Since this is one of the logest threads on nsc i wondered just how much music people have on i tunes.(I dont use i tunes ) at all but i have over 60 ,000 music tracks on hard drive and cd, that if i die i can leave to members of my family. With i tunes you cannot do this even though you have paid for it. Books for the kindle are the same.
As it stands, the rights of iTunes and Amazon customers look pretty shaky when it comes to passing on downloads. If you buy a music track from a digital store, you’re essentially buying a licence to play that track – a licence granted to you only, which isn’t transferable upon death.
Legally you’re essentially just renting tracks – you don’t actually own them, as Matthew Strain of law firm Strain-Keville pointed out to us in the latest issue of Which? Computing:
‘We do not “own” what we purchase on iTunes, we only have the right to use it. The right to the “product” is therefore limited and passing it on to someone else is not likely to be accepted by Apple.’
The issue extends to the rapidly-growing ebooks market as well – Amazon’s Kindle licence explicitly forbids you from passing on your downloaded ebooks:
‘Unless specifically indicated otherwise, you may not sublicence or otherwise assign any rights to the digital content or any portion of it to a third party.’
ok so it may not matter for a 90 p download but what about something like The Beatles Box Set $149.00