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Bruce Willis Considering Legal Action Against Apple Over iTunes Collection
First time accepted submitter oobayly writes "It appears that Bruce 'Die Hard' Willis isn't too impressed that he can't include his iTunes collection in his estate when he dies. According to the article: 'Bruce Willis, the Hollywood actor, is said to be considering legal action against Apple so he can leave his iTunes music collection to his three daughters.' Such a high profile individual complaining about the ability to own your digital music can only be a good thing, right?"
I'm quite sure Steve Jobs would have given everyone as much access to their own content as they wanted, but that it is actually the record labels and/or RIAA demanding these rules.
It's about sending a message.
Good for him.
If he fails - the masses will except it....
PR much?
... we have finally found a socially beneficial use for a cheesy action movie star. Now let's find one for bankers ...
So building a large collection with Apple will basically be a right off, in financial terms.
iTunes music has no DRM. You can do anything you want with it.
iTunes music is DRM free. He doesn't need to sue to leave it to his daughters.
Bullshit. He owns the copies on his 'pod and can transfer it to whoever the hell he wants. What he does not own is the right to create more copies. That is what he needs a license for and that is what copyright is about.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
It would seem that Die Hard meets Die Hard Drive Die. We've gone from you can't take it with you to you MUST take it with you, Ah Progress......
iTunes TV shows and movies, however, are locked up with DRM and can't be transferred.
For centuries public/important figures have donated huge libraries to universities and other cultural institution or created foundations to manage their estate for the public good. It makes no sense that this opportunity disappears as we move toward digital content. Unless we go back to sane copyright terms and stuff starts to become public domain again, that is.
He 'spent thousands of dollars on digital music'? Great, now he can spent hundreds of hours converting them to mp3s.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
ITunes music has been DRM free since 2009.
http://www.macworld.com/article/1137946/itunestore.html
So he can't be bothered to just copy his music out of iTunes and do whatever he wants with it?
This sounds more like he wants to leave his iTunes *account* to his estate. It also sounds like he didn't read the iTunes Terms of Service before he agreed to it. Doesn't seem to me Apple is being the "bad guy" here, at least no more than 99.99% of every company out there, as an account you make is for YOU, I've never seen anyone else that allows you to transfer your account to someone else either.
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
Pragmatically, Bruce could afford to set a fund aside to re-purchase his library in one of his daughter's names, but I'm sure it's the principle of the thing, and in that respect he's right.
The moral of the story, something I discovered years ago, is that generally it's the terminally lazy and shortsighted who buy their music from itunes. Buy the real CD, import it into itunes, and it's yours forever. You even have a handy backup in the Tupperware bin in the closet. And your kids can get your entire music collection on a DRM-free hard drive that itunes will play, or a collection of cds that they can rip if they feel like it.
I understand, buying directly from itunes is often cheaper than buying a recent commercial CD. (With older music, of course, you can often buy the entire CD for the cost of a couple of tracks, but that's besides the point.) But one of the prices you pay for that discount is that the music is not yours. Oh, it might seem like it's yours, but try to give it away, and you find that it doesn't belong to you.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
"All I am saying is to be very careful what you promise Apple, Bruce. It would be less dangerous to break into Gringotts than to renege on a licensing agreement with Apple."
I refuse to believe even he would want to inflict 'The Return of Bruno' on someone anymore...
Anyone know what fine print he is talking about?
It would be nice to see exactly what they do say.
Also to those who are saying that the RIAA forces Apple to do this, what is the text of the contract that they force iTunes to abide by when using their music?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
It's bizarre at first sight, but it does make sense to treat it differently than real property. Does he intend, for example, that each kid gets a copy? Copyright infringement, he got 3 for the price of 1. It would be "fair" if a single copy could be passed on, and I really hope that will be the law.
Less than hundreds of hours to convert them to MP3... assuming $0.99/tune he's got thousands of tunes. A program like dbPowerAmp can transcode to MP3 at over 100X (processing four at a time with a quad-core machine) so you're looking at tens of hours.
I imagine his movies are distributed under the same restrictive license. Is he also trying to loosen up the cpyright restrictions on his creations?
I'm quite sure Steve Jobs would have given everyone as much access to their own content
I think Apple does give people access to their "own content" as much as they want. If you write a song and record it in garage band, you're pretty much free to do whatever you want with it. The problem here is that Willis has purchased songs digitally (probably a lot of them) and now in his mind this is equivalent to him buying vinyl records and compact discs. The problem now is that this license for listening to music was sold to him and the enforcement of this license is quite unfavorable to the consumer -- there is no second sale, there is no inheritance, there is no transferability period.
as they wanted, but that it is actually the record labels and/or RIAA demanding these rules.
You are more than correct but what you fail to understand is that the RIAA did not do business with Willis. The RIAA did business with Apple and Apple did business with Willis. Willis is going after the correct party here because something was sold to him and he had misunderstood the agreement that he signed -- the same one everyone has to "sign" every time the iTunes software is even updated. I've bitched about this so many times on Slashdot but I think that Willis is going to lose when it comes to down to the ToS. Although, I do not remove the blame entirely from Apple because their sales technique and the public understanding of their 'product' is largely misguided if not lying. The public thinks they are purchasing the same thing they did when they bought a CD but now it's digital, it's smaller, compact, more elegant, etc. But that's not true, you're missing a whole bunch of rights that came with buying a CD including the ability to pass a single copy of the CD on to your daughter or liquidate it in the estate sale. At anytime Apple can revoke your right to listen to this CD and I still buy physical copies of music for many reasons -- this being one of them.
I'm the sure the RIAA would have loved to dispatch a gestapo to your estate sale and destroy your vinyl and cassettes when someone died but they didn't. And that meant that these things retained value. Now that they're on the "iCloud" or whatever, they can do that without looking like Nazis so they definitely will and Apple won't have any say in the matter. Don't give Apple a free pass though, they're laughing all the way to the bank as you sign a ToS explaining how your rights are diminutive compared to physical media yet you spend like you're buying a physical entity.
Buy physical media, extract it to your computer and then shelve it. Otherwise you need to understand that what you're "buying" from Apple or Amazon or whomever is non-transferable and at the very least temporary in that you are mortal.
My work here is dung.
Give him a handgun, a bloody shirt, some ducttape, and let him tear RIAApple an new one.
Deep voiced Narrator: 'All he wanted, was for his daughters to know his song..'
