Estates: The Inheritability of Digital Music Files

The average layperson might assume that digital music files (i.e., songs purchased from services such as iTunes and Amazon) can be passed by will or intestate succession. This is certainly true for music recorded onto physical media, such as CDs. However, the law currently treats digital files differently, given (a) the manner in which digital music is purchased, (b) the use of multiple digital files when accessing digital music files, and ( c) the perishable nature of non-digital media.

Because most consumers never read the “Terms & Conditions” agreements when purchasing digital music, they may be surprised to learn that when buying a song from iTunes or Amazon, the purchaser is not granted ownership of the downloaded song file, but merely acquires a non-transferable license to use the file on the purchaser’s device for the contract duration. Thus, by contract, such files cannot pass at the death of the purchaser, as the usage license is non-transferable to other persons.

Digital music services have justified the new ownership regime based upon the manner in which digital music is accessed and played, as well as the non-perishability of digital files. Digital music providers argue that the digital file is not necessarily “copied” each time it is accessed from the purchaser’s device, the “cloud,” or when streamed from the service-provider, so that the seller rightfully structures consumer access of the purchased music files as a personal, non-transferable license to access such usage “copies” during the term of the contract.

In comparison, a CD contains one particular copy of the song, such that the material object containing the recording can properly be owned by the purchaser as well as sold to another via the “first sale” doctrine. The one federal court that has addressed the applicability of the traditional “first sale” doctrine in regards to digital media held that digital music files could not be sold, because the sale would by necessity require the transfer and copy of the copyright­ protected computer code to some new device, a transfer prohibited under the license agreement. See Capitol Records, LLC v. ReDigi Inc., 934 F. Supp. 2d 640 (S.D.N.Y.2013). The court also observed that “first sale” should not apply to digital audio files because such files do not physically degrade like traditional music media.