Slashdot Asks: Should It Be Legal To Resell E-Books, Software, and Other Digital Goods? (arstechnica.co.uk) 380
There's no one stopping you from selling the CDs and DVDs that you buy, so why can't you do the same with e-books, music albums, movies, and other things you've downloaded? Ars Technica reports about a Dutch second-hand e-book platform called Tom Kabinet which has been "at a war" with Dutch Publishers Association (NUV) over this issue. This is seen as a threat to the entire book industry. German courts have suggested that the practice of reselling e-books should be stopped, whereas Dutch courts don't necessarily see it as an issue. What's your view on this?
yes, it should be allowed (Score:5, Interesting)
But with it likely comes harsh(er) DRM that means total end to end tracking.
How about a blockchain for books?
Make DRM a double-edged sword (Score:5, Insightful)
If DRM prevents copying things, it makes them more like physical objects, and that means the providers shouldn't be able to prevent resale of items, because the argument that "you can't prove you no longer have it" becomes moot - it was DRM'd, right? If the ownership transfers, you no longer have access.
If the item is not DRM'd, the argument above becomes somewhat valid and preventing resale would make sense.
You can use it as a chance to make consumers happy and incentivize not doing DRM.
Re:Make DRM a double-edged sword (Score:5, Interesting)
DRM isn't really about copy protections, it's more about preventing exactly this situation. They know pirates have broken in and anyone who wants a pirated copy can get them, but they want to prevent legal owners from creating a used book market, or a used game market, a used movie market, etc. Not to mention re-gifting (for those people who think resellers are evil). The biggest threat that publishers see is the reseller, not the pirate.
Re:Make DRM a double-edged sword (Score:5, Insightful)
If it cost $0.10 for the CD, plus $0.15 for shipping, plus $4 for design/print/publish... I would expect the CD to cost over $4 just for that small portion of profit that goes to the artist.
With digital distribution, there's no "shipping", no "printing", and no physical media to account for. Make the e-book some set fraction of the paper price. Hardback is $50? PDF is 10 (or less). I don't think any artist or author would complain about "What do you mean my stuff was bought by 3 million people?" instead of "10,000 copies sold!"
The only rationale I can see for keeping e-book prices equivalent to paper is to either keep printing presses operational, or (more likely) to milk as much money from the consumer as they think they can get away with.
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If DRM prevents copying things, it makes them more like physical objects, and that means the providers shouldn't be able to prevent resale of items, because the argument that "you can't prove you no longer have it" becomes moot - it was DRM'd, right? If the ownership transfers, you no longer have access.
If the item is not DRM'd, the argument above becomes somewhat valid and preventing resale would make sense.
You can use it as a chance to make consumers happy and incentivize not doing DRM.
I agree. As long as the rights holder can be assured someone isn't simply selling the electronic version and still using it then the doctrine of first sale should apply. Unfortunately allowing that means even more DRM or the use of special add ons to the original purchaser, so as games do, that are hard or impossible to transfer to another user. Games could even tie everything to a serial number so when person A sells the game to B as soon as B signs in with the serial everything transfer to them for A's ac
Yes, it should be illegal. (Score:3, Interesting)
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Assigning costs ... to the free and total dissemination of information
How about assigning costs to the creation of the information?
How about assigning costs to the editing?
How about assigning costs to the creation of artwork in the books?
Re:Yes, it should be illegal. (Score:5, Insightful)
Assigning costs ... to the free and total dissemination of information
How about assigning costs to the creation of the information?
How about assigning costs to the editing?
How about assigning costs to the creation of artwork in the books?
Each of these activities has costs, but whether the expenditure creates value is a different question. I can hire someone to move rocks from one side of my yard to the other, and then back again, incurring cost, with no value created whatsoever.
I have great affinity and sympathy for those who work to create works of technology (such as myself) or artistic works such as literature (my spouse and other relatives), but the mathematical reality is that information itself, if infinitely and cheaply reproducible and transportable, is without intrinsic financial value, and can only be effectively sold for non-trivial prices when artificially controlled by regulation.