(cuts to bruce willis in a cab on a california road)
BW:"Snow white aint bitin this apple" (He drives the cab at full speed off a ramp through an apple building, accompanied by obligatory explosions and guitar riffs)
Narrator: "This summer....The fruit will fall from the tree..."
The title Bad Fruit flashes acrosses the screen and the torrentverse goes wild in August.
Sure, there are ways around it, but that is not the point.
If anything, it will make it clear that we don't own anything. That companies own everything we think belongs to us.
I applaud him for making this public.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Until your estate is divided up, your estate "is" you for most legal purposes. The executor is "your personal agent."
It sounds like state and federal estate law will/should trump any contract clause that says the account dies with the individual.
Absent specific estate law, I would think that most states have "case law" governing things like whether contracts partially or completely terminate on death and under what circumstances "terminate on death" clauses in contracts are or are not enforceable.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, but I've watched one on TV.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
is non-transferable and at the very least temporary in that you are mortal.
Can a corporation purchase these licenses, and can the corporation be transfered to other relatives?
The DMCA allows non-mortal 'beings' to hold copyright and transfer it indefinately, why should corporeal beings be at a disadvantage when it comes to the same thing.
He 'spent thousands of dollars on digital music'? Great, now he can spent hundreds of hours converting them to mp3s.
Typical slashdotter with the attention span of a gnat. Any music purchased on iTunes can be copied easily (you can completely legally remove all DRM that may have been on some music years ago by upgrading for something like $0.30 per song, or by using iTunes Match). The problem is to transfer _legal ownership_ of the music he purchased to his heirs.
Apart from that, it doesn't take even a minute to tell my Mac to convert all my about 18,000 or so songs in AAC format to MP3. The Mac will admittedly take a while to do so, but who cares?
Does this mean Bruce is considering doing a "Tony Scott"? He's still relatively young so why his concern now?
Can't Bruce just leave the actual ipods with all the music on them?
It's not like once Apple hears about his death the ipods will self destroy...
I'm certainly not going to give them a free pass. Rather, I'm going to spend my money at other retailers of RIAA music, like Google and Amazon, who do allow me to pass on my purchases to my family. Oh, wait they don't.
No, it's iTunes. When I buy music through means other than iTunes (CDs), some of those labels are RIAA members too, but they have done nothing to prevent me from transferring the CDs. Thus, it's an iTunes problem, not a publisher problem.
It sounds like the mistake Willis made, is that he's licensing music instead of buying it. I have never licensed any music and never will. I'll switch to piracy if they ever stop selling. The good news is that even as late as 2012, music is still for sale. They aren't telling paying customers to fuck off, yet.
But they do offer the "fuck yourself" option to foolish customers, and it looks like Willis took the bait. Avoid iTunes and similar services, buy music like you always have, and you'll avoid this problem.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
The only reason Bruce Willis and not Chuck Norris is sueing is that Chuck Norris CAN keep his iTunes collection in the family heirloom.....
bickerdyke
I wondered what he is trying to accomplish, end of the day if he left his collection to someone: Is he wanting to be able to transfer the collection from his account to his kids account? Does apple allow that ?
If someone used the export or whatever to get it out of iTunes as DRM free files, can those be added to someone else's collection? what's the difference between an "official" iTunes file and an mp3 or such?
Just curious, I've stayed away from iTunes for the most part myself....
AB HOC POSSUM VIDERE DOMUM TUUM
because corporeal beings don't run the government.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Pirate Bay it is then. You can re-download as many times as you need to and you can pass it on without a problem.
The message is "Yippee ki-yay, motherfucker"
No. You seem to understand the problem at some level, but you are presenting it very sloppily and inaccurately.
The problem is that he didn't purchase at all. Whether it was digital or not, is completely irrelevant.
CDs are digital too. When you inaccurately present the difference as "digital" then you miss what is really happening: lack of a sale. "Digital" is not the word you're looking for; "buy" is.
I agree, but only because non-physical media is not yet for sale, or only rarely. If they ever start selling (as opposed to licensing) files, that will be just as good (except for the lack of a "free backup included").
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Look Who's Talking, Look Who's Talking Too, Hudson Hawk, ...
Even if you go all bollocks and say "he just purchased a license", then those licenses are part of the estate.
Buy or borrow or rent CDs and DVDs, and rip from them.
There is plenty of software out there which facilitates bypassing DRM.
But of court the truth is that most of you just want something else
to whine about so you can attempt to fill your futile useless empty lives.
Now if you excuse me I am going to go sailing, a pastime which I can afford
because I work instead of complain.
Because if you go and kill the author, ALL their works become public domain and therefore EVERYONE can access them the same as you can. Except they aren't risking being put in jail for murder 1.
Really.
What corporation would be selfless enough to do that?
At the moment, the estate has a vested interest in killing the author whilst the copyrights are still worth money.
Here's an eye patch Bruce, aaarrrrrr... join the crew and plunder to your hearts content. You don't seem ethically constrained by the agreement you entered into, so why not go full pirate?
Content producers have almost always fought this war, and they have fought it in a way that makes their customer the enemy. They fought tooth and nail against fair use (and still do, the fair usage battles rage on across the globe, and there are no defined standards in the area, with each country going through the legal battles at various miserable stages.)
Apple is not alone. Depending on where you live, You may or may not be allowed to backup the content you 'lease'. I say lease because if you are not allowed to backup content, or rather, if you are not allowed to do what you wish with something you paid for, its not ownership - its more a lease or rental. If you live in the UK, you are not even legally allowed to buy CD's from Hong Kong - because its deemed that although you may have suffered from globalism, you are not allowed to benefit from it. Not so far as the media and content producer mafia is concerned.
Again, depending on where you live, and on how successful these mafia have been in their defense of their ownership - You may not be allowed to copy the CD or DVD or Blue Ray of music or film, or computer game- that you paid for. In such cases, I know of some computer game vendors who do in fact offer to replace the 'defective' disk - and I suppose this is a limited offer. I don't suppose they will still offer that in 20 years time, at least for old games. Music and Film I am less aware of. Do they offer a lifetime replacement offering - or do they sell the goods knowing CD/ DVD will be a fading medium in due course. Buy a new copy might be their way out of the hole. Convenient for them, expensive for you. Compared to this, Apple's digital offering might have legs. Until you die, and then your lease is over.
