REAL LIFE NEWS: WHAT HAPPENS TO YOUR MUSIC AFTER YOU DIE?
by Hazed
An interesting story in one of the UK’s tabloid newspapers last week looks at first glance like a standard silly-season bit of celebrity fluff. But actually it brings up a very serious issue.
The celebrity in question is Bruce Willis. He’s planning to sue Apple over the question of what will happen to his digital music collection after he dies.
Not surprisingly, having paid for all his music, he wants to ensure that after his demise, he can leave it to his daughters Rumer, Scout and Tallulah. But the iTunes terms and conditions don’t allow that. Apple considers that when you buy some digital music from them - or a film or an ebook - you are not really buying it but just renting it.
In other words, they allow you to ‘borrow’ the tracks, not to own them outright.
Passing the tracks on to other people is not allowed. It’s considered to be file sharing. Even if you have died and so cannot possibly still be listening to them yourself.
This issue is one of the reasons I still buy physical CDs rather than MP3s, even though these days the first thing I do with a CD is rip it to iTunes and put it on my iPhone.
It’s also an issue users of the Amazon Kindle are going to have to get to grips with. I’m a massive Kindle fan, and I’ve bought a whole bunch of books from Amazon to read on my reader, but what happens when I die? Unlike the piles of paperbacks on my bookshelves, which will be part of my estate to be disposed of under the terms of my will, those digital books will probably get repossessed when I conk out.
I bought this song, or this book, so I should be able to do what I like with it. That means I should be able to lend it to a friend, give it away when I don’t want it any more, or sell it secondhand - just like I can with a book made of paper or a CD made of plastic.
As more and more consumers get used to receiving their media in digital form, this issue is going to become more urgent. Or maybe by the time I die, nobody will expect to own anything any longer - media will be ephemeral, streamed to your device when you want it then deleted after you’ve viewed or listened or read. But it’s something that needs to be thought about and discussed, and if it takes a celebrity court case to do it, then go Bruce. Yippee-ki-yay...
