Bruce Willis May Take iTunes to Court

Bruce Willis wants to set the record straight over who owns the rights to his iTunes songs after his death.

If Bruce Willis decides to take on Apple and wins, he creates a precedent that will change the way big content vendors are handling copyrights.

Bruce Willis wants to set the record straight over who owns the rights to his iTunes songs after his death. Willis owns a huge collection of iTunes songs, and wants to leave it to his daughters (Rumer, Scout, Tallulah, and Mabel) after his death, but according to Apple iTunes store’s Terms and Conditions, this is a nontransferable license. This means that the kids have no right to “inherit” the collection. Since the Terms and Conditions are clear, and every iTunes customer needs to “accept” them before every purchase and every download, does Willis have a case?

Hardly, but then again, this is Bruce Willis. Will Apple want the PR war, and massive flack, going against a popular, respected star, such as Willis, if things go to court? Or will they try to settle?

If Bruce Willis wins, this will set a precedent that will most likely also affect Amazon, whose licensing terms are pretty similar:

Upon payment for Music Content, we grant you a non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the Music Content only for your personal, non-commercial, entertainment use, subject to the Agreement.

Moreover, if he wins, he will most likely help millions of people who have downloaded songs from iTunes, without actually understanding the terms, which are rather obscure:

This license does not allow you to use the Licensed Application on any Apple Device that you do not own or control, and except as provided in the Usage Rules, you may not distribute or make the Licensed Application available over a network where it could be used by multiple devices at the same time. This license does not allow you to use the Licensed Application on any Apple Device that you do not own or control, and except as provided in the Usage Rules, you may not distribute or make the Licensed Application available over a network where it could be used by multiple devices at the same time.

With Paul Bloch of Rogers & Cowan at his side, we wouldn’t count him out.

What do you think? Does he have a case?