The Lease They Can Do: What the Fight Over 'Used' Music Reveals About Online Media

ReDigi is an online service that allows you to resell your (legally obtained) media files. It seems chipper and on the up-and-up, and you can imagine that to music industry executives this video looks like a ransom video with a cute soundtrack. Thus began some lawsuits, one of which has just concluded in favor of Vivendi, the parent of Capitol records. Much is yet to be determined, but it’s a bad outcome for ReDigi.

ReDigi has, as so many services do, a snappy video explaining that if you just put all your music in the ReDigi cloud, you’ll be able to sell it for credits (at which point it’s erased from your hard drive) and buy new music. From there on, it’s simply a matter of transferring licenses. ReDigi spends a lot (a lot) of time in its FAQ to clarify legal issues, which is always an interesting indicator, but its main stance seems to be: We don’t make copies but rather move a single digital file around, and thus we are in the clear.