Good news for “used digital music” reseller ReDigi: the district court judge handling the case has denied EMI’s motion for a preliminary injunction against the company, which would have shut it down during the trial. Citing the “fascinating” technological and legal issues involved, U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan said he is inclined to let the case go to trial. "We are grateful for the judge's decision in our favor," said John Ossenmacher, ReDigi's CEO, said in a statement. The company added that "ReDigi is breaking down the barriers that have kept consumers from enjoying their intrinsic...

The ReDigi lawsuit took an intriguing turn yesterday. Google sent a letter to the judge in the EMI v. ReDigi case asking permission to file an amicus brief. Google says that it is not taking sides in the case, but some points of law that will be considered could set important precedents for the future of the cloud hosting industry. Google brings up the Cablevision case that legalized remote-operated DVRs, and the Sony v. Universal case that legalized VCRs and explicitly called “time-shifting” fair use, But the really interesting part is this argument: The final...

Novelist Jonathan Franzen, who is winning great popularity lately for his books, recently indulged in a diatribe against e-books, spouting some of the same tired rhetoric that the paper panickers always seem to think is original to them. Paper is permanent and durable, Franzen writes. “The Great Gatsby was last updated in 1924. You don’t need it to be refreshed, do you?” Funny thing, Jonathan—if it hadn’t been easily downloadable to my electronic device, I don’t think I would have bothered to seek out and read The Great Gatsby at all, and I would have missed out on a...

ReDigi has filed a response to the EMI lawsuit seeking to prevent the company from reselling “used” digital music files, Ars Technica reports. In EMI’s suit, it accuses ReDigi of making illegal copies as part of the process of selling this music. In the response, the company claims that any copying that does take place is either fair use or covered by a section of the copyright code that permits copying in situations where it is an “essential step” to making fair use of digital content (such as copying an MP3 into computer memory in order to play it). ...

Since the ReDigi lawsuit surfaced a few days ago, some of the e-book blogs have been taking notice. EbookNewser simply asks “Could selling used e-books work?” (The answer is, probably about as well as ReDigi’s idea of selling used e-music. In the unlikely event courts bless it, then yes, we might very well see a used e-splosion. Wouldn’t hold my breath, though.) TeleRead has already looked at these issues a couple of times, with a reprint of a post on first sale by Marilynn Byerly and my own look at digital resale efforts that didn’t get off the...

And so it begins. In October, “used digital music” reseller ReDigi began operations. A month later, the RIAA demanded that it cease and desist its “infringing” activities and make its records available as evidence in the lawsuits that were undoubtedly soon to come. Now, one of those lawsuits has arrived. Greg Sandoval reports on CNET that record label EMI has filed suit against ReDigi, 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...

Marketing guru Seth Godin has a piece on PaidContent (reposted from his Domino Project blog) responding to an interview with the head of Ingram Books about the future of books and publishing. In the interview, Ingram CEO David “Skip” Prichard trots out some of the usual predictions about the future of the book—multimedia extras, print-on-demand, physical bookstores finding “niches” to adapt to, and print publishers still being necessary. Godin calls Prichard’s views “economically ridiculous,” basing his argument on Chris Anderson’s “long tail” theory. Godin suggests that the broad consumer choice the long tail makes possible will drive down production...

On PaidContent, Bill Rosenblatt looks at whether we can ever expect a universal format for e-books, equivalent to “MP3” for audio. He doesn’t think so. For one thing, he points out that MP3s aren’t actually used all that much in digital music sales. Apple uses AAC, which has generally better sound quality. The only major commercial market for MP3s is Amazon, and it only has 10% of the music market. And whereas MP3 had a number of advantages over the competing CD format (in particular, it was much smaller and easier to transfer digitally), EPUB doesn’t offer...

On FutureBook, Richard Stephenson has a brief piece looking at the interactivity now possible in iBooks. Since iBooks 1.5 supports Javascript, this means that e-books can take upon themselves abilities formerly associated with stand-alone appbooks. Stephenson uses the example of the Beatles Yellow Submarine iBook, available for free from the iBookstore, which uses embedded Javascript to add interactivity. He suggests that this interactivity could be a great way for publishers to add additional revenue streams, such as the ability to purchase music from within the Yellow Submarine book. While I will admit that it’s good to see...

I had been planning to leave this story alone for a while, given that it’s not directly about e-books. But Universal made a really dumb move that should remind us all about the dangers of giving the content industry a bigger padlock to slap onto our digital printing presses, whichever medium we use. Remember that Megaupload music video that Universal slapped with a DMCA takedown? Tom Merritt of the daily news video blog Tech News Today covered the controversy on Monday, including the use of a couple of clips of the Megaupload video in question. By Monday night,...

The saga of the Megaupload viral video takedown just got weirder. Universal has responded that several of the artists portrayed in the video did not consent to appearing in it, and Techdirt reports featured artist will.i.am filed a takedown notice of his own for that reason. Megaupload insists that it has contracts for all artists and material featured in the video, so someone on one side or the other is obviously either lying or mistaken. I do wonder why those artists allowed Megaupload to film them singing its praises if they didn’t want Megaupload to use what it filmed....

This story might need to be taken with a grain of salt based on its sources, but it could have some serious implications if true. Megaupload, like Rapidshare, is a cyber-locker site where people can upload files of any kind for others to download. Many of those files are illicitly-copied commercial material, which naturally gives Hollywood, record labels, and publishers (after all, this material does include both e-books and audiobooks) conniptions. Recently, a number of music celebrities recorded a music video in support of Megaupload. This was considered a newsworthy event, and covered by a number of places, but...