Want To Resell Your Ebooks? You'd Better Act Fast 72
Nate the greatest (2261802) writes "Here in the US it is legal to resell your MP3s on Redigi, and thanks to the UsedSoft decision you can resell downloaded software in Europe. But if you want to resell your ebooks you had better act fast. Tom Kabinet launched last week in the Netherlands to offer a marketplace for used ebooks, and it is already getting legal threats. The Dutch Trade Publishers Association (GAU) says that the site is committing piracy and if it doesn't shut down the GAU plans to take it to court. Citing a ruling from a German court, secretary general of the GAU Martijn David said that the question of legality had already been settled. Would anyone care to place a bet on whether the site is still in operation in 6 months?"
The right to read. (Score:5, Interesting)
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html [gnu.org]
For Dan Halbert, the road to Tycho began in college—when Lissa Lenz asked to borrow his computer. Hers had broken down, and unless she could borrow another, she would fail her midterm project. There was no one she dared ask, except Dan.
This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help her—but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrong—something that only pirates would do.
And there wasn't much chance that the SPA—the Software Protection Authority—would fail to catch him. In his software class, Dan had learned that each book had a copyright monitor that reported when and where it was read, and by whom, to Central Licensing. (They used this information to catch reading pirates, but also to sell personal interest profiles to retailers.) The next time his computer was networked, Central Licensing would find out. He, as computer owner, would receive the harshest punishment—for not taking pains to prevent the crime.
Of course, Lissa did not necessarily intend to read his books. She might want the computer only to write her midterm. But Dan knew she came from a middle-class family and could hardly afford the tuition, let alone her reading fees. Reading his books might be the only way she could graduate. He understood this situation; he himself had had to borrow to pay for all the research papers he read. (Ten percent of those fees went to the researchers who wrote the papers; since Dan aimed for an academic career, he could hope that his own research papers, if frequently referenced, would bring in enough to repay this loan.)
Later on, Dan would learn there was a time when anyone could go to the library and read journal articles, and even books, without having to pay. There were independent scholars who read thousands of pages without government library grants. But in the 1990s, both commercial and nonprofit journal publishers had begun charging fees for access. By 2047, libraries offering free public access to scholarly literature were a dim memory.
There were ways, of course, to get around the SPA and Central Licensing. They were themselves illegal. Dan had had a classmate in software, Frank Martucci, who had obtained an illicit debugging tool, and used it to skip over the copyright monitor code when reading books. But he had told too many friends about it, and one of them turned him in to the SPA for a reward (students deep in debt were easily tempted into betrayal). In 2047, Frank was in prison, not for pirate reading, but for possessing a debugger.
Dan would later learn that there was a time when anyone could have debugging tools. There were even free debugging tools available on CD or downloadable over the net. But ordinary users started using them to bypass copyright monitors, and eventually a judge ruled that this had become their principal use in actual practice. This meant they were illegal; the debuggers' developers were sent to prison.
Programmers still needed debugging tools, of course, but debugger vendors in 2047 distributed numbered copies only, and only to officially licensed and bonded programmers. The debugger Dan used in software class was kept behind a special firewall so that it could be used only for class exercises.
It was also possible to bypass the copyright monitors by installing a modified system kernel. Dan would eventually find out about the free kernels, even entire free operating systems, that had existed around the turn of the century. But not only were they illegal, like debuggers—you could not install one if you had one, without knowing your computer's root password. And neither the FBI nor Microsoft Support would tell you that.
Dan conclud
Re:The right to read. (Score:4, Insightful)
I still find it fucking hilarious that people think they have a right to control information.
Copy right is a temporary privilege created by a pragmatic government. Today it's been corrupted almost beyond recognition. No author may be compelled to produce work, so any author who thinks they are entitled by moral right to payment for the creation of copies of their work is welcome to fuck off and find another job - there are 7 billion other people in the world who aren't so whiny.
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Re:The right to read. (Score:4, Interesting)
Fortunately, in the EU it's been slapped down hard. If you want to have a rental license, it means recurring payments and the right to cancel the license (why do you think Microsoft is focusing so hard on Office365 with its monthly payments?). If it's a sale, you get one payment but afterwards First Sale doctrine applies and the rights of the original seller are exhausted.
Sanest decision in years, IMO.
Re:The right to read. (Score:5, Insightful)
We're not talking about breaking into an author's house, stealing a transscript and copying it many times. We're talking about buying a legitimate copy from the author and passing that single, original medium along to somebody else.
Authors have right to be paid for their work. They do not have a right to be paid for paying customers selling the customers' property.
Re:The right to read. (Score:4, Informative)
Authors have right to be paid for their work. They do not have a right to be paid for paying customers selling the customers' property.
Not entirely applicable here due to the type of property being resold, but the European Union disagrees with you under the 2001 Resale Rights Directive 2001/84/EC which entitles artists to receive a royalty on the resale of their original or limited works up to a total of 12,500 Euros. The directive sets out a sliding scale of royalty levels, from 4% up to a resale price of 50,000 Euros, to 0.25% for greater than 500,000 Euros.
