1. This service is ridiculous and I'm embarrassed that they raised nearly as much funding as we did for it. Who on earth didn't see this coming?
2. Deleting "the original" when it's so easy to have your own other copy somewhere doesn't do anything. How do they even begin to answer this concern?
3. How can the RIAA argue in one breath that you don't own their product, that it's just a license, and argue in court in another breath that they don't owe artists an increased royalty on licenses (vs purchases)? These guys do an awesome job of making sure everyone hates them. It's too bad that their interests are aligned with artists in some cases, because they only make it harder for reasonable people to have a leg to stand on.
2. The same could be said of CDs and DVDs. Especially if you follow up with the license bit. Basically, if you can sell your CD licensed music, why can't you sell your other digitally licence music? If both are dealing with licenses, and you can sell one, the argument is you can sell the other.
I agree, it's ridiculous, but I think it's that way mostly because of the RIAA's way of defining things.
If you can only sell the DVD but not the copy, then the original owner paid more for it, ends up with less value, and the new owner, if they wanted to sell it, would have the same issue. Further, you have to transfer a physical product, which at the prices of used DVDs makes very little sense and has a minor impact on the industry. Being able to sell a copy that costs nothing to make or ship is more damaging. It's not that they wish you couldn't sell your DVDs, too, but it's not as important a fight as digital copies.
I understand what you are saying, but understand in this case, I think they are having their own arguments used against them. So, while we might want to apply logic, we have to use the logic they've been using for years now. And, to be frank, that logic doesn't always make sense.
As time marches on, the RIAA is going to see their business dry up, not from customers, but from artists, who can now easily handle their own distribution. They might as well change their name now to the Music Marketing Association of America, because that's all they have to offer.
Perhaps they enforce the deletion by preventing you from restoring a copy of the song from a backup to iTunes. Though doesn't stop you playing the song on another device that is entirely independent of iTunes.
2. Deleting "the original" when it's so easy to have your own other copy somewhere doesn't do anything. How do they even begin to answer this concern?
3. How can the RIAA argue in one breath that you don't own their product, that it's just a license, and argue in court in another breath that they don't owe artists an increased royalty on licenses (vs purchases)? These guys do an awesome job of making sure everyone hates them. It's too bad that their interests are aligned with artists in some cases, because they only make it harder for reasonable people to have a leg to stand on.