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 the operator thus subject to statutory penalties. (Seriously. Let that and its implications sink in.)
So the bad precedent already exists. And not only does it set some troublesome legal hurdles for future technologies, but a large swath of current technologies are suddenly in a very tenuous (and expensive) legal situation.
If the RIAA sticks to this 'license' argument, they could hold that not only is it infringement to copy your DRM-free iTunes tracks out of iTunes, but so much as playing your iTunes-purchased tracks via software other than iTunes is infringement (as it necessarily requires loading a copy of that digital work into memory).
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!)
But this is why the concept of the software licence was developed. It is explicitly developed so that you don't take ownership of the item in the same way you take ownership of a DVD or printed book.
Holding copyright is not the same as owning an item. The parent comment is factually correct.
And yet, used game sales -- to specifically take on the parent's example -- are legal, much to the consternation of the game industry. The fact that they're legal is what prompted the development of online activation systems: to make an end-run around the resellers.
Whether they should be legal is a different and murkier question. And resale of digital music files is clearly pretty ridiculous, since you could just follow this plan for free stuff:
1. Copy the file.
2. Upload it to the reseller.
3. Profit!
They definitely should be legal. Online activations should be forced to accept it, as well.
Especially when you consider that a lot of games go out of print and get impossible to find just months after release. Which is bad for someone like me who never pays attention to games that aren't already out, and may take years to get around to playing a game. Used games are often my only recourse.
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 ?
Even if you disliked the original comment, this one is trying to clarify a joke. Now a serious question - is humor discouraged on HN? Because it's not the first time I run into something like this.
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 the operator thus subject to statutory penalties. (Seriously. Let that and its implications sink in.)
So the bad precedent already exists. And not only does it set some troublesome legal hurdles for future technologies, but a large swath of current technologies are suddenly in a very tenuous (and expensive) legal situation.
If the RIAA sticks to this 'license' argument, they could hold that not only is it infringement to copy your DRM-free iTunes tracks out of iTunes, but so much as playing your iTunes-purchased tracks via software other than iTunes is infringement (as it necessarily requires loading a copy of that digital work into memory).
[1] http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/arizona...