US Judge Says You Don't Own Digital Media

[MOVIEGEEK]

(Reuters) - In a major lawsuit testing the legitimacy of music downloads, Capitol Records LLC has won a court ruling that the start-up ReDigi Inc has infringed its music copyrights.

U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan in Manhattan said ReDigi was not authorized to allow listeners to use its platform to buy and sell "used" digital music tracks originally bought from Apple Inc's iTunes website

http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/no-you-cant-re-sell-digital-music-online-j...ells-1C9145353

[Cornucopia]

This isn't that unexpected, since there's no "physically-tied" product. They could conceivably buy 1 copy, make 20 copies/duplicates and sell each for a profit. That's a no-no if they aren't the copyright holder (or licensee).
Don't know whether this has further-reaching implications though...

Scott

[johns0]

Should be stated that you don't own copyrighted digital media,anyone one who sells copyrighted music or other media without proper authorization deserves to be punished for doing this on the web.

[Noahtuck]

Yeah, that title is a little misleading, of course you don't own it when it comes to reselling it digitally 500 times when you bought it once.

If that was the case I could buy an album from Itunes or anywhere, rip it or make a 1000 digital copies and sell them each for the price I paid for the one original!!

LOL!!

[MOVIEGEEK]

I just thought it was an interesting test case but I wasn't surprised by the verdict, all these start-up companies that make copies of your DVD's or store your copyrighted digital media will lose in court.

Side note: this is why I don't buy digital movies, the distributors(Amazon, Vudu, etc) and studios can pull the content you "bought" at any time.

[deadrats]

as much as i hate copyright laws as they exist now, i kinds of agree with the ruling though i would prefer it were stated thus: "you own the copy of the song you bought but don't own distribution rights".

if you think about it apple doesn't own the songs either, they simply worked out distribution deals with the rights owners.

[deadrats]

Should be stated that you don't own copyrighted digital media,anyone one who sells copyrighted music or other media without proper authorization deserves to be punished for doing this on the web.

i agree, let's hang them from the nearest tree, maybe 40 lashes from a cat o' nine tails, how about a life sentence.

just wondering, what would you consider a fair punishment for selling copyrighted music without authorization?

[johns0]

For a company i would say $5000,for a person $500,with riaa it would be $500,000 for a company and $50,000 for a single person and that would be just for one song.

[deadrats]

For a company i would say $5000,for a person $500,with riaa it would be $500,000 for a company and $50,000 for a single person and that would be just for one song.

i see, so a $500 fine for illegally selling (i'm assuming downloading as well) what, i'm guessing per copy?

seems perfectly reasonable, you "steal" something valued at $1 when purchased through itunes or similar service and you pay 500x that as a fine.

does "cruel and unusual punishment" ring a bell?

by the way, the liability for copyright infringement:

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#504

(c) Statutory Damages. —
(1) Except as provided by clause (2) of this subsection, the copyright owner may elect, at any time before final judgment is rendered, to recover, instead of actual damages and profits, an award of statutory damages for all infringements involved in the action, with respect to any one work, for which any one infringer is liable individually, or for which any two or more infringers are liable jointly and severally, in a sum of not less than $750 or more than $30,000 as the court considers just. For the purposes of this subsection, all the parts of a compilation or derivative work constitute one work.


(2) In a case where the copyright owner sustains the burden of proving, and the court finds, that infringement was committed willfully, the court in its discretion may increase the award of statutory damages to a sum of not more than $150,000. In a case where the infringer sustains the burden of proving, and the court finds, that such infringer was not aware and had no reason to believe that his or her acts constituted an infringement of copyright, the court in its discretion may reduce the award of statutory damages to a sum of not less than $200. The court shall remit statutory damages in any case where an infringer believed and had reasonable grounds for believing that his or her use of the copyrighted work was a fair use under section 107, if the infringer was: (i) an employee or agent of a nonprofit educational institution, library, or archives acting within the scope of his or her employment who, or such institution, library, or archives itself, which infringed by reproducing the work in copies or phonorecords; or (ii) a public broadcasting entity which or a person who, as a regular part of the nonprofit activities of a public broadcasting entity (as defined in section 118(f)) infringed by performing a published nondramatic literary work or by reproducing a transmission program embodying a performance of such a work.

interestingly enough, in order for a copyright holder to be able to sue for damages, the work in question must be registered with the copyright office, if it isn't, even though it's still technically illegal to pirate the work, no court action can be taken.

[HemLok]

This ruling was a no-brainer given the current climate of "ownership" and entertainment. Furthermore, there is a massive grey area when it comes to digital media for various reasons.

[johns0]

I didn't say $500 per song for a person,that would be riaa charging that times 100,the fine would be for selling songs and then getting caught,not per song.

[deadrats]

http://hothardware.com/News/Game-of-Thrones-Breaks-BitTorrent-Piracy-Record-HBO-Takes-...ews-in-Stride/

[deadmeow]

Everyone is allowed to have their own opinion, however government has weapons and violence behind their opinions. We must all take this with a grain of salt. Remember, plenty of governments, lawmakers and judges have said in the past you have the right to own human beings as slaves. We have to keep all of this in context.

[yoda313]

Yeah I don't know how braindead you'd have to be to think you could get away with selling a digital mp3 you bought from itunes or amazon or whatever.

I could see the graymarket of selling a disc of mp3 files at a garage sale or something but that is small potatoes. And I doubt somebody would call the cops on you for selling them. But still why would you try?

[OllieTSB]

It's a predictable decision. Paying money for a ticket doesn't let me own the movie (oh boy, wouldn't that be great!) so we'll see more "licensing" and subscriber uses where we get tied in and locked down to suppliers, like Distribution Systems do now with almost every retailer in the Western World.