RIAA claims you do not own your iTunes music purchases • Hacker News Board

Re: RIAA claims you do not own your iTunes music purchases

#31

Post by sixtofour » Wed, Nov 16, 2011, 10:56 PM UTC

bradleyland wrote: post #13

larrik wrote: post #3

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 o…

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.

Unless the RIAA wins, in which case 100 years from now will be the dark ages.

Re: RIAA claims you do not own your iTunes music purchases

#32

Post by pseudonym » Wed, Nov 16, 2011, 10:59 PM UTC

tedunangst wrote: post #24

jasonlotito wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 r…

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).

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.

Re: RIAA claims you do not own your iTunes music purchases

#33

Post by nobody31415926 » Wed, Nov 16, 2011, 11:01 PM UTC

roc wrote: post #20

larrik wrote: post #3

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 o…

MDY v Blizzard [1] already set an (absurd, unconscionable) precedent that people who purchased World of Warcraft did not own their copy of the digital work, but were licensees -- regardless of whether they ever agreed to the EULA or the service's Terms of Use. Further, the court held that copying a digital work into in-system memory by any program not 'unauthorized' by the rights-holder constituted infringement and t…

That's not unreasonable - you don't own World of Warcraft you own a license to play it.

If you owned it you could reuse the characters in your own game, produce your own movie of the game and so on - not bad for a $50 investment. Think of the same with a book - you don't own the IP in the book and paying $0.99 on amazon doesn't give you the right to produce your own HP movie franchise.

Redigi's business model is exactly the same as you ripping your CDs to mp3 and then selling the disks, does anyone really think that people selling their downloads aren't keeping a copy?

You agree to a license to a piece of art work - you buy whatever the copyright holder decides is the deal. If that means only listening to it on an Apple hardware, only listening at home, or not letting your neighbor watch the movie with you - well that's tough, find a different artist.

The famous French scientist Louis Pasteur refused to allow his book on yeast and brewing to be read in Germany, he was mad at them for the 1870 war with France. It's his book - his rules. German beer doesn't seem to have suffered too much as a consequence (not sure what America's excuse is!)

Re: RIAA claims you do not own your iTunes music purchases

#34

Post by sliverstorm » Wed, Nov 16, 2011, 11:01 PM UTC

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.)

Re: RIAA claims you do not own your iTunes music purchases

#35

Post by leviathant » Wed, Nov 16, 2011, 11:08 PM UTC

feralchimp wrote: post #19

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.

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?

Re: RIAA claims you do not own your iTunes music purchases

#36

Post by nextparadigms » Wed, Nov 16, 2011, 11:11 PM UTC

bradleyland wrote: post #13

larrik wrote: post #3

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 o…

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.

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?

Re: RIAA claims you do not own your iTunes music purchases

#37

Post by briandear » Wed, Nov 16, 2011, 11:14 PM UTC

comex wrote: post #30

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

Completely what I thought! I would if these jackass developers who built the site actually tested it on a real device. Never going back to that publication!

Re: RIAA claims you do not own your iTunes music purchases

#38

Post by nobody31415926 » Wed, Nov 16, 2011, 11:21 PM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #34

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.)

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.

Re: RIAA claims you do not own your iTunes music purchases

#39

Post by enjo » Wed, Nov 16, 2011, 11:26 PM UTC

nobody31415926 wrote: post #33

roc wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MDY v Blizzard [1] already set an (absurd, unconscionable) precedent that people who purchased World of Warcraft did not own their copy of the digital work, but were licensees -- regardless of whether they ever agreed to the EULA or the service's Terms of Use. Further, the court held that copying a digital work into in-system memory by any program not 'unauthorized' by the rights-holder constituted infringement and t…

That's not unreasonable - you don't own World of Warcraft you own a license to play it. If you owned it you could reuse the characters in your own game, produce your own movie of the game and so on - not bad for a $50 investment. Think of the same with a book - you don't own the IP in the book and paying $0.99 on amazon doesn't give you the right to produce your own HP movie franchise. Redigi's business model is exac…

not sure what America's excuse is!

Say what?

Re: RIAA claims you do not own your iTunes music purchases

#40

Post by nobody31415926 » Wed, Nov 16, 2011, 11:32 PM UTC

enjo wrote: post #39

nobody31415926 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not unreasonable - you don't own World of Warcraft you own a license to play it. If you owned it you could reuse the characters in your own game, produce your own movie of the game and so on - not bad for a $50 investment. Think of the same with a book - you don't own the IP in the book and paying $0.99 on amazon doesn't give you the right to produce your own HP movie franchise. Redigi's business model is exac…

not sure what America's excuse is! Say what?

Since they presumably had access to Pasteur's book (even if it was in French) and so knew how to grow the correct yeast for beer - how did they manage to produce Budweiser and Miller ?