So, I'll cut to the chase. Bruce (and anyone else in the same boat) should digitise what they have paid for and forceably take their ownership of the item and end the problem. When you die, your digital collection goes to whoever you wish. Yes, this collection won't be cloud based and won't reside in the Apple garden, and you'll have to take responsibility for its maintainance - just as anything in life.
*Please note. I'm not advocating piracy. I'm advocating you bequeth the one paid for copy to one person. Or similar. This may not be in line with Apple terms, or even legal terms in your territory. But if the terms or legalities are so stupid, then they deserve to be broken in any case.
*Legal note* - Most UK MPs MP3 their music. These people are responsible for the law still stating in the UK that this is illegal.
*Second legal note* - Nobody I am aware of in the UK has been arrested for converting one or multiple tracks they own into MP3 and illegally loading it onto an MP3 player.
*3rd legal note* No record company has ever tried to enforce this in legal case, and they would be epically stupid to ever try.
We`re all equal
Apple is doing it wrong. On their homepage, at http://www.apple.com/itunes/ there's a link "Buy Music Now." It doesn't say "buy a personal license" or "license music", It says "buy"
Your post is completely spot on. You simply need to sum it up by saying something like, licensing != buying .
I've bitched about this so many times on Slashdot but I think that Willis is going to lose when it comes to down to the ToS.
Is it legal for the ToS to say that you can't have these rights? In the US the answer is probably yes. In the EU the answer may well be no. The issue of whether digital media is property in the traditional sense seems to still be in the air pretty much everywhere in the world, with much of it taking its lead from the USA. There are whole industries in the US based on it not being equivalent so that they can continue to sell the same users new licenses for the same content in different contexts, so it seems like Willis has a steep uphill battle no matter what happens. On the other hand, everyone in the US and in many other countries have a stake in how this comes out, and Willis has broad international recognition, so it may well be worth the effort to keep this story afloat.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
> ...non-physical media...
That is a nonsense phrase.
> If they ever start selling (as opposed to licensing) files...
They sell you the right to create one (1) copy on your (physical) media. The media is your property and you are free to dispose of it as you wish, copy and all[1]. What you are not free to do is make more copies, just as you would not be free to make more copies of a vinyl record.
[1] Unless you have entered into a contract with them in which you agreed to limits on your right to transfer your copy, in which case they might be able to sue you for breach of contract (not for copyright infringement, though).
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
They stated that you can't do these things, I'm pretty sure since Apple's lawyers are pretty good, heck, they sued over rounded corners for a billion dollars. Best lawyers in the world? I think so! So well, let's say they changed their agreement down the line when you used to be able to do this, then he has the right to either do it or get his money back, at least that's how it should be. But since he's suing Apple, he could sue them in a different court besides California which would improve his chances of winning since California is obviously bias for Apple. For anyone else that doesn't like Apple's terrible policies, just torrent or use a different service that doesn't have all of these restrictions. This is /. of course people do these things, or at least the old /. used to.
I agree, but only because non-physical media is not yet for sale, or only rarely.
So buying a license isn't a non-physical media? The electrons that deliver the purchase aren't physical media. I think you are trying so hard to make a point you didn't actually state that you ended up making incorrect statements trying to support your silly premise/conclusion.
If they don't sell songs, but instead sell licenses, I should still be able to sell/transfer the non-transferable licenses. Why? Because a contract may not violate law. And the law allows me to resell my items without getting Ford's permission, and the person who buys it may still drive it without re-licensing it from Ford. The problem isn't that it's a license. It's that it's digital. The digital confuses the judges and law makers. That's why one-click stood up for 10 years. "Put it on my tab" added "on a computer" at the end, and suddenly was novel and non-obvious? Most computer patents are for something that has been used for 1000 years or longer, but with "on a computer" at the end, making it confusing to the patent office, just like telling someone they didn't buy a song when they gave money and got a song in return is ok when it's on a computer, though for the past 100 years, you "owned" the song you bought.
Learn to love Alaska
Is this the same one where they give you a 57 page EULA and let you skip the last 56 pages before "signing" that you've read the whole thing and agree to it, when obviously you haven't?
Reminds me of Kenobi saying "From a certain point of view..."
When the consumer pays, they get told it is a license, you don't really "own" anything, and you pretty much have no rights.
When the artist asks about his/her royalty, (s)he gets told, we sold it. (Because they have to pay the artist more if it is licensed than if it is sold.)
Not so much for music, but with movies I constantly see ads saying "Own it now on DVD!" or "Buy it now!", both of which imply ownership, not a license. I have yet to see an ad saying "License it now!".
Just a minor correction, but Amazon is slightly better in that you can buy a non-DRM mp3 and back it up to your hearts delight (provided you register a computer to download from them). But otherwise, your point does stand that physical media has intrinsic value due to owning it. I dread the day when we go pure digital and lose fundamental rights not just to music/movies but books (i.e. knowledge) as well.
I think Apple does give people access to their "own content" as much as they want.
Dude, are you smoking crack? OS X is based on an open source operating system that they then carved up and bolted on their own stuff, patented it, and threatened anyone who even looked at it sideways with a lawsuit. Then they built a walled garden around that so it's difficult to get applications anywhere but through them. Then they walled in those apps by making sure Apple had to approve each one individually, and double-walled it by making sure Apple got a cut of any content distributed by those applications.
Apple doesn't want you to own anything, even your own personal data. OS X is the only operating system I've used where there's no way to cancel or abort registration: You have to enter a name, address, and phone number to get to the login. It tries to phone home that information right away, even while lying to you on the interface by saying you don't have to register and leaving an icon on the screen for you to do it later... as if it didn't know it already phoned home.
No, Apple doesn't want to give you anything. They want to control all of it; like an amusement park. You're not allowed to bring in any outside food or beverage, and the only thing you can leave with is a few trinkets and a lot less of your money. If you think otherwise, you're lying to yourself.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Apparently he will shoot you even if he has to shoot through himself to do it. Clearly NOT an "internet toughguy" like apple is used to bullying.
No, I'm pretty sure you're missing the big picture. Let me outline it. Apple pays a record label $0.30 to make a copy of a song. Apple then sells that copy of a song to that user for $0.30 along with a $0.70 license to make copies on multiple devices/computers. If a person wants to transfer a bought song to another person, that likely doesn't fit under the Apple license so one effectively loses that $0.70 value. Meanwhile, the $0.30 copy of a song is transferred to that other person. The only way that doesn't hold true is if Apple (1) has you sign a contract that redefines what "buy a song" means and (2) the FTC is being exceptionally lazy and allowing Apple to pull a bait and switch using the words "buy a song" outside of the understood parlance, "to buy a copy of a song", and of which even an asterisks with a footnote explanation would be unlikely to legally cover their ass.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
I've never purchased an iTunes song, and I have no plans to do so as long as I live.
