
RIAA claims you do not own your iTunes music purchases - mrsebastian
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/105437-riaa-claims-you-do-not-own-your-itunes-music-purchases
======
larrik
It seems to me that deleting the original file is hardly good enough.

I think that a secondary market for digital works is something that will just
never work like it does for physical media, and that's something we just have
to accept and move on with.

My biggest worry is that ReDigi is going to end up losing a lawsuit that sets
a bad precedent and makes future better technologies impossible.

That said, the RIAA's ownership vs licence vs access debate is BS, and they
never even stick to it.

The RIAA needs to change course soon, because unlike the book and movie
industries, I can easily imagine a future without a music industry at all.

As for Amazon vs. the authors? I think they are pretty much both wrong, and
I'm staying out of it.

~~~
bradleyland
I think that in 100 years, we'll all look back at this time period of
intellectual property hoarding as something akin to the dark ages.

~~~
nextparadigms
This is why I wished EFF or an organization like that would participate in
those hearings. They seem to take "piracy" for granted, and if you pirate/copy
files without authorization, you're clearly a criminal. I think there needs to
be a more in-depth debate about that, because I'm not so sure piracy should be
a criminal act.

Just think about it. Why is piracy so hard to eliminate, if not impossible.
Why does it grow in 10 other places when one place is eliminated. Could it be
that it's a fundamental principle of the Internet, and what they really need
to do is to adapt to this new reality, rather than keep wasting resources for
decades to fight it, and create more draconian laws in the process that only
end up serving other purposes?

~~~
henrikschroder
There has been a lot of research on pirate markets, from illegal downloads to
counterfeit designer clothes, and it's pretty well understood.

Pirate markets appear when the cost of a good in a market is way above the
perceived value, and a pirated version can be produced for a fraction of the
cost. Legit goods cost only money, but pirate goods instead cost time or
uneasiness of breaking the law. Consumers then make cost-benefit analyses as
to which version they want, and as long as enough consumers choose the pirated
version, the pirate market is sustained.

The way to beat a pirate market is to simply treat it as a legit competitor
and out-market it. iTunes music store is so incredibly successful, because it
is out-marketing illegaly downloaded music. Netflix is so incredibly
successful, because it is out-marketing illegaly downloaded movies. They
simply provide cheaper and better service than the previous legal
alternatives.

------
earbitscom
1\. This service is ridiculous and I'm embarrassed that they raised nearly as
much funding as we did for it. Who on earth didn't see this coming?

2\. Deleting "the original" when it's so easy to have your own other copy
somewhere doesn't do anything. How do they even begin to answer this concern?

3\. How can the RIAA argue in one breath that you don't own their product,
that it's just a license, and argue in court in another breath that they don't
owe artists an increased royalty on licenses (vs purchases)? These guys do an
_awesome_ job of making sure everyone hates them. It's too bad that their
interests are aligned with artists in some cases, because they only make it
harder for reasonable people to have a leg to stand on.

~~~
jasonlotito
2\. The same could be said of CDs and DVDs. Especially if you follow up with
the license bit. Basically, if you can sell your CD licensed music, why can't
you sell your other digitally licence music? If both are dealing with
licenses, and you can sell one, the argument is you can sell the other.

I agree, it's ridiculous, but I think it's that way mostly because of the
RIAA's way of defining things.

~~~
earbitscom
If you can only sell the DVD but not the copy, then the original owner paid
more for it, ends up with less value, and the new owner, if they wanted to
sell it, would have the same issue. Further, you have to transfer a physical
product, which at the prices of used DVDs makes very little sense and has a
minor impact on the industry. Being able to sell a copy that costs nothing to
make or ship is more damaging. It's not that they wish you couldn't sell your
DVDs, too, but it's not as important a fight as digital copies.

~~~
jasonlotito
I understand what you are saying, but understand in this case, I think they
are having their own arguments used against them. So, while we might want to
apply logic, we have to use the logic they've been using for years now. And,
to be frank, that logic doesn't always make sense.

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einhverfr
This distinction between license and ownership underscores the need both for
open source software and also for expanding such models into other spheres.
Here I am defining "ownership" as "economic ownership" namely the right to
utilize a good in any way one wishes to (following Hilaire Belloc's definition
of ownership). Here ownership of a copy is distinct from ownership of the
ideas or expressions in the copy, and the question becomes what you own when
you get a copy of a piece of software or a recording of music.