I continue to be fascinated at this tug of war between one the one side the financial interests of creators and historically profitable distributors who no longer add any value, and on the other side the benefit to society of having easy, cheap access to information, each of which has value. In the end, there's no "right and wrong" here other than that which is agreed upon via government and other forms of negotiation.
And before "stealing" gets tossed out there, if you still have the thing which was "stolen", it wasn't stolen. It was copied. There's a difference. The argument about lost profits has more basis, but has been grossly exaggerated in many cases, and only exists due to the aforementioned agreements, not due to any inherent physical reality.
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Just because something has value doesn't mean it should have a price.
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...again, we come to another big problem with "ownership culture". We have reached the point where every useless scrap of paper is considered someone's property. Also, we have lost the distinction between private and public information. Private papers are quite distinct from published works.
You abdicate a great degree of control once you choose to release something into the world. This isn't just GNU propaganda, it's basic copyright law. Once you publish, the doomsday public domain clock starts ticking...
Ti
Umm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Umm... (Score:4, Interesting)
But why shouldn't I be allowed to sell it? If I bought it, used it, and no longer want it. Why shouldn't I be able to sell it for less than the "source". That's the way the rest of the world works.
Re:Umm... (Score:5, Insightful)
How old are you? Are you too young to remember public libraries? Have you never been to a used book store, a used record store, a used game store, a used movie store? Now when the same good is sold digitally, at the *same* price as the physical copy, the same rules should apply as long as you don't keep a copy. This used to be the copyright rules in the US. Technically it still is except that there are criminal laws against figuring out how to remove the DRM in order to give the original item to someone else. Pirates however have no hurdles whatsoever, this DRM exists only to prevent legal owners from legally reselling or giving away products that they own.
Re:Umm... (Score:5, Insightful)
because for property, it's always been your right to sell it once you no longer wanted it.
If ebooks are property, then why should they be treated differently?
I can buy an album, never play it, and sell it in pristine condition later.
I can buy a book, read it once, and sell it basically pristine condition later.
It would be different if I was renting the ebook for a comparably lower price ($1 for a read, $13 to 'own' a transferable license).
And really, what should be sold is the right to read or listen to a book or song and as with any other property you should be able to sell that right or pass it to your heirs.
Re:Umm... (Score:4, Insightful)
The argument that the MPAA, RIAA, and friends have been making for decades now, is that they aren't actually selling digital copies of whatever media item. They believe they are selling us non-transferable licenses. This selling of non-transferable licenses isn't really made readily obvious to customers, who by and large believe they are buying the media, not a license.
Personally I disagree with the concept of non-transferable licenses when it comes to digital media, but that is how they view it, or at least how they argue it legally.
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Unfortunately for the publishers, they failed to read my EUBA (End User Buyer's Agreement) which says that if they choose to sell to me then I am allowed to resell. If they don't want to agree to my terms, then they have the right not to sell to me. It's there on my website in Ugaritic, Aramaic and Sanskrit so there's no reason for them to feel cheated.
Re:Umm... (Score:5, Interesting)
*shakes head*
I can't help but be reminded of history here. When Gutenburg demonstrated his printing press, the scribes and clergy of the period fell all over themselves with condemnations, onerous laws forbidding the "profane" reproduction of sacred works, and literal goon squads to try to symie the tide of availability that literature now enjoyed.
Fast foward, and here we are again. The people who once controlled production (the print houses and publishers) are falling all over themselves with condemnations, onerous laws forbidding the "immoral" reproduction of profitable works, and sending law enforcement (literal goon squads) to try and stymie the tide of availability that literature now enjoys.
Publishers: As useful and necessary today, as buildings full of clergy and scribes were in Gutenburg's day.
That is to say, less and less every day.
And good riddance.
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From http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/educ... [utexas.edu]
Re:Umm... (Score:4, Interesting)
Do I really have to show you how to make a photocopy? Or how to copy a CD or DVD?
And while you might argue that making a copy of a book is actually a bit of a hassle, there is no argument in this area with CDs and DVDs. Actually, copying a CD, selling the CD and retaining the copy is actually illegal. As would be retaining a copy of that ebook.
