In its 18-page complaint, filed in a New York federal court, EMI alleged that to operate its business, ReDigi must make numerous unauthorized copies of songs and that that violates copyright law.
ReDigi, whom I've written about before, here and here, are the target of a lew lawsuit from music label EMI.
ReDigi is a marketplace for the sale of used digital music. As you can imagine, rights holders are very skeptical of the legality of this enterprise. ReDigi relies on a combination of the First Sale Doctrine, which allows owners of books to sell them to others without paying the rights holder, and allowed video rental stores to rent VHS and DVDs to customers without paying rights holders.
While EMI probably doesn't buy ReDigi's reliance on first sale doctrine, the label's recent suit takes issue with ReDigi's need to, as CNET's Greg Sandoval interpreted their complaint filed in a New York federal court, "make numerous unauthorized copies of songs" sold by users. EMI may have a good case, too.
Unlike a used book, the owner of an MP3 can't give the buyer their copy of an object. Instead, the digital audio file must, by the internet's very nature, be copied during the upload process, and then again during the download process. This minimal requirement for the creation of two new copies via unauthorized reproduction is where EMI sees infringement.
This will be an interesting case to watch.
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