UK Government: ‘No reason’ why MP3 resale shouldn’t be legal

The UK Government has seemingly backed the peer-to-peer resale of digital entertainment files – so long as the seller deletes their ‘copy’.The news comes out of the current EU Commission consultation on copyright reform, part of which involves a debate on the sort of digital reselling carried out by ReDigi in the US.

“As regards the resale of copies, the UK notes that traditional secondary markets for goods can encourage both initial purchase and adoption of technologies, and the prospect of sale on the secondary market may be factored in to an initial decision to buy and to market prices,” the UK Government response reads

“There seems to be no reason why this should not be the case for digital copies, except for the ‘forward and delete’ issue noted by the consultation,” it adds.

International record label group the IFPI is arguing the case for digital file resales to be banned, claiming that digital files differ significantly to resold physical entertainment. Its main counter-argument is that legal physical resale only ever involves the original product, rather than a copy.

“In the recorded music sector, the consequences of enabling the resale of digital content would have very harmful consequences for the entire music market,” IFPI said in its submission.

“The notion that the exhaustion principle should apply to copies acquired by means of digital transmissions in the same way that it applies to physical copies ignores the many differences between the two kinds of copies and between the two distribution processes.”

The BPI, Sony Music and Universal Music all submitted similar arguments to the EU.

Source: Music Week