So, how much did the Jobs family inherit? Time for some consistency. Either dig up Stevie, or turn over the goodies.
Do you have any idea how much money makes on selling content and software? About 6 Billion in revenue in 2011 out of a total of 35 Billion, up from 4.2Billion in 2010. ( http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/industry/digital-and-mobile/business-matters-itunes-global-revenue-was-1005988552.story ). That's almost 20% of total revenue. I am fairly certain Steve's anouncement of the iTunes store was something that could be summarized to "we are going to revolutionize the way you purchase content" and not "we thought we'd offer you a service to put songs and apps on your apple devices, since the media creators and app creators are such nice people and we want to help them out." Apple has a very healthy profit margin on their app store and even if they only rake in 10% of their revenue as profit, it's still 600 Million for 2011. The hook to sell was the combination of hardware, software and content. If you control the entire chain, you get to tell the shots and your competitors will have to scramble to pick up the crumbs that you leave them.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
This is why I pirate and why I support TPB.
There may be a simple solution: Form a corporation whose sole purpose is to own "intellectual property" and purchase all digital music (or whatever else makes sense) in the name of the corporation. Since a corporation never dies, you can pass on ownership to whoever you please.
You could have even more fun if you set up a "MERS" like registry to keep track of who owns the corporation. At a click of a few keys, you could transfer ownership of the corporation a dozen times a day.
The other benefit of a corporation is that it's difficult for Apple or anyone else to attack a corporation - because Corporate America regards it as an infringement of their right to do as they damn well please.
When you are dancing with wolves, never limp
Your post is completely spot on. You simply need to sum it up by saying something like, licensing != buying .
and that's what the beef is.
Apple calls it consistently PURCHASING! NOT LIFETIME RENTING or some bullshit like that. it's a consumer rights thing to call things what they are..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Using "except" instead of "accept" essentially reverses the meaning of the sentence, creating confusion in the minds of people like me who know that "except" can mean "to specify as not included in a category or group; exclude."
What everyone seems to have here is a fundamental misunderstanding of the problem.
I have an Amazon account. My wife and daughter have Kindles on this account and my daughter uses the account actively. There is no question that the account will survive me. Neither Amazon nor Apple has the concept of an individual, only the account. Now, there may be specific reasons why Mr. Willis does not wish to share his account with his daughters and instead would prefer to transfer the contents of the account - and not the account itself - and that has led to the situation described.
However, it should be clearly noted for all that the only contractual entity involved in a transaction with Amazon or Apple is "the account", and not specifically an individual. I know of no restriction whatsoever that limits an account to a single individual or even a single family. I do know with Amazon it would be uncomfortable for the account to be shared too widely because it does have purchasing authority with my credit card.
With Apple devices there is also the issue of an account enclosing all of the email settings and everything else - it does not make sense for multiple people to share an account under most circumstances. However, having the account information known to others and maintaining activity in the account is probably a good plan.
Both Amazon and Apple allow for editing of an account and changing all aspects of an account, including name, address, email addresses, credit cards, etc. at any time. This effectively makes even an unshared account "transferrable" in a unrevokable manner.
Are the items under an account transferrable? No, not today and quite probably not forever. Is the entire account transferrable? Clearly it is, whether it is the intent of the organization the account is with or not.
Each corporation that is a direct competitor to the original licensee for instance.
If you bought a license, that license is yours.
The license may say "not transferable" but this isn't legal.
PS Go to Europe, they're far more sensible there.
PPS did you know that you don't need a license to copy if that copy is required for the normal use of the product? Go look at the Berne Convention on copyrights.
I'm in the process of setting up my parents' belongings in some sort of trust for when they eventually pass. That way my sister and I can inherit it without us having to do nasty things like sell off the their house so we can split the money evenly. The whole process got me thinking about digital downloads.
What if instead of buying material off iTunes for yourself, you set up trust to do the buying. When you pass, your ownership of the media you've bought off iTunes does not evaporate while Apple and the *AA rub their hands in glee. The trust survives, retains ownership, and is able to pass that ownership onto another party.
The problem of being able to parcel out and sell individual songs/movies remains. But I believe this would take care of the overall issue of inheriting digital content. Just make sure the account username and password are owned by an entity which never dies, like a trust, and pass control of the trust over to the other party. Corporate personhood screws over the little guy in so many ways. Here's a way where it can be made to work to his advantage.
I mean, if I had the entire run of the series, which I don't. But if I did, could I pass along my copies of Willis's acting work without paying more money? Or will he want me to have to pay money to his estate to watch it, for "his" share, even after he's dead?
"Are you saying at the moment of death it should become public domain?"
I would.
Why should it last beyond the author? If I died tomorrow, how much longer would my wage packet extend other than to the end of the month?
Nil.
"or even if there are just some undisbursed royalties, do you think the author would want them to go to his kids, or his publisher"
He's dead, Jim.
If he's dead, he can't write any more. Since ALL the whining and whinging is about the poor creator who wouldn't make stuff otherwise, why the hell should anyone other than the author get it?
If I died that would be the end of employment for me. I would have to have gotten insurance (or taken it as co-benefit, reducing my pay rate as per contractor).
If the author doesn't like it, they can do something else. I'm not going to force them to work.
Steve Jobs = Hans Grubber
And if your collection of CDs or vinyl LPs burns, you can't restore your music either. But sensible people back up their hard drives. Or you can pay Apple for iTunes Match, and Apple will back it up for you. If you don't like Apple, Amazon offers a similar service.
I think Apple does give people access to their "own content" as much as they want.
Dude, are you smoking crack? OS X is based on an open source operating system that they then carved up and bolted on their own stuff, patented it, and threatened anyone who even looked at it sideways with a lawsuit. Then they built a walled garden around that so it's difficult to get applications anywhere but through them. Then they walled in those apps by making sure Apple had to approve each one individually, and double-walled it by making sure Apple got a cut of any content distributed by those applications.
Apple doesn't want you to own anything, even your own personal data. OS X is the only operating system I've used where there's no way to cancel or abort registration: You have to enter a name, address, and phone number to get to the login. It tries to phone home that information right away, even while lying to you on the interface by saying you don't have to register and leaving an icon on the screen for you to do it later... as if it didn't know it already phoned home.
