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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
by roc 15y ago
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).
[1] http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/arizona/azdce/2:2006cv02555/322017/82/ http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/arizona...
- nobody31415926 15y agoThat'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!)
- enjo 15y agonot sure what America's excuse is! Say what?
- nobody31415926 15y agoSince 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 ?
- learc83 15y agoThe answer to that would be the 18th Amendment.
- nobody31415926 15y agoClever - so having failed to ban alcohol they just let market forces take their natural course and produce a beer that nobody would want to drink.
- eliben 15y agoEven 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.
- skore 15y agoInsightful Humor? No. Humor just for it's own sake? Often. Shallow, 'meme' or mock-wit humor? Pretty much every time. The rule of thumb is: If it doesn't add to the discussion, better hold on to it.
- nobody31415926 15y agoHumour seems to track with sun position. When the sun is above GMT votes for humour go up, once it reaches GMT-5 to GMT-8 humour get's downvoted.