When the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
decided in 2010 that Eminem’s recording contract with
Universal Records meant that downloads of Eminem
songs from iTunes did not count as sales of CDs and
was actually a licensing of their songs for a different
medium (attracting higher royalties for Eminem) many
commentators wrongly thought the court had decided
that the transaction between iTunes downloaders and
Apple was a licence.1 That question remains to be
decided, but the speculation gave rise to fears among
some that songs from iTunes could not be resold without
breaching Apple’s contractual terms and even more
dramatically that they could not be passed on to
beneficiaries on death. It was even alleged (wrongly) in
some media that Bruce Willis was so upset that his iTune
collection could not be passed on to his three daughters
that he was going to sue Apple.