There is an old story about Judge Fergusson (d.1827), a Scottish judge who did not like the sentence his colleagues had handed down in a homicide case.  It turns out that a young man had killed a drinking companion.  After waxing rhetorical on the friendly bonds formed during the excessive consumption of alcohol, the judge dissented on the lenient sentence given on the basis that “We are told that there was no malice, and that the prisoner must have been in liquor. … Good god my laards, if he will do this when he’s drunk, what will he not do when he’s sober?” 

But I had the exact same reaction to the business plan initially proposed by bopaboo.com. I am suggesting, however, that there would be some serious questions about legally, how such a site can continue to operate (or operate at all) without incurring massive liability.  After the initial press reports came out (such as this one, this one, or this one), the owners scrubbed the web site and took it into “private beta” testing.  Prior to its scrubbing, however, you could upload mp3 inventory into your “store” by merely signing up for an account. I wondered exactly what kind of activity the site’s founders thought was illegal.

Bopapoo’s now-hypothetical business model works like this: users upload their mp3’s of copyrighted recordings to their own individual “stores.”  These are offered on the assumption that the seller no longer “wants” these recordings, and is free to dispose of them by selling them once.  Bopaboo then takes a cut of the sales price.  It’s the same thing, according to the company, as selling a used book. More...