"ReDigi Loses: You Can't Resell Your MP3s (Unless You Sell Your Whole Hard Drive)" ~ TechDirt

Article by Mike Masnick in TechDirt:

ReDigi Loses: You Can't Resell Your MP3s (Unless You Sell Your Whole Hard Drive)
from the a-big-first-sale-loss dept

This is hardly a surprise at all. In fact, we expected this kind of ruling all along. ReDigi, the company that was trying to build a "market" around "used MP3s" has lost at the district court. As you may recall, ReDigi tried to set up a system that monitors your own files, so that if you "sell" a used MP3, you have to make sure it's been removed from your own system. As you might imagine, that system is not foolproof, but some effort has been made (and it's only allowed for reselling MP3s ReDigi can prove you've purchased, such as via iTunes, and not for files just ripped from CDs). While I fully expected ReDigi to lose, the ruling is still fairly distressing in just how badly it distorts other parts of the law, which may harm other, even more reasonable uses. Hopefully, ReDigi will appeal and fight back against the more extreme interpretation from the district court here.

First, the court looks into the question of whether or not a transfer of a copyrighted file, where only one file remains at the end, still violates the "reproduction" right. That is, if Bob transfers a file to Alice, and Bob's copy of the file is immediately deleted, is that still a reproduction under the Copyright Act? The court says yes:......

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Opinion, March 30, 2013