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Do you own your digital content?
- lutusp 14y agoWhen I had LP records, I could legally give them to someone else. Now that I have MP3s, I can't do that any more (at least, not legally). When I had films on VHS cassettes, I could give them to someone else. Now that I have Netflix/cable/satellite TV and an HDMI connection between the cable box and TV, I can't do that any more. When I had printed books, I could give them to someone else. Now that I have e-books, I can't do that any more -- indeed, there's a system in place in which the e-book vendor can delete any e-books from your reader for any reason, and without warning (as amazon.com did with two George Orwell books in 2009: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18ama...). So the question is not whether I own digital content, but what exactly does "own" mean? Owning a printed book isn't remotely like owning an e-book, but the same word is loosely used to describe both.
- andyjohnson0 14y agoI am a subscriber to emusic.com, who were offering drm-free mp3 downloads long before Apply or Amazon, and I have bought a lot of music from them. Unlike Amazon [1], their terms of use [2] seem to be silent about ownership and transfer. Whatever the legal reality actually is, I consider that I 'own' the bits that I've downloaded, and could give them to my children if I wanted. I do think that it pretty unlikely that my kids will be interested in their old dad's music collection though. [1] http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200285010#content http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId... [2] http://www.emusic.com/info/help/terms-of-use-uk/ http://www.emusic.com/info/help/terms-of-use-uk/