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RIAA claims you do not own your iTunes music purchases

extremetech.com

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

#41

Post by kd0amg »

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…

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

The distinction being made here is not between holding copyright and holding a license. It is between owning a copy and holding a license.

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

#42

Post by RossP »

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. :(

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.

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

#43

Post by swasheck »

nobody31415926 wrote: post #38
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.

Yay Monsanto. Not only this, once you licence their seed, you are no longer able to use non-Monsanto seed.

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

#46

Post by 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.

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

#47

Post by einhverfr »

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.)

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

Last I checked Monsanto wasn't an RIAA member.....

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

#48

Post by learc83 »

nobody31415926 wrote: post #40
enjo wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ?

The answer to that would be the 18th Amendment.

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

#49

Post by einhverfr »

kmm wrote: post #22
rcfox wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Good faith effort. It doesn't have to do it flawlessly. From what I gather from TFA, they are nowhere near what the industry could consider a good faith effort. They basically need some way to invalidate the original file (and any illegitimate copies of it) while keeping the legitimate copy valid.

The only way to do that is to have the software ask the permission of a central server to be allowed to play a certain music file. Scary stuff.

Remembering DivX and how that turned out....

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

#50

Post by lukifer »

earbitscom wrote: post #8

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 an…

As time marches on, the RIAA is going to see their business dry up, not from customers, but from artists, who can now easily handle their own distribution. They might as well change their name now to the Music Marketing Association of America, because that's all they have to offer.
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