With a piece of software, what you own is typically restricted by a clickwrap
agreement. You agree not to exceed your client access license ownership with
server software for example. With music what you own is the right to listen to
that music for your private enjoyment only. With software you get some limited
economic ownership, but with music you only get non-economic ownership.

With open source software you get (nearly with the GPL and complete with the
BSD license) full economic ownership. You can connect as many clients to the
server software as you want. You can deploy it for customers. You can use the
software in any way you wish to use it, and you can combine it with other
goods to produce goods for resale. Only in this last area are there any limits
to what is owned with open source software, and then only sometimes.

I don't believe that musicians right now know how to benefit entirely from
creating entirely open content, but musicians could compete at the moment in
part by offering additional ownership of their music: get my songs, play them
in your store, display my videos publicly to an audience of 500 people or less
per viewing, ensuring that people are buying not only entertainment but also
that the music has value. The fact that it has value means it will be played
more. The fact that it will be played more means it provides more advertising
for live shows.

------
exfilmexec
Can I burn an HD copy of a movie off my DVR via the analog hole and then sell
it to someone?

Which part is illegal? Recording it? No. Burning it to a DVD? No. Owning it?
No. But can I sell it? No. I think this paradox of ownership without being
able to sell it will cause ReDigi to lose their case. Horrible situation for
setting a bad legal precedent.

Let's not forget that the MPAA is a criminal organization whose members commit
fraud every single day. I suspect the RIAA is the same. "Hollywood accounting"
is a nice euphemism for a felony crime. I have no sympathy for unethical
criminals who as standard business practice screw over producers, musicians,
writers and actors. Piracy is justified.

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feralchimp
The RIAA is, shock/horror, right in this case. First Sale Doctrine is not a
free pass to make copies of digital media.

A friend of mine is the principal at SmartFlix, so I've had the opportunity to
hear a lot of rubber-meets-the-road detail on first sale doctrine over the
past few years.

~~~
leviathant
Thing is, the RIAA has been arguing in court that the royalties they pay the
artists for MP3s are based off physical sales, rather than license based
sales.

They're playing both sides of the argument. Should artists get paid for
downloads using the same rates they agreed to for physical media? Or should
downloads be treated like licenses, and artists get paid according to that
scale?

See also
[http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111104/04202416631/fight-...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111104/04202416631/fight-
power-chuck-d-sues-universal-music-hundreds-millions-unpaid-royalties.shtml)

~~~
feralchimp
Fair enough. I'm not arguing that the RIAA aren't pushy to a fault, I'm just
saying they happen to have a reasonable interpretation of legal precedent to
back up their claim w.r.t. this particular online music service.

Also, the "sale" vs. "license" debate is a many-more-than-two sided thing. At
some level, we're always talking about licenses...purchase of a work does not
confer to me all of the rights enjoyed by the copyright owner, period. And
"licensing" a song is really licensing very specific rights (and usually for
some finite period).

...coherent but entirely skippable ranting below this line...

This "debate" will progress when we can get some common ground on the
following:

1\. What exactly is the consumer licensed to do, in what circumstances?

2\. How should the customer be expected to _know_ this, given the inertia of
media consumption history, and the fact that consumers generally don't sign
contracts when they buy things?

3\. Even if we can agree on what consumers' rights are (which we haven't, for
reasons that all sides should frankly be ashamed of), how should the law deal
with the dual facts that:

a) fine-grained enforcement is technically impossible, and

b) large scale infringement is technically and economically trivial for
exactly the same populations that comprise the viable market for commercial
content?

