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"Stop illegally sharing, and start legally selling" is the tagline for a start-up that wants to enable music owners to sell their unwanted MP3s.

Ernesto at the blog TorrentFreak has a story about Bopaboo, which has created a digital marketplace where users operate mini download stores.

Bopaboo buyers can search for music in all the usual ways, and the site offers a seller rating to help shoppers learn a merchant's reputation. Sellers register and then are given an MP3 store, where they can upload the music they want to sell. No DRM-wrapped music is allowed, so iTunes owners like me are blocked from selling.

According to TorrentFreak, there is no limit on the number of songs that can be offered. Sellers select their own prices but, of course, must cut Bopaboo a percentage of sales.

This was an idea bound to emerge out of the craze over songs stripped of digital rights management software. People have traded DVDs, mixed tapes, and albums for decades.

Bopaboo says the site is legal, and it sounds like it should be. Don't people own their MP3s? We'll see.

Okay, here's the juice from Bopaboo CEO Alex Meshkin, a 28-year-old who didn't go to college, doesn't know programming but once ran Toyota's Nascar team. Yes, Nascar team.

I put the most important question to him first. Why don't you think the recording industry is going to sue you into oblivion?

"Obviously MP3s are very easy to duplicate," said Meshkin, who said Bopaboo is a Washington DC-based company founded a year ago. "It's very difficult to tell the difference between a so-called new copy and a so-called old copy... I can buy a CD and I can rip it and that behavior has basically been endorsed by the music industry. I can resell that CD on Amazon. The industry doesn't have a way to monetize physical goods being traded on the secondary market. The first-sale doctrine protects that right. In the physical world consumers have the right to resell their property and copyright owners can't do anything about that."

greggh wrote:http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10120391-93.html

"Stop illegally sharing, and start legally selling" is the tagline for a start-up that wants to enable music owners to sell their unwanted MP3s.

Ernesto at the blog TorrentFreak has a story about Bopaboo, which has created a digital marketplace where users operate mini download stores.

Bopaboo buyers can search for music in all the usual ways, and the site offers a seller rating to help shoppers learn a merchant's reputation. Sellers register and then are given an MP3 store, where they can upload the music they want to sell. No DRM-wrapped music is allowed, so iTunes owners like me are blocked from selling.

According to TorrentFreak, there is no limit on the number of songs that can be offered. Sellers select their own prices but, of course, must cut Bopaboo a percentage of sales.

This was an idea bound to emerge out of the craze over songs stripped of digital rights management software. People have traded DVDs, mixed tapes, and albums for decades.

Bopaboo says the site is legal, and it sounds like it should be. Don't people own their MP3s? We'll see.

Okay, here's the juice from Bopaboo CEO Alex Meshkin, a 28-year-old who didn't go to college, doesn't know programming but once ran Toyota's Nascar team. Yes, Nascar team.

I put the most important question to him first. Why don't you think the recording industry is going to sue you into oblivion?

"Obviously MP3s are very easy to duplicate," said Meshkin, who said Bopaboo is a Washington DC-based company founded a year ago. "It's very difficult to tell the difference between a so-called new copy and a so-called old copy... I can buy a CD and I can rip it and that behavior has basically been endorsed by the music industry. I can resell that CD on Amazon. The industry doesn't have a way to monetize physical goods being traded on the secondary market. The first-sale doctrine protects that right. In the physical world consumers have the right to resell their property and copyright owners can't do anything about that."

The RIAA is gonna go nuts over this.

If you buy a DRM free MP3, don't you own it? If you own it, isn't it your property? If it's your property, aren't you entitled to re-sell it, just like your CDs?

There are going to be some interesting lawsuits and legal questions over this.