Ebook Reselling -Yea or Nay-

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by gmw

One curious item with XP, for example, is that if you purchased an "OEM" version (already installed on your machine) then you may be permitted to sell it on with your machine but what you are not permitted to do is install that copy on any new computer that you buy.

That's what Microsoft would like you to believe. Germany's Federal High Court of Justice has ruled (back in 2000, I think) that such bundling stipulations are null and void.

Obviously you can't have your cake (sell your copy) and eat it (install on a new machine), too, but transferring that license to a new computer and selling the hardware sans OS is as legal as keeping the computer and installing a new OS on it (and, yes, sell the old one).

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Don't you think that you should consider carefully the terms and conditions of the store BEFORE making the decision to buy from them?

Yes and no. If they are non-negotiable, heavily favor one party and I know they have no legal leg to stand on, I have indeed been known to simply ignore them.

It seems to me to be "wrong" to buy from a store and THEN turn round and say "I'm going to ignore the terms of the contract that I willingly and freely entered into with you".

We've had this discussion before; I'm not biting. The law is the law, and it was made exactly for cases like that. There's nothing wrong about it.

[Giggleton]

If we think of ebooks as property, then once that ebook comes into our possession we are able to do with that property what we will, short of using that property to cause harm to another perhaps.

It might be said that circumventing DRM does cause an economic harm to the distributor of the ebook, but there is no proof to this. I will say that circumventing DRM and freely sharing ebooks causes a long term economic gain to the distributor of the ebook, especially so if the ebook came with a mechanism for payment that was retained within the book through the free transfer.

Abolishing copyright will not cause the sudden loss of thousands of jobs, but it might create them.

[queentess]

Originally Posted by Janette55

I remember reading somewhere on a forum, not sure which one of a individual who bought a reader expecting to have all the books on it and they couldn't get to them.

I sold my K2 on ebay shortly before Christmas, and I got a very negative response from the buyer the day the gift was opened (apparently he hadn't booted it up before then) demanding that I send him all the ebooks. I had to patiently explain that they were MY books, and I wasn't selling my books, just the device.

I'm divided on the idea of reselling ebooks. Sure, I'd love to be able to sell something I didn't like and don't want to read again, and more importantly, I want to be able to share my purchases by loaning them to my dad and brother as we've always done with pbooks.

What I can't get my head around is how a used ebook market will affect publishers and pricing. If there's essentially an unlimited supply of used ebooks (you could resell indefinitely with zero wear and tear), I expect the publishers will jack up their prices even more to compensate, and then I won't be buying any books. Any method to ensure all copies have been removed from my possession to allow me the ability to resell the ebook... well, I can almost guarantee it's going to invade my privacy in ways that I won't allow.

At this point I can't really see a feasible way to treat digital goods like physical ones, but I'm all behind anyone who can come up with a plan that doesn't invade my privacy and doesn't put publishers/authors out of business.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by queentess

At this point I can't really see a feasible way to treat digital goods like physical ones, but I'm all behind anyone who can come up with a plan that doesn't invade my privacy and doesn't put publishers/authors out of business.

And that's the point, isn't it: Not putting publishers and authors out of business. As usual, there are two sides to every coin, and ignoring one side may just make the entire coin useless.

Only a foolproof way to identify the user of every document, and connect them to exactly one document, would make resell of digital documents feasible. There's a name for that: Digital Rights Management. So, anyone who supports reselling must support DRM.

Trying to apply physical rules to digital goods is like replacing your Clydesdale with a Corgi, then trying to pull your cart with him. We, as a society, need to get our heads around the fact that digital goods are not physical goods, and should not be treated as such, or you negate the advantages of those digital goods. Once that is fully understood and accepted, society can figure out how best to handle digital goods.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by queentess

At this point I can't really see a feasible way to treat digital goods like physical ones, but I'm all behind anyone who can come up with a plan that doesn't invade my privacy and doesn't put publishers/authors out of business.

