Google has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in recording industry copyright lawsuit against ReDigi, who sells "used" copies of digital music like MP3 files. Redigi and Capitol Records have an ongoing lawsuit which is due for a decision soon, in which the idea of reselling digital files as if they were used CDs takes on copyright issues and could even affect Google Music and The Android Music Store. This affects the way MP3 and other digital music files are stored in the cloud via "cloud computing" because of copyright infringement issues.
ReDigi uses a "forensic verification engine" to determine whether songs are legit, as in determining whether they came from a CD or iTunes. They also offer cloud storage service for your music, a la cloud computing, so they're also a streaming music service. Google's request was denied by the court, according to Informationweek, who said that the friend-of-the-court brief from Google's law firm Fenwick & West said "A premature decision on incomplete facts could create unintended uncertainties for the cloud computing industry." WIRED says that the decision on the case is due soon, with $150,000 per potentially copyright infringing track hanging in the balance.
ReDigi claims that the service is completely legit, saying "Once you sell a song, you no longer have access to it. ReDigi removes the song from your hard drive and all synced devices as soon as your legally obtained digital song is moved to your ReDigi Cloud. This is how ReDigi stays legit, and how you now have access to an incredible marketplace where rights long accepted in the physical world may now be applied to digital goods." Unless you made a CD backup of the song before hand. As always, this is one to watch.
find out more about Google Music and other streaming music services in the Spacelab Streaming Media Guide.
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