No, Apple doesn't want to give you anything. They want to control all of it; like an amusement park. You're not allowed to bring in any outside food or beverage, and the only thing you can leave with is a few trinkets and a lot less of your money. If you think otherwise, you're lying to yourself.
How ironic that FreeBSD, BSD, NetBSD and Darwin all get along yet the Linux pricks bitch, moan and complain while painting a fantasy of the BSD Ecosystem and how Apple raped them over. Your ignorance is what people in the FreeBSD world already know--viral.
Maybe some lights will go on in some heads somewhere. Maybe. Or maybe not.
You've always been able to bypass that page, although on the older versions you had to know to hit command-q. In at least Mountain Lion, the skip button is right on the same page.
What, me worry?
I actually like to buy my music from iTunes. I do NOT have the time to go to any shop at all. I do not have time to rip and sync my music and I do not have time to lookup music most of the time either. That sort of thing will happen to you when you run your own business, have three kids and a bunch of animals to take care off.
And I don't want to pirate music, I don't feel comfortable doing that, plus when you do you have to spend time finding the right quality, cover info and all the meta-data you want associated to the song.
We share one iTunes account in our family, and every song purchased gets synced to three computers, two iPhones and a iPad and we play it via AppleTV's and docks. We have all our music all the time with us (most rooms of the house, in the car, in the train, etc. with minimal effort. I use Shazam to lookup songs I like on the radio and purchase straight from it. I have a very eclectic taste and iTunes has made it easy for me to get into Classical music, which I always liked but didn't know a damn thing about.
Anyway, not sure if I'm shortsighted or terminally lazy, but I love this shit. To me this is how technology is suppose to work, seamlessly, automatically, intuitively. If you love technology, how can you not appreciate something so well made? How come it seems like the general consensus is that geeks only like tech they solder together themselves? I loved to do that before I had a family and probably will again when I'm retired, but now I rather do other stuff, especially since IT is my job anyway.
Your ignorance is what people in the FreeBSD world already know--viral.
I fail to see how stating the facts is ignorant; Are you disputing that Apple took FreeBSD, modified it to their own design, and then released it as a proprietary product? Because that's all I claimed, you arrogant prick.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I can't help having flashbacks to this.
You've always been able to bypass that page, although on the older versions you had to know to hit command-q. In at least Mountain Lion, the skip button is right on the same page.
Imagine it's someone's first time using MacOS X: How will they know that, when it's not on the screen and not in any of the menus either? And at any rate, hiding the command is equivalent to forcing people to register -- most people aren't going to be bothered to google for "super secret registration bypass".
Stop apologizing for them: It's wrong.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
You do realize that Apple selling DRM free music was a business decision because Amazon was selling DRM free music and had cut into iTunes' sales, right?
Apple had asked the industry to sell DRM free music before Amazon started offering it.
The labels allowed Amazon to sell DRM free first, hoping to break the market dominance that Apple had.
When that failed, they gave up and allowed Apple to sell DRM free music like they wanted to do all along.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Replying anon to preserve moderation (and no, not on the comment I'm replying to here).
But this "they built a walled garden around that so it's difficult to get applications anywhere but through them" is very untrue on OS X.
Someone get me a comfortable seat and pass me the popcorn. This'll run and run.
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
People can buy and sell copyright just like corporations. But one thing is the content and another thing is the copyright.
(FWIW, I agree with GP.)
Just wait... before you know it, Bruce Willis will be painted as an anti-semite and all manner of other things. Big media does not like rebels. The main reason music sucks these days? Big music doesn't want artists it can't control. In the end, they get clones of the same bands over and over again and of such poor quality that kids today end up listening to the music *I* grew up with.
Bruce had a great career...
Not sure about the Telegraph's sources, but the entire story is fake: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-57505248-501465/bruce-willis-is-not-suing-apple-over-itunes-inheritance-wife-tweets/ some great flamebait though....
You can't. If you're not into whatewer-is-currently-mainstream, you can only hope that somwhen, somewhere is posting it, otherwise you're fucked. Actually, you're fucked anyway, since iTunes does not have it either. Unless you've got "L'Eau Rouge" by the Young Gods as CD, you won't get it -- and that's from a band who's got more than 20 albums out.
"The more prohibitions there are, The poorer the people will be" -- Lao Tse
If you don't like the terms on the iTunes store buy your online music from somebody that doesn't have those terms.
Oh wait such a place does not exist. Amazon has the same terms.
It should be noted that you actually have more rights under iTunes then if you buy a physical cd. With iTunes you can play your music on as many devices as you own at any time. With a physical cd you are only allowed to play your music on one device at a time. That's the law.
I have a feeling that Die Hard 6 is going to be a documentary.
No on does. or can own music. All you can own are rights to use music. Rights have conditions and are always limited.
They won't fight without him.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Don't be such a lesbian whore, you fucking cunt bucket.
If they don't sell songs, but instead sell licenses, I should still be able to sell/transfer the non-transferable licenses. Why? Because a contract may not violate law. And the law allows me to resell my items without getting Ford's permission, and the person who buys it may still drive it without re-licensing it from Ford.
This is a false equivalency. First, because you don't "license" a Ford. Second because, even if you did, the license is associated with the unique physical object, and that allows application of all the usual physical property rules. You can't sell your Ford without losing use of it, so there is incentive to produce more. One could argue that performance is a better analogy for digital data. When you buy a ticket to a concert, you're allowed to go to that one show - you can't show up every evening for a week, even if they're doing exactly the same show. The concert is a non-physical experience, and the ticket is a limited license to that experience, transferable only if not previously used. The performers deserve to be paid for every performance, and if all the 1st show viewers could turn around and sell their tickets for use at the second show, there would be no incentive for the performers. Digital media falls somewhere in between - it has an aspect of permanence, in that you can play it without destroying it, but you can resell it without losing personal use, and destroy the incentive to create more.
While I agree that patents on "[X], using a computer" are silly, it's really not appropriate to use the same terms for digital media as for physical media. We still need to work on terms that fairly compromise between the rights of the consumer and incentives for the creators. The plutocracy is not likely to come up with a fair compromise.
Welcome to the land of the monthly recurring service fee in which you have no right to expect anything beyond your ability to pay for the next 30 days.
