Last month a new company called ReDigi debuted a new system they call the first legal way to sell old unwanted music you have on your computer at a discounted value. The always trigger happy Recording Industry Association of America has already sent the company a letter claiming that it is supporting copyright infringement by charging a 5% to 15% fee for the songs which go for 79 cents.
The New York Times interviewed chief officer John Ossenmacher, here’s a snippet from the piece:
John Ossenmacher, ReDigi’s chief executive, contends that the service complies with copyright law, and that its technology offers safeguards to allay the industry’s concerns that people might profit from pirated music. “ReDigi is a marketplace that gives users tools to be in compliance with copyright law,” he said. “Before I put a file up for sale ReDigi says you will need to delete them, and if not it won’t take them.”
When a user wants to upload a song for sale, ReDigi analyzes its metadata — a kind of digital fingerprint — to verify that it came from an official store like iTunes or Amazon. (It does not accept files ripped from a CD, or others whose provenance it considers suspect.) A desktop program then deletes any copies left on a user’s computer, and can detect if that user tries to add copies later.
Ossenmacher has even offered to give artists and labels royalties from the sale of the music although the company doesn’t legally have to because of the first sale law.
What do you think about this service??? Would you pay your friend for a used song or just yank the file?
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wow thats ingenious. itz also very respectful of them to off a %-age to the artists n labels