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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?"
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.
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.
I don't see how taking advantage of other people's stupidity doesn't still make you an asshole.
The files being DRM free, and the license being fully transferrable to anyone to do as they will with are entirely separate concepts. Linux is DRM free, that doesn't mean I can distribute a binary copy of it and refuse to give out the source.
What, really? Seriously, there are people who look at the latest ipods and go
"I just gotta have me one a those"
"What for, Mel?"
"Dunno. It's so sleek and purty"
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
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.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Last time I tried to go into an iPod and copy music off of it, it was even less accessible than music that had DRM on it. So... thanks Steve Jobs... for "freeing" my music.
Another example of Steve Jobs & Apple copying someone else, yet having the "idiots" think he was the leading force.
-Anyone who tried to break the DRM was sued or threatened by Apple.
-eMusic was DRM free before Steve Jobs had his "open letter".
-Bill Gates said DRM should be ditched and urged consumers to buy non-DRM music before Steve Jobs' letter: source: http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/14/ce-oh-no-he-didnt-part-xxi-gates-tells-consumers-to-ditch-dr/
-Amazon MP3 was the first to have DRM-free music from most major labels, and they started years after Apple (Amazon also didn't charge a premium, which Apple did).
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? He didn't make that change to be nice or for the customer. See comment below -- even DRM free, it is very time consuming and unfriendly to move MY OWN PURCHASED MUSIC from iTunes to a non-Apple device.
Then the entire globe is one giant collective group of assholes.
Not at all. For example, I sell you some of my software. You give me some money, and it works fine. I give you some software, and it also works fine. None of us are taking advantage of the stupidity of a business partner. We simply exchange goods of an approximately equal value. But you value my software a little bit above the money, and I value your money a little bit above my software.
Even Apple does not specifically depend on other people's stupidity. After all, Apple sells functional computers. They may be overpriced for what they do, but in the eyes of the customer the price is fair. You may say that the customer is stupid to buy Apple. I don't use fruity boxes, personally. But that's just as correct as to say that girls who like fancy dresses are stupid because a single set of a North Korean uniform ought to be enough for everyone. Is a musician stupid because he buys an expensive guitar? Is a writer stupid because he wants to travel the world? Is a geek stupid because he wants yet another computer? They are all stupid, of course, in the eyes of a person who does not appreciate their goals. But that observer has no say because he is not competent to judge.
I think it's pretty hard to find such an abuse in the industry - the problem is self-correcting. But you can find examples in finances (like the Madoff's pyramid) or in politics; any mainstream politician today depends on stupidity of his voters; honest men finish last.