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275 points starkparker | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.443s | source
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fastball ◴[] No.45134302[source]
> and the fact that despite paying monthly, I never actually owned anything.

FYI, when you purchase digital music through iTunes/Amazon/etc, you still don't actually own anything. You are purchasing a license for personal use, which can be revoked for various reasons.

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cobbzilla ◴[] No.45134621[source]
I thought you could buy songs as downloadable mp3 files on Amazon? Did they stop allowing that?
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fastball ◴[] No.45135037[source]
You can download an MP3, but you still don't "own" it in the conventional sense. You are licensing it, and a downloaded MP3 is how you utilize that license. If that license was revoked for some reason (admittedly not a likely scenario), continuing to have the MP3 on your system would be a violation.

In practice I doubt this would ever be an issue, but just wanted to point out that you effectively never "own" a digital reproduction of something unless you are the actual copyright holder (or the copyright is permissive), and digital copies can be clawed back in a way that a CD or physical book you purchased cannot.

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1. bambax ◴[] No.45135368[source]
> digital copies can be clawed back in a way that a CD or physical book you purchased cannot

There is no difference between an mp3 file and a CD? A CD is exactly a digital copy (a book is an analog copy). What's true for one has to be true for the other.

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2. fastball ◴[] No.45136082[source]
Nope. You own the CD. You do not own the MP3.