It would be nice if _we_ at least (the highly-technical / entrepreneurial /
probably not-starving community) could start holding ourselves to a higher
standard. We owe society some answers that are more sophisticated and
productive than "the old business model is broken, so it's okay to pirate
until someone launches [new service from which I can get everything I want,
when I want it, at a price that's easily affordable]."

~~~
nmcfarl
> We owe society some answers that are more sophisticated and productive than
> "the old business model is broken, so it's okay to pirate until someone
> launches [new service from which I can get everything I want, when I want
> it, at a price that's easily affordable]."

I agree but these are hard questions. I've thought hard about this and I
decided that the only legally and morally clear option for buying music was to
go back to buying CDs only (and ripping them). Which of course means I've not
had any new music in months, as that's just a pain in the neck.

I don't think mine is a good solution* but cases like this make you wonder if
rights to own, or the like (eg: listen to in perpetuity), digital music maybe
non-existent.

\----

* And yes this is just as reductive as "steal everything"- but I couldn’t find any solid ground in between.

------
sliverstorm
This just in, RIAA claims you do not own the food on your table, you only
license it for consumption.

(But really, would you be surprised? God help us if RIAA gets their hands on a
patent for a wheat genome. It sounds ridiculous and sensationalist, but this
is the RIAA.)

~~~
nobody31415926
Seed companies do exactly this.

You buy their seed to grow wheat, you have a license to grow the wheat but you
can't keep any of it to plant next year.

You have a license to use their wheat seeds but not use the copies the plant
is making.

~~~
jeza
This would be genetically engineered wheat?

~~~
nobody31415926
No any wheat - otherwise any seed company would only ever make a single sale

------
reginaldo
I was surprised by the following:

 _The Guild voices some valid concerns, including the fear that publishers
might try to prominently position loss leader books in the lending library in
order to drive sales of other authors — but this sort of activity is already
prohibited by existing clauses and is more an issue between publisher and
author than anything that involves Amazon._

Why is such strategy (using a loss leader to sell other stuff) prohibited?
What is the rationale?

~~~
andylei
this is good for overall volume, but if you're the author of the loss leader,
you may get significantly less revenue

~~~
reginaldo
Ok. That makes sense... I was thinking about supermarkets/grocery stores when
I originally asked the question, as they do this all the time. The situation
is different when there's an author who'll complain.

~~~
lurker17
More precisely, when Amazon sells a loss leader, they don't pay the author
wholesale price. When a grocery sells milk cheap, they still pay full price to
the dairy vendor.

------
VladRussian
it is easy. If you own you re-sell what you own. If you granted the rights
under the license, you re-sell the rights granted under the license until the
license states that the rights aren't transferrable. You agreed to the
license. All this licenses and ToS are complete crap, yet until the law
changed, the law seems to favor the crap. And by complacently agreeing to it,
we help to proliferate it.

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tedunangst
"If ReDigi’s service can accurately prevent users from accessing songs they’ve
sold to the service, then the RIAA’s rights have been legally preserved."

Big if. How is ReDigi going to prevent users from downloading song backups
from dropbox?

~~~
jasonlotito
Good faith effort. It doesn't have to do it flawlessly.

Same thing applies to physical media. How can you guarantee that I don't have
access to the music after I've sold a CD. And while you might argue that their
is a difference between CD's and digital music, the RIAA doesn't see it the
same way.

FTA: "the RIAA and MPAA have argued that purchasing a physical CD or DVD
simply grants one a license to use the product rather than ownership of the
content"

Basically, ripping a CD you own, and then selling the CD would mean your music
files are technically illegal (according to the RIAA, that is, following on
this logic).

So, ReDigi is extending that logic: if the physical medium isn't the key here,
but rathe rather the license, and you can sell your license via selling the
CD, then shouldn't you be able to do it without the CD?

At least, that's what I gather.

~~~
tedunangst
The physical medium _is_ the key. The CD serves to identify the
correct/original/authorized/licensed/whatever copy. If you can't identify the
original, then actually you can't sell it (in the sense of it's not possible).

~~~
pseudonym
In the case of the physical CD example, yes. But in the case of iTunes, there
_is_ no physical medium to be the key.

Personally, I can't see this company working unless they can hook into iTune's
servers and de-authorize the Apple account from having that song, and I don't
foresee that happening at any point.

~~~
ugh
iTunes doesn’t use DRM anymore so deauthorizing won’t work.

~~~
pseudonym
It doesn't, but it's more the fact of "removing your license to re-download
the item".

Given that this particular attempt at DRM could probably be defeated by right
click+copy into the same directory before "selling" the track, deleting off
the local machine does absolutely nothing.