Alien anyone in default to their Government of Origin who is not currently represented by a Collections Agency
Citizen anyone whose rights are paid in full
Grace Period = interval between the update of your account status to 'Default' and the moment all your services are set to 'Blocked'
Invalid anyone whose financial status no longer allows them to participate in society
Immigration Status indication or your intent to change government services providers
Original Sin = poverty
Rights Package the level of service to which your Citizen's Contract entitles you under the World Citizenry Organization (hereinafter referred to as the Universal Provider).
Remember: Your Universal Provider is always in the process of upping its standards, so we expect you to comply promptly to all legal requests and up yours accordingly.
Steve Jobs' middle name.
"Buying a license" is not "media" at all. It is purchasing permission to do something, in this case make a copy.
What do you think they are, metaphysical? Of course they are physical: they embody an ephemeral (but physical) copy. You use them to create your local permanent copy. Which you own.
They sell you a license which grants you permission to create one (physical) copy. You own that (physical) copy and have the right to sell it. You do not own the right to create additional (physical) copies. Your copy is on your 'pod and you don't want to sell it? Tough. Putting it there was your choice.
And what law might that be?
And the law allows you to resell your (physical) copy of the song. It does not permit you to create additional (physical) copies. The (non-physical) right to do so is exclusive to the copyright owner. That is what copyright is all about.
No. It confuses you. Copyright is about the intangible right to create tangible copies. Judges understand this.
There is a lot wrong with copyright (excessive duration, criminal penalties, statutory damages...) but the confused ranting about nonphysical copies I see here with tiresome frequency do not contribute to solutions.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
From Hard OCP: Bruce Willis' ultra hot wife says that the story about Bruce going all yippee-ki-yay on Apple is fake. Damn.
See this twitter update:
https://twitter.com/EmmaHeming/status/242631258310594562
You are doing a common techie thing - looking for and finding a technological solution for a non-technological problem.
It's OK, we all do that.
Try this.
Can you, and are you allowed to, SELL your digital music/video after you're done with it?
You know... like the way you could do with a CD/DVD. Only without scratch marks on the files.
After all, you paid good money for it. It has to be worth SOMETHING, right?
If it becomes worthless the moment you give money for it - that is a scam.
And that is not a technological problem. It is a legal issue.
One stemming from the fact that we have, while still hanging on to an industrial age mentality, simply danced blindly into an information age.
Where ordered and codified bits of information such as laws have an immediate, far-reaching and often unpredictable effects on human lives and on the physical world.
Also, where non-physical informational constructs and ideas such as corporations have all the rights of living, breathing humans (and more) but none of their limitations - such as morality, mortality or even simple physical decay.
We have for quite some time been living in an information age version of a wild west frontier - only with laws instead of steel.
And once again, only a privileged few get to directly design and decide about the tools with which the world is shaped and controlled.
Everyone else just gets to experience the effects.
And it would be nice if there was a technological solution for that (not to be confused with THAT above), but I'm afraid that it is probably more of a philosophical thing.
We need something like the Asimov's Laws of Robotics (including the zeroth law), only for the legal world.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/03/bruce-willis-itunes-music-library/
"Update: Like many of our peers, we also fell for this good old British tabloid rumor at first. We have updated the story now that Willis’ wife has denied that this story was true."
Slashdot may want to retract, or update the story.
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
Actually all you had to do is click the Next button twice to bypass. The first time it will complain that the form isn't filled in, the second time it will continue on.
While I agree that patents on "[X], using a computer" are silly, it's really not appropriate to use the same terms for digital media as for physical media.
I disagree. iTunes doesn't sell me a license. They don't mail me a license. They deliver a song (with conditions they claim constitute a license). That is a purchase of a song for a fee, same as buying it on a CD. The physical copy is, at worst, the first physical copy you make after the download (on your HD or iPod).
There was never any such confusion with books. And I've started buying some with shrink-wrapped EULAs indicating that I didn't buy a book, but a license to use a book that happened to accompany the license I bought. Though the publishers haven't convinced the government to spend billions breaking into homes suspected of reading without a license... Yet...
When you buy a ticket to a concert, you're allowed to go to that one show - you can't show up every evening for a week, even if they're doing exactly the same show. The concert is a non-physical experience, and the ticket is a limited license to that experience, transferable only if not previously used.
You are buying a physical item. You are buying the seat (or a temporary rental). Many concert tickets are not transferable (yes, people have had scalped tickets seized when trying to get in, and were turned away, even though the ticket itself was valid). I've never heard of any ticket that was valid if not used. If U2 has 3 concerts, and you show up to the last one with a ticket to the first that wasn't used, what do you expect will happen?
Learn to love Alaska
...I never buy digital content anymore -- because in most cases I'm not "buying" it. Regardless of what the fine print says on a CD or a print book, there is still no way, short of the cops busting down my door and taking my stuff from me by force, for someone to prevent me from pretty much doing what I please with those articles.
Still, what now passes for "ownership" (and "privacy", while I'm at it) are starting to shock me as I take a step back and look at what is going on with digital content distribution, social media and networking, and so on. The newer generations seem generally accepting of the new paradigm, but it's slowly driving me into digital hermithood.
collecting interest on an investment their granddaddy made 50 years ago. Or let's say they're living in a house that granddaddy bought 50 years ago. Or let's say they live on a reservation that the Feds agreed the Sioux would be allowed to self-govern.
All those things you mention are physical things.
As such, they suffer from physical decay, they become obsolete and they lose in value. Plus they need maintenance and there are various other costs associated with their use.
Copyright laws impose artificial limitations to THOUGHTS AND IDEAS.
Which don't decay, rarely become obsolete and generally become more valuable with time and dissemination.
Also, granddad's house is ever going to be of use to only a limited number of people.
Granddad's song or a novel released to public domain becomes usable by (and potentially useful to) the entirety of present and future societies.
And it doesn't even end with humans. AI, robots or Martians get to benefit from it too.
But yeah, changing JRRT's copyrights back to the duration that they were when he published, is just fine. 50 years, not 90, is what he was promised. But it is too late to offer JRRT a 14 year copyright or a copyright that expires the day after he dies. He can't hear your new offer.
You're not giving 14 years of copyright to JRRT. You can't. He's dead. He don' get to sign no contracts no more.
On the other hand, it is a very common thing to have a transition period with such matters.
Kill the current copyright laws, make them life + 21 from now on (or whatever is the legal age of the potential offspring), roll back the ones that got upgraded to the current standard to their original values - and then just let the things play out.