Sums up my thoughts/stance perfectly.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by DJHARKAVY

How do you confirm that?

How do you confirm it with library books?

I would say, easiest thing to do would be to have some extension of that, where the book require a check in every so often, or else it "expires". It contacts a central server, sees you still have the book in your name, and is good for how ever long it is till the next check in. If it sees you don't have it in your name, it expires and you can no longer read it.

Say it would require you to sync every six weeks, the ebook reader would see it no differently as a library book, with a expiration of six weeks, so no firmware updates really needed. On the desktop, you have ADE sync with the servers when ever, and each time it does that, it updates the ebook, and the updated ebook gets dropped on the reader next time it is connected and synced.

Now, it would be a pain in the butt, requiring frequent checks, etc and if the servers were ever down you'd be SOL. I really don't see a better way, without changing firmware on a bunch of different readers, or having the books be incompatible some how with older ones.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Only a foolproof way to identify the user of every document, and connect them to exactly one document, would make resell of digital documents feasible. There's a name for that: Digital Rights Management. So, anyone who supports reselling must support DRM.

We, as a society, need to get our heads around the fact that digital goods are not physical goods, and should not be treated as such, or you negate the advantages of those digital goods. Once that is fully understood and accepted, society can figure out how best to handle digital goods.

DRM doesn't work in principle, for a number of reasons, some of them having to do with the theory of cryptography. It will NEVER work as intended, to keep data out of the hands of those who already have access to the data.



I mean, if we have to we'll just use our phones to take pictures of each screen.

I agree that digital texts are much better than printed ones, for many reasons, one of the most important is that they weigh less and can be transferred between individuals so much more readily!

Figuring out how to send monies to the creators of those texts in a copyright free world? That should be cake.

[Barty]

Kindle and nook both have a lending system. While your book is lent out, it cannot be read by you. After 14 days, the book is automatically disabled on the other reader and reenabled on yours. Is this correct?

So technically, I don't see why the book can't be permanently transferred to another person, at least one using the same ereader/DRM scheme. As for payment, that is up to the private parties involved.

Of course NOBODY except the consumers want this, which means it's not gonna happen

[gmw]

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

That's what Microsoft would like you to believe. Germany's Federal High Court of Justice has ruled (back in 2000, I think) that such bundling stipulations are null and void.

Obviously you can't have your cake (sell your copy) and eat it (install on a new machine), too, but transferring that license to a new computer and selling the hardware sans OS is as legal as keeping the computer and installing a new OS on it (and, yes, sell the old one).

Exactly what jurisdictions make (or don't make) of specific licence stipulations is interesting, but not the entire point. What is more interesting is trying to understand what it is that someone like Microsoft "wants" to be able to do, and licences are one such indicator. This is more interesting because it can help you understand what may happen in the future, if they fail to get the legal support they want, and the fail to get cooperation from people that have otherwise agreed to such licences (yes, yes, we've been there), then they will continue to search for new ways.

Apple have had reasonable success keeping their operating system tied to the hardware even with the move to x86 (I dare say there are methods out there to circumvent it), which means that things like trying to run virtual Mac machines under Windows hosts cannot be legitimately done (if I understand correctly). The slow move away from the generic hardware (that gave Microsoft it's boost into people's homes) to proprietary hardware (that can effectively force users to only interface via specific services) seems to be working quite well. The move from local applications to cloud applications is another way that business is gradually finding ways to take control and choice away from the user. But people are flocking to these new technologies and the licences they are blithely ignoring now are finding alternative ways to exist.

[djgreedo]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Sums up my thoughts/stance perfectly.

I'll second that.

Digital media is not the same as physical media. The laws, rules, and practices for digital media should be based on the medium's strengths and weaknesses, not on comparisons to the physical equivalent.

I don't believe there should be secondhand ebooks - it makes no sense. It would destroy publishing prices. There are valid reasons to buy brand new over secondhand in the physical realm, but in the digital world they are identical.

