News eBay pulls iTunes song auction

From The Register:

eBay yesterday yanked an attempt to auction an iTunes Music Service download off its site, describing the item as "invalid".

The auction page itself now simply says: "The item you requested... is invalid, still pending, or no longer in our database. Please check the number and try again. If this message persists, the item has either not started and is not yet available for viewing, or has expired and is no longer available."

The item was a file purchased from Apple's online music store by one George Hotelling and downloaded to his Mac. Hotelling posted the file specifically with the intention of testing the reaction of the Mac maker, eBay and the music industry to such a trade.

Is selling on a downloaded song the same as selling a CD, he asked?

Full story here

 

wow, that was pulled quickly... not surprised really!

 

but it was legally purchased... so in a way the message their sending is download it somewhere else (kazaa)

 

I think the real question it raises is should iTunes be able to charge for music if you're not allowed to resell it?

If you buy a CD then it's your property to sell on as you wish. Because a file isn't a physical object they seem to be treating it differently; so you're merely buying rights to listen to that file yourself and not to own it.

It makes you wonder if it would be legal to copy the file to a different hard drive even

 

what happens if your hard drive fails?? do they refund you as you no longer have acsess to that file

 

I'm not sure how the service works. I assume you can login and re-download songs you've already bought?

 

and what happens when you upgrade your pc? as the file is linked to your pc

 

I'm not sure, but it was developed at first for Macs which are nigh on non-upgradeable anyway.

 

yea but you can buy a new mac plug it in and their servers don't recognise it as the same pc, so would you lose all your music, and can you burn it to cd, does it say on the license that you can? because that way you should be able to resell it as the artists have had their money you should be able to resell it yourself then.

 

okay... let me get this straight...

If I purchase a song, I'm only purchasing the rights to LISTEN to it... beyond that, I'm only purchasing the rights to listen to it on MY computer! Am I even allowed to put it on my ipod to listen to at the park? If I'm not, what's the point? If I am, what's the difference between the ipod and a hdd on another computer?

 

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I like the 'I'm watching you' bit in your sig Ubermich
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Thank you
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propz to Rich