Apple has sold 10 million songs since the launch of its iTunes Music Store, and partially answers the question of reselling iTunes songs on a "first sale" basis.
"Apple's position is that it is impractical, though perhaps within someone's rights, to sell music purchased online," Peter Lowe, Apple's director of marketing for applications and services
Impractical because of the DRM barrier, since Apple does not provide any mean to transfer the song from one account to another, and because of the low price tag (would you work out a legal way to lift all the technical barriers for 50 cents?)
This leaves a few questions unanswered. We still don't know if this would be against Apple's Terms of Use (which, I guess, have been negotiated with the majors and artists). And, if we suppose that this is how we will access music once the CD has disappeared, how are we supposed to lend on favorite songs and albums to friends, like we can legally do with CDs today? Can I burn a compilation and lend it? Will I have to lend my iPod?
I understand your point, and that all this dialogue about sharing and music copyright needs to happen, but on another level, isn't it all a bit pedantic? Technology has always found away around copy protection (it took awhile until xerox machnes) but now that you don't need a scribe to copy a few pages from a book would you stop to have a debate with the publisher and author if it's ok do copy it? It strikes me that so much of this debate is about people trying to follow the letter of the law, and if the law doesn't fit what they want to do, they argue to try and change the law. Instead of doing that, just find a way to circumvent the copy protection, as we do with DVDs and pirated software, and get on with it.
This is half devils advocate half "I've heard too much on this whole DRM debate, as someone who has few qualms about just getting on with the downloads no matter what the music industry says"
I also happened upon this post via google, so I realize my comments are a bit out of date.
i ant to set up a website and have plp pay a month fee to access albums for download, how would i obtain rights to resell music online?