eBay's Digital Music Auction Silent

Failures

from the infinite-supply... dept

Last month, we noted that eBay was testing out a plan to let people sell digital downloads on the auction site. There were a lot of caveats. The person obviously needs to show they have the right to sell the music in question, which appeared to be the big hurdle they set up. However, a much bigger question is: who actually wants to sell a digital music file that can be copied for free or purchased at an online store for under $1 anyway? It turns out the answer is “nobody.” Since it launched, other than a few fake postings that were quickly removed, there hasn’t been a single legitimate listing. So much for that plan. It isn’t a surprise really. It’s pretty clear that there hasn’t been a huge groundswell of people asking to resell their digital songs. Besides, most of the digital downloads that you purchase are wrapped so tight with copy protection selling them is nearly impossible anyway.