Die Hard (and your digital 'purchases' die with you?)

[Darren Dirt]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/09/03/bruce-willis-to-sue-apple-over-itunes/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/09/02/ownage-bruce-willis-to-sue-apple-over-right-to-bequeath-his-itunes-library/


Over/Under on # of months before this case disappears quietly with no definite publicly-shared result?

[Mr. Analog]

This is why in Canada it's important to recognize your right to back up media.

[Lazybones]

Your second link already has been alter to show "Emma Heming-Willis Denies Bruce Is Suing Apple Over Right To Bequeath His iTunes"

Awaiting further confirmation that this may be either a false story, or an offhand thought blown out of proportion. That never happens on the internet!

FYI iTunes lets you export your collection to DRM free CDs if you really want and there are utilities to do it in bulk.... It is a hassle but they do provide an out.

[Darren Dirt]

Maybe; Forbes seems to mis quote or mis interpret a lot more frequently in their news stories than you would expect based on its brand.

[Thorin]

Hmm, it's coming out now to be a hoax story.  The Willises are claiming the story is absolutely not true.  It does raise an interesting question about how many people have actually read the license agreement, though.

[Darren Dirt]

Hmm, it's coming out now to be a hoax story.  The Willises are claiming the story is absolutely not true.  It does raise an interesting question about how many people have actually read the license agreement, though.

More interesting question: why would Bruce Willis be chosen as the "wants to do something for his kids, pissed off at megacorp that they are standing in the way" guy? It's not 1995, he's not nearly as relevant today an action hero as ... say... umm... Colin Farrell? ... ummm... Ahnold?

Okay yeah I've got nothing. Sometimes the internetz makez no senze.



Then again... the word "hoax" or "denies" ain't coming up in the first hits @ Google News:
https://www.google.com/search?q=bruce+willis+apple&tbm=nws

(only the known-for-hard-hitting-facts GUARDIAN (!) is coming up as a "no, he's *not*..." hit -- all the others aren't! at least not yet.)

On hearing the "news" that Bruce Willis (you know, the film star) was going to hurtle into Apple's lift shafts (even if it doesn't have any - does it have any? Anyhow) and intended to sue the company so that he could leave his iTunes collection to his children, what did the world's news organisations do? Ask Bruce Willis? Ask his agent?

Nah. Why bother with that when you can just repeat the story? Much easier just to rewrite, rephrase and repeat.

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comments ftw yet again:
Britpunk
3 September 2012 10:57PM
Frankly Charles, I don't care who brings this to the forefront of our collective consciousness, but this is really bloody important. Serious questions need to be asked about the longevity of digitally purchased items.

Whilst I personally do not care about itunes and I'm perfectly content with my personal music collection - i bought most of my 1300+ albums on CD and have them backed up to the hilt. My primary concern is my Steam account - I have close to 400 games that probably cost at least 4-5 grand overall. In the meantime my partner has a burgeoning ebook collection via Kindle.

However, snarking over the veracity of some tabloid hackjob seems a bit pointless when this is a serious issue that could really use some serious consumer champion behind it.



beardyweirdy666
3 September 2012 11:18PM
Hear hear!
It's something I'd not really given too much thought about, but with games consoles moving towards digital distribution much more (as well as steam accounts, kindle books etc), it presents a very real issue. Games companies don't like the second hand market and have been employing various techniques to make it less attractive, but of they're only going to effectively rent a game to me then the price needs to be much lower to reflect that.
I remove drm as a point of principle from all my bought kindle books (it's easy enough) and store them as epubs. I don't distribute them widely, but I feel perfectly at peace with myself "lending" them to friends and family who'd I'd otherwise have lent a paper copy to.

Although to be honest, anyone masochistic enough to voluntarily install iTunes and then pay their silly prices for stuff probably deserves all they get (which isn't very much tbh).