This right is seen as an inalienable right of the artist.
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1. For the purposes of this Directive, "original work of art" means works of graphic or plastic art such as pictures, collages, paintings, drawings, engravings, prints, lithographs, sculptures, tapestries, ceramics, glassware and photographs, provided they are made by the artist himself or are copies considered to be original works of art.
2. Copies of works of art covered by this Directive, which have been made in limited numbers by the artist himself or under his authority, shall be considered to be original works of art for the purposes of this Directive. Such copies will normally have been numbered, signed or otherwise duly authorised by the artist..
Source: here [europa.eu].
This does not even approach applying to books (or software, movies, music, ... -- essentially anything that is sold in mass-produced reproductions). Unless of course you think the author personally types every copy... :)
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Ah yes, "customer rights", we have dismissed that claim.
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I thought I bought a book yesterday.
Turns out what I bought was a downloadable 500-byte Adobe key that on certain selected devices (not even the majority of my book-reader devices) so long as certain seller infrastructure remains intact and the owners of that infrastructure feel willing will allow me to read the books using selected software. It will not allow me to excerpt the book, lend out the book, read using a reader program with superior features, print even the smallest part of the book or do anythin
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Authors have right to be paid for their work.
Nobody has a "right" to be paid for their work. If I doodle in a sketchbook, or shit in a bucket on stage, there is no fundamental right to be paid for that just because it feels like work to me, or looks like work to a bystander. In the same way, those guys that wander into traffic and wash your windshield without asking you don't deserve to be paid for making driving more stressful.
This is relevant to the discussion because "right to be paid for work" soundbite is used in enthymemes like this:
1. $random
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I guess you majored in "pedantry", with honors.
What "Authors have right to be paid for their work" means is that if other people want to use the result of their work, the authors can ask payment in return.
Ofcourse you fully understand what was meant, but thought treating another person like a moron would make you feel superior. Enjoy your fuzzy feelings.
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That's OK. Given the normal author's contract they wouldn't be significantly paid for an additional e-book copy anyway.
IOW, it's not the authors who are complaining, it's either the publishers or, perhaps, Amazon.
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No, not true. Back in the day (20th century), writers sold their work to the publishing house for a fee, and that's all they got for it, the publisher was now the owner and made the royalties. Then, it came that the writers didn't like this arrangement and changed it, demanding a fee (smaller than before), and royalties for each first time sold book (retail). After that, they got no additional royalties, the book buyer could read the book any number of times, loan it to friends, donate it to libraries or ot
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Resell them? (Score:4, Interesting)
I get most of my books from qbittorrent. I didn't realize they might have a resell value. A lot of my other books come from Kindle Cloud. I knew that I could loan a book out, but I had no idea that I could "resell" it.
This is why I like dead tree books. I can do with it what I want. Hell, I can even shred it, roll it, and smoke it if I want.
Re:Resell them? Why the heck not ? (Score:1)
Funny how commercial entities (which the GAU obviously is, even if they do not sell anything themselves) seem to think that when the carrier material changes -- in this case from wood to ... nothing? -- the rights for that what actually has the value, the "message" if you will, suddenly also changes.
Is this maybe another of those "if its 'with a computer' than all bets are off" thingies patents seem to float so well on ?
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Without my glasses, I thought the headline was "Want to resell your body?", no kiddin. It did make me think though, about perceived ownership and rights. What do we really own and what are we licensed to "borrow/operate"?
From a standpoint of laws designed to protect you from yourself and even recent forced healthcare ; the government has an interest in YOU as a commodity that adds to the Gross National Output thereby increasing the amount of $credit$ available to i
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The law covers Europe. Netherlands and Germany are both in Europe. So it is very likely it can be used.
Re:Wait, what ? (Score:4, Interesting)
The ruling is a German ruling, not a European ruling (Europe has it's own court).
German rulings do not apply to Europe or any part of Europe other than Germany.
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That is a regional court in a part of the country that is best know for the joke that it doesn't actually exist and nothing much beyond that.
Even within Germany that ruling is about as irrelevant as it can get.
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A German court ruling doesn't even apply to another case in the same German court, nor a Dutch ruling to another Dutch court. None of these countries are common law countries, which means precedence is non-binding. They do however _look_ at other court rulings and look at the arguments and conclusions, which you can do across any curistiction, so in most countries (since only very few are common law like the UK and US), looking
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It's not that easy. In general central european coutries have very similar laws and the judicial communities to exchange their views on topics that concern the overall european community. So while strictly speaking the german ruling is not applicable, it is highly likely that a dutch court would come to the same conclusion (especially in areas like copyrights, where most local laws are variations of the same EU directive).
However, citing a decision from a "Landgericht" and stating that the matter had been s
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Nope.
