Ship of Fools: No More Ownership of Digital Assets

Thread: No More Ownership of Digital Assets Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

Capitol Records has won a lawsuit preventing the resale of digital copies of its music. If you purchase digital assets through iTunes and Amazon, you do not actually own them. They are being licensed to you and cannot be transferred. The US court has agreed with this model.
This is wrong, to my way of thinking. And, I think, likely to promote digital piracy.

Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :

Indeed.

Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :

See what the Supreme Court of Canada does. Canadian IP law is more favourable to the legitimate owner in possession. You have always been able to copy a CD for personal use here.

You also have the right to resell your legitimate original copy of the work.

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
But if you buy a CD from a shop, you do not 'own' the music, you have bought a licence to play the music at home.

But you can transfer that "licence" freely by selling or giving away the CD. That's the difference.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

I think the issue is that ReDigi wants you to be able to sell the licence on to someone else, so that they can use it but you can't. (Like selling your books second hand on Amazon.)

The law has decided that you can't even do this. Which implies that not only do you not own the music, you don't even own the licence.

[Cross-posted. The CD is a better example than mine!]

[ 02. April 2013, 19:47: Message edited by: Ricardus ]

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

A CD is a physical object. This is also why I am very suspicious of e-books; they are not sold, only licensed. College and University libraries are already coming up against this problem with scholarly journals that are now only available digitally. They must continue to subscribe to them or they lose access to all of the issues, even ones that they have "already paid for." With physical copies they could discontinue a subscription (say if the journal ceases to be reputable) and keep the old issues for student use. Not any more.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

Software companies are attempting to move customers to this subscription based model as well. I do not care for this either.

Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on :

It's completely daft. I paid for a song/book/art on either a CD or a download. I did not pay for a license.

The way I see it, when I bought an album in the 1980s on a cassette tape, I was not buying a piece of plastic. I was buying MUSIC. I own that song/album. It was true then, its true now.

It's just the greedy bastards trying to screw the consumer, and they are idiots, because we can all steal and song we want (I DON'T though), and anything they can do to make the process easier and more pleasant to buy, only benefits them. It's already been shown, as the music biz is finally selling MP3s and is finally making a profit again.

Dumb Dumb Dumb

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
lilBuddha: Software companies are attempting to move customers to this subscription based model as well. I do not care for this either.

Long live Open Source!

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
The way I see it, when I bought an album in the 1980s on a cassette tape, I was not buying a piece of plastic. I was buying MUSIC. I own that song/album. It was true then, its true now.

While you certainly acquired certain rights over it (such as the right to play the tape) you didn't have total ownership over it. For example, you might not (depending on the laws in your country at the time) have had the right to play the tape at a public event. You probably didn't have the right to copy the music on to a second tape. It's very unlikely that you would have had the right to incorporate a section of the music into a new musical piece, etc.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Capitol Records has won a lawsuit preventing the resale of digital copies of its music. If you purchase digital assets through iTunes and Amazon, you do not actually own them. They are being licensed to you and cannot be transferred. The US court has agreed with this model.
This is wrong, to my way of thinking. And, I think, likely to promote digital piracy.

Even apart from digital piracy, what it will do over the long term is to depress the prices of digital music - which the music industry already complains is cannibalising their existing markets.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

There are already a couple of known examples of a digital item being 'withdrawn' and pulled off people's devices in the process. If a book or CD goes is pulled off the shelves for some reason, the copy on your shelf doesn't disappear at the same time. It's not 'synchronised' with some cloud of data.

I'll certainly be holding onto control of all my purchases for as long as I possibly can. I still buy physical items wherever that's possible, and if it isn't then I prefer a download that is clearly going to be MY download that I can control on my hard drive.

One of the many stupidities of the new digital world is that it's far easier for me to buy physical copies in some instances anyway. Want a CD or book that has never been on the Australian market? Easy. Hop on to Amazon or a similar website and order it from overseas. Want to download a track from iTunes that's not available in the Australian version of the store? Sorry, we know where you live and you can't have it. WE'VE decided that you're not interested in that music/book/software.

There are also pricing issues, which are being investigated here at the moment. Did you know it is cheaper for an Australian to fly to America and buy Adobe Photoshop than it is to download Adobe Photoshop in Australia? Yep. The cost difference is more than the cost of a return flight!

[ 03. April 2013, 02:03: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on :

Anglican't

There seems to be some confusion as to whether we are talking about the law, or whether we are talking about what's right. I am talking about what's right, and apparently the law is not it.

[Big Grin]

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:
lilBuddha: Software companies are attempting to move customers to this subscription based model as well. I do not care for this either.
Long live Open Source!

I've bought no software nor any operating systems for 7 years. Everything can be done with open source. Music and movies are different than this, though open source tools, technically illegal now in many jurisdictions are also readily available to deal with any digital lock on any media.

Frankly, any digital media with a lock or with a restrictive software method, is by definition I think sold with malware, i.e., a flaw which does not allow, for example, taking of a movie from a purchased CD and put onto a digital player. Media companies have always been a couple of steps behind the technology, and they want support to keep us with them.

Meanwhile, how about a digitally rights managed chair (DRM), which self destructs after you've sat in it 8 times.

However, on the serious end of things, if you want to do something on your computer that you falsely believed required you to buy a program, how about The Top 50 Proprietary Programs and their (free) Open Source Alternatives

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
no prophet: However, on the serious end of things, if you want to do something on your computer that you falsely believed required you to buy a program, how about The Top 50 Proprietary Programs and their (free) Open Source Alternatives

LOL, I already have most of them on my computer.

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