Just about everywhere in this country it’s legal to resell a CD, DVD, or video tape you own. So, is it legal to resell a digital music or movie file you’ve purchased and downloaded? That’s the issue raised in a USA Today story about people who are trying to sell their used iPods along with the music and video files on it.
The examples in the story are likely clear copyright violations since the files being sold are probably still on the computer of the seller or, at the very least, on the CDs in their collection. And the seller who is telling the buyer to “delete them [the files they don’t already own] as soon as they receive it [the iPod] in the mail” is especially naive if he expects that to happen.
But there’s still the issue of whether or not a person has the right to resell a digital file they’ve purchased in the same way they might with any other media they own. My gut feeling is that they do – or at least they should.
I suspect the RIAA and MPAA would disagree. For the most part the big media companies would like to think their customers are only “leasing” the content. If they had their way, consumers would have to pay every time the file was played on a different device.
However, all of this leads to a larger legal concept. Does a person who pays for a digital program have the right to move it around any way they like? Including transferring it to someone else?
Stand by for the first law suit.