ReDigi Sued for Copyright Infringement

ReDigi, a company that allowed users to sell digital music they no longer wanted, has been sued by Capitol Records for copyright infringement. On Monday, April 1^st, Judge Richard Sullivan of New York ruled that the “first sale” doctrine did not extend to digital media and therefore reselling digital music was, in fact, a copyright infringement.

ReDigi had claimed to be a legal service for selling unwanted digital music, relying on the first sale doctrine, which states that one owner may resell unwanted goods to a new owner. This is how secondhand stores are able to operate, and how music and movies and books may be re-sold legally. But they may not be duplicated.

Judge Sullivan’s ruling discounted the first sale doctrine in this case, though, since duplication is far too easy to carry out with digital media. “It is simply impossible that the same ‘material object’ can be transferred over the Internet,” he wrote.

ReDigi asks all users to download special software upon signing up. The software scans their computer and is able to determine whether or not songs were purchased legally or illegally. Only songs that were bought legally may be sold, and upon sale, the software deletes them from the hard drive. The company also claims it will prevent users from re-downloading a song once they have sold it.

But according to the judge, this doesn’t solve the issue of duplication. The software in fact allows for duplication before deleting the original. “It is beside the point that the original phonorecord no longer exists. It matters only that a new phonorecord has been created,” he said.

Capitol Records is seeking a charge of $150,000 per copyright infringement, and though the judge ruled in their favor he has not yet established a specific amount to be repaid. The case likely been closely monitored by companies like Amazon and Apple, both of which have patents related to the resale or transfer of digital media. Neither has a functioning platform for such a process yet, but they are no doubt formulating one—and learning from ReDigi’s mistakes will help them in that journey.