Gersen: The situation was different, it was physical items, not one specifically described as being "subscriptions" and like you said it wasn't a binding decision and it was just one judge.
Look what happened with Autodesk vs Vernor :
First judgement : "second hand sales of software are ok"
Appeal : "no they are not"
Unless it's written in black and white in a law, you are totally dependent of the good will/interpretation of the judge.
Actually the decision covered digital products, not physical ones. The strength of legal decisions depends on the court and legal system. The European court - which I believe allows for the setting of precedent like the US/British courts - and the US Supreme Court for instance affect all rulings below them. So if a case ever reaches those levels, then the decisions are binding and are later not subject to any individual lower court judge's whimsies after they are made.
crazy_dave: All music sellers are DRM-free these days - I can't think of a single seller that isn't. Audiobooks are sold with DRM from every merchant still, but music is DRM-free everywhere.
Gersen: Sadly I think it was just a temporary victory, just because they didn't had an interoperable DRM ready, if Ultraviolet is ever successful I am pretty sure that DRMs will make a rapid comeback to music too.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I think the genie is out of the bottle on that one. Ultraviolet so far seems to be a dud to boot - no positive press and very little press of any kind. It might take off, but for now I don't think it is going anywhere. Then again, as it stands now every digital movie seller (and book seller and games seller and everyone but music seller) uses its own DRM system - so we're not all that well off on that front anyway.
