Judge Rules That Resale of MP3s Violates Copyright Law

Redigi runs a service that lets you resell your digitally purchased music. Naturally, they were sued by major labels soon after going live, with heavyweights like Google weighing in with support and an initial victory against pre-trial injunctions. But the first actual court ruling is against them. Pikoro writes "A judge has sided with Capitol Records in the lawsuit between the record company and ReDigi — ruling that MP3s can only be resold if granted permission by copyright owners. From the article: 'The Order is surprising in light of last month's United States Supreme Court decision in Kirtsaeng v. Wiley & Sons, which reaffirmed the importance and applicability of the First Sale Doctrine in the United States of America.'" Redigi vows to appeal, and claims that the current version of their service is not affected by the lawsuit.

Comments

Let's look at this more closely

[bio_end_io_t]

Clearly the judge is a firm believer in piracy, else he wouldn't have made that ruling. Seriously though, people are trying to sell "used" mp3's?

Re:Let's look at this more closely

[Opportunist]

Hey, they're as good as new!

Re:Let's look at this more closely

[FireFury03]

Clearly the judge is a firm believer in piracy, else he wouldn't have made that ruling. Seriously though, people are trying to sell "used" mp3's?

Well why not? The media industry is selling time-unlimited licences to play an MP3 - that licence clearly has value, otherwise no one would be willing to pay for it. When you don't want to use it any more, why shouldn't you be able to reclaim some of the value by selling the licence on to someone else? The doctrine of first sale prevents vendors from preventing people from reselling physical goods, why shouldn't the same apply to anything which has value (such as a licence)?

Re:Let's look at this more closely

[hawguy]

Except CD's are drastically overpriced. Also, you have to deal with purchasing an entire disc for maybe only two songs you actually want to listen to. No, don't buy the CD if it isn't what you really want, because then you're supporting the mediocrity of the artists and the overpowered corporations behind them.

Amazon's top 3 in music today:

The 20/20 Experience - MP3: $10.99, CD : 11.47
Delta Machine: MP3: $14.99 CD $16.79
Based on a True Story: MP3: $9.49 CD: $9.99

Considering that the CD costs include shipping (super saver or prime), the CD doesn't seem overpriced considering that you get a physical object that you actually own and can resell.

If you don't have to have the latest albums when they come out, then you can buy used CD's, which typically cost less than the MP3, even with delivery costs included.

Re:Let's look at this more closely

[Frobnicator]

Read the decision. The decision itself is contrary to RIAA v Diamond. It also pushes against the Betamax decision.

In case you have forgotten, RIAA v Diamond is the lawsuit that declared MP3 players legal, (format shifting and space shifting) and Betamax enabled time shifting.

The judge makes this logic, which is flawed:

Whenever a digital file is transferred, it moves from one 'material object' to another 'material object'. Title 17 has mixed definitions about what that means, but one interpretation is that when a different 'material object' has the content placed upon it, that constitutes creating a copy, which is a protected right. He rules that it does not matter if the original data is destroyed or not, it is considered a new instance of the work and is a protected right.

In RIAA v Diamond, the court declared that logic unreasonable, saying: “any recording device could evade regulation simply by passing the music through a computer and ensuring that the MP3 file resided momentarily on the hard drive.”

According to this judge's interpretation, ANY transfer of data to a new 'material object' requires the blessing of the copyright holder. That means we cannot legally transfer our files to a second hard drive, since it is a new material object. We cannot legally transfer the files from a PC to a laptop, since it is a new material object. We cannot transfer files to a smart phone or tablet or other device, because they are different material objects. We cannot transfer data "to the cloud", because it is one or more new material objects.

This ruling will be remanded to the judge within a few months.

In some ways I think the judge is trolling or admitting that he has no clue. His background is narcotics law and money laundering (and rubber-stamping plea bargains for prosecuters). He has no real experience with IP law. He's probably just waiting for the appeals court to tell him what the ruling is supposed to be since he doesn't have any clue.

Re:Let's see what happens

[Xest]

Not in Europe it wont thank god, seeing as we've already had a sane ruling in the opposite direction for software.

I'd say this will have no effect over here, but I'd be wrong. For some reason companies seem scared to death of setting up Europe only, or generally non-US only sites that offer services to people outside the US that are much wanted by users but forbidden by US law but not laws elsewhere. I guess at very least the US has been successful in scaring most startups/established companies into believing it really does have universal jurisdiction when it comes to laws relating to the digital world.