Bopaboo wants to be the internet's used record store

Every now and again an idea comes along that's so brilliant and simple that you wonder why you didn't think of it first. And then there's bopaboo. The idea behind the site is that it's perfectly legal to buy a CD and then turn around and sell it on eBay or in a used record shop. So why not do the same thing with unencrypted MP3 files?

The answer, of course, is that there's little to prevent you from purchasing a single MP3 for 99 cents and then selling it a few hundred times for 50 cents, thus making a pretty hefty profit while at least theoretically depriving the people who own the original rights to that song of potential revenue.

Bopaboo says it has a way around that problem. The web site allows users to create their own web stores and set prices for song downloads. But users are only allowed to sell each song once. Bopaboo uses digital fingerprinting technology to make sure you don't upload the same song twice.

If it actually works, that technology could ensure that the site is protected by the first sale doctrine, which is the same rule that allows you to sell a CD or video game after you've purchased it. But I can think of a few dozen ways that users could quickly get around that technology, by doing things like inserting some extra silence into audio tracks or using audio editing software to slightly change the pitch of a song.

If you're interested in purchasing music for as little sa 25 cents a track you might want to register for the beta today. Because it's not at all clear that the service will still be around tomorrow.

[via CNet and TorrentFreak]

Tags: bopaboo, copyright, first-sale-doctrine, mp3, music