MUMBAI: ‘Die Hard’ actor Bruce Willis is in a collision course with the world’s wealthiest company Apple on the issue of the company’s iTunes collection.
Reports say, Willis, who has ‘spent thousands of dollars downloading music on to “many, many iPods”’ wants to bequeath his extensive iTunes music collection to his daughters – something that’s not permitted under the current iTunes terms.
Willis is reportedly considering legal action against Apple after he discovered he is not allowed to leave his huge iTunes music collection to his daughters.
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Apple’s terms and conditions state that when people buy music from iTunes, they are paying for the license to listen to songs via their iPhone, iPod or other Apple device- but are not buying the music itself.
“When you buy a book, you own the copy of that book but not the actual material. What you are buying here is right to use music on certain devices,” Jonathan Handel, a Los Angeles-based entertainment attorney who specializes in digital media and intellectual property said.
Though nothing would stop Willis from leaving music-loaded laptops or phones to his children, things would get more complicated if his kids tried to transfer the songs to other devices. Apple limits use of digital music to Apple gadgets used by the iTunes account holder. Apple also prohibits users from downloading songs to more than 10 devices, or burning a playlist more than seven times.
Other online music retailers, such as Amazon and Google’s Android Marketplace, impose similar legal restrictions on downloads.
Willis, 57, has three adult daughters with ex-wife Demi Moore and a young daughter with current wife Emma Heming-Willis.
If Willis did take on Apple over ownership of his iTunes collection, he might have an uphill legal battle. The iTunes terms are essentially a contract between the user and Apple, and clicking ‘agree’ counts as an electronic signature, digital-media lawyers say.
However, Emma Heming-Willis, has taken to Twitter to deny reports that the actor is planning to sue Apple. Reacting to the reports, Emma simply said “it’s not a true story”.