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comex
Yet another site which has a totally crappy and broken mobile interface, with
no option to revert to the regular interface. :(

~~~
RossP
There is a settings cog in the bottom left corner. Selecting "view desktop
version" simply reloads the "optimised" mobile version which looks nice but is
utterly unusable and breaks the web.

I wish OnSwipe had a per-device opt-out that worked.

------
dlapiduz
So moving my iTunes library within my computer or even restoring a backup
would mean thousands of unauthorized copies of that music. The RIAA needs to
update their practices.

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tobylane
"For years, the RIAA and MPAA have argued that purchasing a physical CD or DVD
simply grants one a license ... then the RIAA’s rights have been legally
preserved."

Or the RIAA are wrong to make such an argument? They clearly heard the first
sale doctrine, and made up words to make it not apply to them. Isn't this ever
brought up in court? Or do the RIAA not like, and therefore not partake in,
legal proceedings?

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jneal
Unfortunately I feel ReDigi is most in the wrong here and not necessarily the
RIAA. All someone has to do is go into their iTunes and redownload the file
they previously purchased, or make a copy before making it available to
ReDigi. It may have been meant to be a legal way of selling used songs, but I
feel that is just not possible in a digital world.

~~~
rcfox
Agreed.

The cliched statement is that digital piracy isn't stealing because you aren't
depriving someone else of the artifact. It works both ways: you can't sell
digital artifacts because you aren't depriving yourself of the original.

------
lekashman
I was really intrigued by the section on Amazon in this article, in that they
don't bother with licensing and go directly to purchasing the book so they can
lend it. I think that Amazon's practice in this regard is much more
significant than ReDigi's activity as it could spell out how future libraries
function with regard to ebooks.

~~~
feralchimp
Local libraries are already using Amazon's system to lend e-books, and it's
actually pretty cool. If all the copies are 'checked out,' you go on a waiting
list. When a copy becomes available, you're notified, and you have a timeout
window wherein you have to decide whether to a) check out the book, or b) lose
your spot in the queue so the next reader gets a crack at it.

Pretty well thought-out.

------
leeoniya
while there is nothing that prevents you from making copies. there can be a
certificate of original purchase issued to you and registered/signed to a
specific user's public key in a cloud database.

upon sale of the electronic item, you can re-sign/update the cloud cert with
the new owner's key. so if a it came to proving that you own the music, you
can reference a cloud database and decrypt the signature.

it's really the only way forward that comes to mind without being invasive but
still allowing enforcement.

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robert_nsu
No, I (obviously) can't download a car.

Apparently, I can't send a file to someone else and remove it from my iPod,
Galaxy S, Blackberry, office and home pc either.

~~~
tedunangst
Sometimes the word "can't" is used as shorthand for "with a probability
approaching zero".

------
andymoe
You never owned your iTunes music purchases - you are licensing them. Take a
gander at the EULA you clicked through without looking at.

~~~
calloc
So I can sell that license under the first-sale-doctrine right?

I sell my license to perform this song on a personal media player and thereby
promise that I will no longer perform the song on a personal media player that
I hold in my possession.

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tomp
How is Amazon going to prove that at no time did it's users lend more books
than Amazon bought from the publishers?

~~~
calloc
Amazon has a list of all the books in your library. It is not inconceivable
that Amazon could provide a list of what books its users are currently
reading/have in their library (including books they are lending) and providing
such a list to the publishers/guild.

Is that proof enough? Who knows. Is it easily faked? Yes. But that is always
going to be the case with anything digital. You either choose to believe them
or you don't.

------
sjwright
How is ReDigi fencing the acquired music files? Who is buying second hand
digital music?

------
bluedanieru
The RIAA are hypocrites of course as they have purposefully crafted an
inconsistent legal position regarding the rights of consumers and musicians
(with the intended effect being an answer of 'none'), however ReDigi's
business model is fucking stupid. Taken to the extreme, you could use this to
build a streaming service whereby the end-user only owns access to the content
_at the moment they are listening to it_. I.e. you transfer the license to
them, deduct some token amount from their account, stream the content, then
refund it minus a percentage after the user is finished and no longer requires
the license. That this might be technically legal under the current copyright
scheme only underscores how ludicrous the whole game has become. Moral? Don't
participate in it. Don't buy content if any of the money will make its way
back to the RIAA, or the MPAA for that matter, as they are the ones fucking
everything up and standing in the way of progress in the first place.