People owning copyright to stuff that got created under the current laws get to keep their copyright for their 100+ years, everything else gets adjusted.
Nobody currently living loses a dime, everyone profits from all those old works becoming public domain, and the future generations have a little less of burden of our stupidity to bear.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I don't see how taking advantage of other people's stupidity doesn't still make you an asshole.
It's one of the primary definitions of "asshole".
But what's really unique and forward-thinking is doing it in such a way that people build shrines to you.
So does that make it "assholy"? Or does it make Jobs a Holy Ass?
Hmm... so many theologic possibilities here...
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
If I had the money, I'd pay a guy to stand outside Apple HQ with a sign that says "fuck you, Apple!" so I'm all for this as well.
Huh, that's interesting. I leave with 100k+ of revenue each year while giving Apple ~$200, 50% in music, games and other soft goods the rest amortized from a MacBook Pro and 30 in Display I've had for 4+ years each.
I make stuff with my Mac. It makes me money. Apple doesn't get a cut of any of it.
Clearly YMMV.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
I hear a bunch of stupid whiny babies bitching because they are dumb enough to buy DRM music from iTunes and now which they hadn't.
HAHAHAHA
You are the stupid person who bought music from iTunes. Not me. My music, I can move it back and forth all i want. NO DRM.
You want to be legal, yet now you are bitching about it. Who's fault is that? Yes, your own. You didn't have to buy DRM music, but you choose to, now live with the consequences. I'm living with the results of my actions. That is, DRM Free music.
And worse? You paid about the same prices you would of if you had just bought a CD instead. And yet, you can't share it, it has DRM, but the CD doesn't.
Be seeing you...
Somebody from Slashdot ought to read these comments and update the story... it's totally a hoax according to his wife.
As usual the Daily Mail's full of shit:
http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/03/bruce-willis-itunes-music-library/
Most people on Slashdot are fucking idiots.
and that's what the beef is.
Apple calls it consistently PURCHASING! NOT LIFETIME RENTING or some bullshit like that. it's a consumer rights thing to call things what they are..
Which is interesting, as in my country we have very precise laws which define what a "Purchase" is, as opposed to a lease or limited licence. Even using "Buy" on the buy-button in a netshop (which everyone does) would probably invalidate any subsequent licence requirements, as "Buy" has a very clearly defined legal meaning here. User "Kjella" could probably expound :)
Consumers not only perceive that they are buying the digital content permanently, they might be backed by law as long as the transaction is called a "purchase" by the vendor. Sadly no-one has yet gone to court over this, as the real action as perceived by purveyors is licencing, and this is obviously deceptive to consumers.
Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors!
You misunderstand. Say Kristoff Troyka owns the copyright to a popular book, and powerful corporations are sitting on a trove of derivative work. If his death frees them to publish...
Apple is doing it wrong. On their homepage, at http://www.apple.com/itunes/ there's a link "Buy Music Now." It doesn't say "buy a personal license" or "license music", It says "buy"
We have laws that define what a sale is, and incidentally the Norwegian word for "buy" is clearly defined in that law. It definitely doesn't coincide with what Apple thinks it means.
I'll consult a lawyer friend of mine to ensure that I'm not on thin ice (he's an insurance lawyer, but he can probably point me in the right direction), and alert the proper authorities. Nothing will happen, but I will have made an effort :)
Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors!
The issue of whether digital media is property in the traditional sense seems to still be in the air pretty much everywhere in the world.
Another interesting issue is terminology. "Buy" (or its Norwegian equivalent) has a very definite meaning in our laws. This differs significantly from what the purveyors understand by the term. Most purveyors of digital content use terms as "Buy", even if they mean license (which is a very different thing according to the same law).
The lawyers of Apple certainly know this, but they still use the term "Buy music". I have no idea whether you guys in the US have a similar "law of sales", but I look forward to the first lawsuit contending that term in Norway.
Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors!
You never "owned" a song even before digital music became a business.
You owned a copy of the song on a specific medium, vinyl disc for instance. If you scratched your disc, did you have the right to get a new one for free? Of course not, you had to buy a new copy!
I doubt it was about the music. Since most of the iTunes music sold in recent years is DRM free, he can put it on a DVD or HDD or whatever and just give it to them. Even if it's technically against the micro-print license, I hardly see Apple busting down his family's door over it.
The movies, though, require a special tool to "fix".
Well firstly, why use MP3? AAC is newer, and better. It's as "standard" as MP3 is too. (i.e. it isn't a special Apple format).
Anyway, not all music is available DRM free. Most of the music from the major *US* labels is, but many of the Japanese labels (f.e.) are still DRMed. (Avex, etc.)
Ripping a CD is still the way to do - especially since you can rent CDs here.
(his daughter)
https://twitter.com/EmmaHeming/statuses/242631258310594562
in iTunes, the button says BUY, it doesnt say RENT.
BUY means trade cash for ownership.
It was perfectly legal to record in on a tape and share that copy with friends (if outlawed, the law was unenforced, making it de facto legal).
Learn to love Alaska
The problem is that he didn't purchase at all. Whether it was digital or not, is completely irrelevant.
The term used in the iTunes web site is "buy music".
Dropbox drops it like it's hot.
And the law allows you to resell your (physical) copy of the song. It does not permit you to create additional (physical) copies. The (non-physical) right to do so is exclusive to the copyright owner. That is what copyright is all about.
Nope. The law says you have the right of first sale. It also says that copyright covers "distribution" as well as copying. So one says you can "distribute" what you have bought (e.g. sell a CD on eBay). But it also says that distribution is under the purview of copyright. So if a "license" included with a book or CD says you may not resell it, or a piece of software says you may not rent it, which law wins?
No. It confuses you. Copyright is about the intangible right to create tangible copies. Judges understand this.
There is a lot wrong with copyright (excessive duration, criminal penalties, statutory damages...) but the confused ranting about nonphysical copies I see here with tiresome frequency do not contribute to solutions.
You were the first one here to bring up "nonphysical" So if you don't like rants about it, you should stop. I'm not confused about copyright. It prevents me from legally doing things with media that had been done for centuries before, all because "digital" got a new, incompatible, and ill defined rules.
Why can Blockbuster rent Fallout 3 for the PS3, but not for the PC? Because computer software was singled out for "special" treatment because it wasn't understood by lawmakers and judges. If it's me that's confused, perhaps you could explain why it's seen as legal to rent a PS3 game, but not a PC game.