1) Lots of countries take into consideration rulings from elsewhere, even if they aren't binding, e.g. Commonwealth;
2) Sometimes there is a specific legal hierarchy, so e.g. a ruling on interpretation of European law in one EU state would definitely be relevant to another;
3) Various horrid international treaties on trade and IP mean that countries end up respecting each others' legal rulings (except when they don't - for example, the US expects everyone "free trade" treaties, but isn't stupid enough to
Fortunately, it will be banned! (Score:2)
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The site does not commit piracy ... (Score:3)
it is just a market place. ''the site operates on an honor basis.'' it expects that once you have sold your e-book that you delete it from your machines. If you do not then it is you who commits piracy. It is an issue of trust: the book publisher/author knows that it is all too easy for someone to sell a book once they have read it but still keep the copy. But just because it is easy does not mean that everyone will keep a copy. I do have to admit that many will sell and keep.
I do not know what the answer it, shutting down a market place or wrapping the book in DRM are not the answers.
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If you're making money off the deal, it's not piracy, it's bootlegging.
Re: The site does not commit piracy ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Who reads a book twice?
You might not want to read a novel more than once, but many books are not story books. Eg: an academic text book; a reference book - these you might read and want to keep so that you can look up points of detail later.
Having said that:: I have read 'Lord of the Rings' 3 times.
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That is the whole point -- with an e-book you can sell it and still have/keep a copy to use, something that you cannot do with a paper book. This is what the publishers want to stop.
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i feel bad for you. You have really never read a book that you again want to read years or decades later? There are many thousands of books i have read many times. You are either young, or base your reasoning on only having read what you can get from the magazine section of the grocery store.
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Actually, everyone I know who actually reads for pleasure does it from time to time. Including me.
Which reminds me, we're coming up on the sesquicentennial of Gettysburg. Time to pull out one of my histories of that battle and reread it before the Fourth.
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Who reads a book twice
Who listens to a song twice? Who watches a movie twice? Who plays a video game twice? Who ever does anything twice?
Face it, most people will want to use their purchased content more than once. Especially books (sheesh, seriously, you don't read them more than once?). Now you'd have a point if someone paid only $1.99 for a book, album, game, or movie, but when you're being charged $20-$60 for a product then hell yes I am either going to use it more than once or I am going to exercise my legal rights to
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Who reads a book twice?
Everyone else has jumped on you for this, but...seriously: do you really think books are one-off disposables? Really?!?!? I've got an extensive library and I read a ton of content every week. I have a lot of favorites I have read a second, third or sometimes even fourth time. I have reference books and informational books I draw upon time and again. Who reads a book twice? People who read, that's who.
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The content industry (music, video, books, games) considers that reselling the works is an evil act and they'll do what they can do prevent it regardless of whether or not the law allows it. Thus DRM, which is promoted to the naive as merely copy protection is really designed to shut out the market for used items.
How is it piracy? (Score:2)
Assuming no other copy of 'your' book exists, its not piracy, any more than the library is.
Now, perhaps if you cant guarantee there are no other copies, i suppose they could say something, but that should be on the seller to be complaint, not this company.
Tangible Property (Score:1)
Why is it that when prosecuting file sharers, the IP firms of the world are adamant that "digital property" is no different than tangible property (that "stealing" a movie or song is the same as stealing a car), but when that interpretation favors the customer they're suddenly all about digital property isn't the same as tangible property? Yeah, fuck you guys. That's why I pirate everything I can.
Darn Happy (Score:1)
Happy I never wasted my money nor time on ebook technology:
IMDB quote:
"Star Trek: Court Martial (#1.20)" (1967)
Cogley: Books, young man, books. Thousands of them. If time wasn't so important, I'd show you something. My library. Thousands of books.
Captain James T. Kirk: And what would be the point?
Cogley: This is where the law is. Not in that homogenized, pasteurized synthesizer. Do you want to know the law? The ancient concepts in their own language? Learn the intent of the men who wrote them, from Moses to
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No. Sometimes e-books are better, and sometimes they are worse, but I've never found a time when they were the same. E.g., it's much easier to search a plaintext ebook. But it's less pleasant to read one in the bathtub.
Thoughts of an author... (Score:2)
I write books for a living (see sig). I've published 7 novels and 20-ish short stories/novellas, whatever.
My gut feeling is that if you paid for anything I wrote, you can resell it, as long as you do it once and delete the original. Yes, I know there is no way I can enforce this, but I also don't really give a shit.
Most authors do not feel this way and I'm not really sure why. I suspect it's because there's a feeling that most people won't do this and will just be reselling books en-masse for their own prof
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Yeah, I don't get the opposition, either. Considering nearly every writer I know loves books stores of all kinds, including used book stores, it seems absurd to object to reselling a digital one in exactly the same way physical ones have been resold in the past. I tend to assume most of it boils down to the fear if someone can resell once they'll resell a bunch of times.
Bought one ebook from Amazon, will never do again (Score:1)
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I believe in DRM free ebooks, too. My book, Fire Light (Trinity of Mind book 1), is DRM free. I also know a few other authors that sell DRM free books. However, I haven't even taking time to see if I can actually transfer them. I just click the box, DRM free when I publish.