Boing Boing: Sony screwing artists out of iTunes royalties, customers out of first-sale

Has the first dart been thrown to hit the bulls eye on what is happening with the online exploitation of paternal copyright holders and users?

Boing Boing: Sony screwing artists out of iTunes royalties, customers out of first-sale

Sony clearly wants to have each song it distributes sold in every possible way, in every possible medium, distinctly, without any interoperability, without any other use or any further use.

Its beyond me how this could not be construed as a licensed sale as the transfer of the right to use the copy of the recording is conditional and not permanent. If one were looking at a tangible property, it would be akin to a rental rather than a purchase as the ties to the vendor remain to the use and enjoyment of the property.

In Canada, this is taking it past the line drawn by the Supreme Court case of Theberge, where the artist cum distributor is retaining past the sale an interest in the property that the user now should control.

Sale? Sony better be careful about these kinds of "sales" as they might not be just looking at lawsuits from the paternal copyright holders, the artists, the lyricists and composers, the performers on their sound recordings and any other royalty owners and middle men and women in the creation of music products: the users may be next hiring lawyers too.

Lawrence