Learn to love Alaska
this is a hoax
Like anyone can even know that
"On hearing the "news" that Bruce Willis (you know, the film star) was going to hurtle into Apple's lift shafts (even if it doesn't have any - does it have any? Anyhow) and intended to sue the company so that he could leave his iTunes collection to his children, what did the world's news organisations do? Ask Bruce Willis? Ask his agent?"
"Nah. Why bother with that when you can just repeat the story? Much easier just to rewrite, rephrase and repeat. (This may remind you of something) Pretty much everyone seems to have done this. (Yes, yes. The Guardian too.)" link
AccountKiller
...so if I have a bunch of LPs I already own a 'license' for all the music on those records?
That's good news, because now I can download all that music I already have a license for.
They can't have it both ways...
Pirate Bay it is then. You can re-download as many times as you need to and you can pass it on without a problem.
Except you will never get a Cambodian Visa and you might be in trouble with Interpol.
More info - http://5z8.info/racist-message-board_z6j2eg_racist-message-board
we wouldn't have any of this stuff. he was the 'bridge' between the morons in the music industry and the 'rest of us' who just wanted to play stuff on computers.
before him, an entire website with hundreds of thousands of user generated songs got destroyed (mp3.com) because of a single lawsuit. there was no 'lets make a deal', there was no compromise solution, there was no protracted legal battle. the thing just evaporated into thin air and everyones data was destroyed. similar things were happening to small radio stations on the internet, streaming sites, etc.
after Jobs, a handful of halfway-forward thinkers in the music industry were able to make compromises, and deals, half baked and imperfect though they might be, at least they were making them.
maybe it all would have happened without him... but he was the one that got the two 'camps' to talk to each other and got the RIAA to stop mass destruction of digital music.
Nothing will happen, but I will have made an effort :)
Maybe you could personally sue Apple in the Norwegian courts for fraudulently selling you an iTunes download or something? If everyone in Norway did that you could be talking about literally thousands of dollars worth of damages being awarded.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Is this the same one where they give you a 57 page EULA and let you skip the last 56 pages before "signing" that you've read the whole thing and agree to it, when obviously you haven't?
You can skip the first 56 pages? Who knew?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
as they wanted, but that it is actually the record labels and/or RIAA demanding these rules.
You are more than correct but what you fail to understand is that the RIAA did not do business with Willis. The RIAA did business with Apple and Apple did business with Willis.
Just like you don't buy your DRMed CDs from the RIAA but from the record store - I bet you never complained about the record store in any discussion about DRMed CDs, but alwais about RIAA.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Pirate Bay it is then. You can re-download as many times as you need to and you can pass it on without a problem.
Of course if you don't actually care about the law, you can do the same thing with iTunes - and there is less risk you will be caught.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
The news was out the same day that this story is not true:
http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/03/bruce-willis-itunes-music-library/
"Like many of our peers, we also fell for this good old British tabloid rumor at first. We have updated the story now that Willis’ wife has denied that this story was true."
"Sorry Dave, I can't let you do that..."
-into the sunset with Grace Kelly.
This would be a great story, IF IT WERE TRUE. Which as usual with Big Media everybody jumps on a great story without any goddamn verification.
http://themediablog.typepad.com/the-media-blog/2012/09/bruce-willis-itunes.html
Hooray someone finally is standing up against the establishment. Hey Bruce send me your music files I will convert them to an MP3 format and you can do whatever you want with them. Keep the originals in seperate folder just in case of any questions. techiewayne@yahoo.com.
any lawsuit against Apple is a good thing. F*ck Apple.
FAKE
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2012/sep/03/no-apple-bruce-willis
The entire story is a hoax. The post should be updated to reflect this.
Although this follow up analysis of why the story matters is interesting:
http://blogs.computerworld.com/personal-technology/20935/opinion-why-bruce-willis-apple-itunes-story-matters
The money he'd be paying to lawyers would buy a rather extensive new iTunes library.
The licensing of digital content is a broken concept. The modern system of content copyright protection is based on antiquated principles that could not have envisioned/encompassed what we have today.
What this means is NOTHING companies provide will make sense or satisfy the needs of the consumer.
We need a totally new rethinking of digital content copyRIGHTS and consumer RIGHTS.
You should be able to drag and drop music from one place to another as long as they are your devices. Whether it's Apple, or RIAA (I would bet it's RIAA though), there are technologies in place to prevent honest people from pirating music -- people who probably wouldn't do it anyway. Anyone knowledgeable enough about the product, and dishonest enough to copy music for their friends, is going to find a way to do it. Which is way different from wanting to bequeath your music collection to your heirs. Unless Apple/RIAA or whoever , is willing to refund the purchase price of every single song in a collection upon the death of the "owner," Mr. Willis is correct and should have the right to transfer the music he "bought" to his daughters. Anything else is mere rental, which is certainly not the terminology used in any part of the iTunes Store or the software. Granted, he should be able to transfer only one copy, which means the daughters have to divvy up the collection, but what you buy, you own.
Grar II
Really? It's that easy to transfer corporate ownership? I'm guessing you've never been involved in actually doing any kind of corporate transaction. Even doing a simple S corporation takes work. Don't let your envy get in the way of facts.
Just another day in Paradise
GO Bruce!!!!!! Steve Jobs RIP!!!!
anything purchased, digital etc. Should be transferable by estate. Vinyl records, cassettes, 8-track, beta, vhs, etc..
Bruce has the right. he is giving it to his daughters, not the world.
I would be happy to. You can help. Let's do this.
As I mentioned, I buy CDs, and I never license music. Over the last 15-16 years, I've bought hundreds of them from Amazon, and not a single one of them required I agree to a license before they would mail it, and not a single one of those CDs magically breaks whenever I hand it to someone else. I think you are either mistaken about Amazon licensing, or that's some weird "let the customer fuck himself" option that I've never bothered to explore. (I must regrettably admit: I tend to be a selfish bastard, and rarely go out of my way to cause harm to myself in order to increase someone else's profits.) If you did, PLEASE DO share your Amazon licensing story.
I haven't even heard of a single person ever getting music from Google, but I'll take your word that that offer music under some kind of license, somewhere. Tell your story.
Bruce Willis used iTunes and got screwed. We're hearing his story.
So:
Sound like an accurate summary so far? Can anyone fill in the gaps?
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump