepts are really off.
We shouldn't need to collect books and music. Only reason I do is as a hedge against copyright extremism, and because the Internet isn't always handy, and storage is cheap. And to serve as a list of stuff I like, but that's easily handled by keeping just lists, not content. This "problem" is not an issue.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
I own the damned copy. Ownership of a copy is recognized in copyright law, and a separate thing from ownership of the copyright or a license to any of the rights which make up copyright. A lot of publishers attempt to claim you don't even own the copy, some convincingly (e.g. a rental DVD), some rather less so (e.g. a product with an EULA printed within the packaging of a product you bought from a middleman.)
This is why I buy hard copies of any book I really like. Partly to show off that I've read it but also to pass along to my children or others who may be interested.
UID 4190? He must have joined Slashdot when it was still a magazine.
He probably knew Mozart personally with a UID that low.
"But this one goes to 11!"
When i die, my stuff will be easy access ('cept for for the porn, it's truecrypted, some things family doesn't need access to). Will they want it? I doubt it. But don't care. I will be dead.
So whatever happens after i die happens. I will be dead.
Be seeing you...
My Opa hoarded after the war. His garage was so full of stuff, he even pulled nails out of old railway sleepers then put the nails in a jar, just in case he might need them one day! Upon his passing, even a garage sale didn't put a dent in his collections of nuts, bolts, nails, pop rivets, all in their own jars & labelled up. Now, in reflection on myself, I've been playing Guild Wars for ~6 years and boy have I got stuff! 9 characters with filled storage, all inventory storage slots purchased & full...But I think if I were to pass away with my children inheriting my Guild Wars account, they'd take one look at it, then go back to their Playstation 7's and their Nintendo 512's.
But in saying that, my aunties & uncles spent months reminiscing in that garage, their heart glowing with every new jar of washers opened, that jar summarizing my Opa's character, saving for a rainy day. Like physical items, I think a will & the families should have the last say of what goes to who regarding digital media.
/. has covered this many times before, Technology has a limited life, if you have Digital music, you can move it to a physical medium, but you then need a device to use that physical medium. If you have books, you move them to a medium that can store the material, if you have some sort of limited, proprietary format THEN YOU DID IT WRONG. I buy physical medium and transfer it to digital, and I have several devices to replay the content, I buy books, too many books, but I doubt that my Grandkids will care.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
we'll no longer have books available to the general population. libraries will have been closed by the "let's eliminate taxes" nutjobs. cassettes, cd's, records will be artifacts from an ancient era. the content creators will own the rights, and you're lucky to have any music to listen to while you read people magazine on your idevice. the future is going to suck.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
Like I say, collections develop inertia all there own.
Do I really need a music collection that would take decades to play?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'