Bruce Willis to fight Apple over rights to music collection after his death

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/4517317/Bruce-Willis-to-fight-Apple-over-music-rights-after-his-death.html

by ableal • 14 years ago

76 25 14 years ago

thesun.co.uk

tsotha• 14 years ago

Okay, I'm happy he's doing this, and I hope it doesn't mean he's having health problems.

But I doubt his daughters are interested in his music.

antidoh• 14 years ago

One of the most connecting things my son and I share is music.

Of the few things that I remember about my father, a large part is music.

Even if you don't like the music, it still helps you understand. Sometimes it just helps you.

slantyyz• 14 years ago

Most young people won't get the reference, but before I clicked through to the OP, I was thinking this was referring to who would own the digital sales rights to "The Return of Bruno" after his death.

Shamefully, I admit to buying this CD as a teenager, just because it was on sale for $10 (very cheap at the time for a CD).

jfb• 14 years ago

I had the exact same reaction. I couldn't imagine that it's flying off the (digital) shelves, so I had to click through and read. Next up, Scott Baio?

itg• 14 years ago

Really wish there were some other sources. All the tech blogs are also linking back to TheSun which I have a hard time taking seriously.

auxbuss• 14 years ago

The story was also reported yesterday, with more detail, in the Sunday Times (http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/), which sits, ironically, behind a paywall. (I have the dead tree version here, which I guess I could photograph and upload.)

prohan• 14 years ago

This is stupid.

lignuist• 14 years ago

Why? I think it is great that Bruce Willis brings attention to the topic. My father gave me his record collection. He was able to do so, because he owned it. Will current/next generations be able to do the same?

Kelliot• 14 years ago

No sources, no comment from any company or organization.

This is the kind of work you'd expect from the sun, trash paper.

ktizo• 14 years ago

A confused and zombified Bruce Willis was found in a Cupertino air conditioning duct late last night, in possession of a portable hard drive and a bad hangover.

alexholehouse• 14 years ago

Please don't ever post anything from The Sun. It's a worthless, sensationalist pit pandering in majority to festering idiots who live vicariously through a bizarre mix of celebrities and "real-life-tragedies".

[Edit - This is, perhaps, an extreme view, and The Sun is in no way alone in using this modus operandi. However, as a Brit I feel an impulsive need to warn those who didn't grow up with The Sun!]

norswap• 14 years ago

I don't care, I'll judge on the article. This one does not seem to fit the characteristics you describe. I'll trust the community not to upvote drivel too much (they probably will, but it won't be your usual sun drivel).

michaelhoffman2• 14 years ago

Judging the article: it lists no sources and has no quotations from anyone regarding the headline claim. Doesn't seem that The Sun has presented any evidence whatsoever to back it up.

reitzensteinm• 14 years ago

Do you judge each article from the Onion on its merits? Because the Sun is closer to the Onion than the New York Times.

I agree with what you're saying in general, but if a paper makes stuff up for a living, there's absolutely nothing wrong with discounting what they say until a better source comes along.

Pinckney• 14 years ago

How do you propose to judge factual claims made by the article? Take them to be true on faith?

The issue isn't that The Sun's readers are "festering idiots," or that the stories are typically unimportant. If that were all, you could be forgiven for reading the article in a vacuum and proceeding from there. No, the issue is that The Sun lies when it's convenient [1], and that whether or not a given claim is an outright fabrication by The Sun's writers is not something you can deduce from the article and the article alone.

[1]: Skimming wikipedia:

"In 1987, The Sun falsely accused homosexual pop musician Elton John of having sexual relationships with rent boys. In another story it accused him of removing the voice boxes of his guard dogs because their barking kept him awake. "

'On 17 November 1989, The Sun headlined a page 2 news story titled “STRAIGHT SEX CANNOT GIVE YOU AIDS – OFFICIAL."'

"On 9 December 2010, The Sun published a front-page story claiming that terrorist group Al-Qaeda had threatened a terrorist attack on Granada Television in Manchester to disrupt the episode of the soap opera Coronation Street to be transmitted live that evening."

beefman• 14 years ago

The story has apparently been disclaimed by Willis' wife

http://9to5mac.com/2012/09/03/bruce-willis-dietunes-yippikay...

mynameishere• 14 years ago

This is, perhaps, an extreme view

No, it's a dead common view. Maybe the very commonest view your could possibly have: "I don't agree with the general policies of X, therefore X is wrong."

pessimizer• 14 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1P6KUyOhBc

Never buy or read The Sun.

femto2• 14 years ago

The story here isn't that Bruce Willis is taking on Apple. It's that mainstream media, a trashy Murdoch tabloid no less, is reporting that the copyright regime isn't a consumer's best friend.

If those banging on about copyright reform ever need a sign that their message is finally getting though, isn't this it?

ableal• 14 years ago

The reason this is interesting is that finally someone twigged to the contradiction between the word "buying" and not being able to dispose of the property acquired.

This applies to iTunes, Amazon and the other app-stores around. No re-sale, no transmission of any kind beyond first buyer is contemplated. It's in fact a lifetime lease, with the "landlord" retaining some interesting rights, such as popping in and removing items. We discussed that here a couple of years ago when Amazon exercised that right to remove allegedly illegal copies of Nineteen Eighty Four it had sold.

The current situation may be temporarily good for profits, but the value for digital items may well depend on their having a secondary market like physical goods have. The sales of new houses or cars would suffer greatly if they were not resalable.

nnethercote• 14 years ago

Aren't iTunes tracks all DRM-free now? Maybe Bruce has some old ones with DRM and hasn't paid to upgrade them to DRM-free.

ScottWhigham• 14 years ago

What does DRM have to do with this though? Presumably the point isn't whether or not he can move these to another machine with a hardware/software dongle getting in the way. I take it that the point is that the Apple license prohibits him from legally giving/bequeathing these songs to anyone of his choosing.

femto2• 14 years ago

Postscript, so that HN has an accurate record: Bruce Willis Isn’t Suing Apple Over iTunes Music Ownership Rights.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/03/bruce-willis-itunes-music-l...

Bruce Willis to fight Apple over rights to music collection after his death

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