Digital media needs to be sold with prices and conditions that protect consumers' rights as well as the rights of the content producers to run their businesses.

If publishers want us to treat ebooks as disposable then they should be designing their business processes around making ebooks very cheap. Conversely, if consumers want all the rights available to physical books as well as extra rights afforded by a digital medium, then they should be willing to pay a fair price. Otherwise we all lose the books that will be written in future that can't be published due to lack of a market.

[Giggleton]

Why all the negative nancys? If a book is meant to be written it will be written.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by djgreedo

Digital media is not the same as physical media. The laws, rules, and practices for digital media should be based on the medium's strengths and weaknesses, not on comparisons to the physical equivalent.

It's a nice thought, but there's no legal infrastructure for it. All of our legal rights involving nonphysical things require pretending they're physical in some way. Some scholars suggest this is a limitation of the human brain & our communication patterns--we need metaphors that relate to the physical world.

I agree, however, that trying to treat ebooks as just another format of book, like hardcover or paperback, is not working well. But the consumers aren't the ones who have to stop that; publishers have to stop pretending that ebooks are just a book format that they can put extra locks on.

I don't believe there should be secondhand ebooks - it makes no sense. It would destroy publishing prices.

No, it would put the current publishing business structure into spasms. It might destroy the current industry. It would *not* destroy author-as-a-career, because (1) no amount of free copying will create new content and (2) people are, in fact, interested in new content. This means we're interested in figuring out how to compensate the people who create that content, and if the current business model(s) fall apart, we *will* find something else.

The transition would be (will be) rough, and a lot of people who are very comfortable with the current regime would (will) wind up being hurt. This includes a lot of authors that many of us would like to see continuing to write, failing to do so because the economic foundation for their careers collapsed. However, it doesn't mean authors would stop writing, or books in general would be less available.

I don't know what new model(s) can or will take the place of what we've got now. I just know that the current system is crumbling, and no amount of sandbagging the edges against the flood of new free content is going to fix it.

Digital media needs to be sold with prices and conditions that protect consumers' rights as well as the rights of the content producers to run their businesses.

The problem with that, is that *none* of the legal discussions have allowed input about consumers' rights. Extension of copyright is an obvious example--consumers paid for that material with the promise that, in X years, it would be free to copy. Then it became X+14. Then X+28. Then X+Y+life of author.

Changes in copyright law and enforcement strategies have always been negotiated between governments and corporations, with the EFF struggling valiantly to point out there's a third party to these decisions.

"Consumers' rights" have traditionally been either "what corporations can't figure out how to take away," or "what prevents large numbers of deaths." Consumers have a right to physically safe products; their right to know what they're buying is limited. (How many ebook stores don't explain DRM, other than "click here to download this before buying"? How many sell ebooks with no filesize, word count or page count?)

With no particular "right" to even know what a purchase includes, how can we expect legal changes that allow reasonable use of what we've bought? We can't even negotiate about what's "reasonable."

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

Why all the negative nancys? If a book is meant to be written it will be written.

Being written isn't the problem... it's making sure that the truly great ones have the best chance of finding their way into my hands. I'm not interested in an unfiltered, free-for-all, publisher-less book world -- at all.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I agree, however, that trying to treat ebooks as just another format of book, like hardcover or paperback, is not working well. But the consumers aren't the ones who have to stop that; publishers have to stop pretending that ebooks are just a book format that they can put extra locks on.

Actually, there are not treating ebooks the same as every other format of books. Every other format, I can sell and give away. And the publisher isn't able to take the book back from me once I bought it. An ebook I can't sell, can't give away and if it fancies the publisher, they could remove all copies from my bookshelf.

If they would treat an ebook the same as pocket, hardcover, or any other format, it would not have DRM, it would not have that agreement that I won't sell or give away the book and they would never be allowed to enter my bookshelf.