So, can I hear again why this question is "ridiculous"? Preferably with better arguments for your side.
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I would say that someone taking something from someone else and depriving the rightful owner of its use it is a serious issue.
Why shouldn't it be? (Score:3)
I bought it, I used it, I am selling it because I am no longer using it.
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Because you didn't buy it. Read again the fine print: the ebook/song is licensed to you. The CD is sold, the e-thingie is licensed.
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This would be true if they were up front and clear about this. They hide the license in a bunch of legalese, meanwhile their marketing implies that you are buying the book. Streaming movies make it more confusing as they have a "rent" versus "buy" option even though they treat both options as rentals.
There are DRM free e-books, that should be the preferred format for content creators rather than partnering with publishers that use DRM.
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Fine, then I sell the license.
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No. It is you who decide to aquire a license vs. buying it. You can always tell the corporation to fuck off and chose the printed version/CD.
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No. It is you who decide to aquire a license vs. buying it. You can always tell the corporation to fuck off and chose the printed version/CD.
Which I often do. It's hilarious to look on Amazon for a book I want, and sometimes find the ebook selling for $11.99 while a used paper copy is $4.00 including shipping.
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No, you didn't "buy" the software, you purchased a license that authorized you to use the software; and license provisioning has ALWAYS been different from the sale of physical property. Ignoring inconvenient facts doesn't change them or make them go away. You are not allowed to sell your software license to someone else just like you are not allowed to sell your drivers license or hunting license to another party. The only difference between the two is that one license is issued by a private entity and the
Re:Why shouldn't it be? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's exactly the catch. Yes, I think it should be legal to sell your copy. No, you shouldn't be able to sell A copy while keeping the original.
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Sure, why not? If you buy a movie bundle containing both a DVD and Blueray of the same movie, you are free to sell the discs separately, why should adding digital formats to the mix change anything? If the publisher doesn't want you to do so, they should sell the different formats separately.
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No. Why is this so hard? Were you not around in the 90s when software copyrights were under debate, and Borland had its common sense license? (install anywhere you want but make sure only one copy is running at a time, on the honor system) Nothing new is going on here, except "e-book" versus sofware on floppy disks, and the added DRM that only hinders legal owners from exercising their legal rights.
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I wouldn't see why this should not be allowed. If I buy a set of something today, like, say a board games collection, nobody is keeping me from selling those board games I do not wish to play to someone else.
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I can buy a CD today rip it to flac or just burn a copy and sell the CD. The conects that content creators need even more rights since it so easy to copy things is merely them wanted to get paid yet again.
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You can do that, but that would be illegal. The question is also not about whether you should be allowed to retain a copy, the question is whether you should be allowed at all to sell the ebook you bought.
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Nonsense if I can make a copy I can just sell or give away that copy anyway. Making a copy and keeping it would still be just as illegal making a copy and selling the copy.
What we are talking about is the right to sell you the copy you own, just like physical property you own.
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Re:Why shouldn't it be? (Score:5, Insightful)
You assume a copy was kept. Stop assuming that. Not everyone is a pirate. If I give a physical book to someone I am not keeping a photocopy of it. When I give a game away I delete the copy that I have. Sure, pirates might not do this but pirates are not slowed down by DRM. And the content creator may not even mind, it's the content publishers who have gone off the deep end here and restricting legal rights to customers who have fully purchased items from them (not rented).
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No, that you must not. You have to destroy or hand over all the copies you potentially made. Retaining a copy is actually illegal, the argument also isn't about whether you should be allowed to retain a copy. Please don't conflate those two, they are very different issues.
First-sale doctrine (Score:3)
Physical vs. Virtual (Score:5, Insightful)
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Exactly. I'm conflicted about this because I would love to enable resale on electronic copies of works (eBooks, MP3s, etc), but I would oppose the DRM that would need to be applied to them to make sure that people weren't just selling copies. (I would understand the need for the DRM but wouldn't like that it was there.)
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Erh... I don't know about your country, in mine there is a law that says people must not sell copies of stuff they license. I thought nearly all countries signed the Berne convention?
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How do you prove you no longer have an eBook?
How do you prove you haven't scanned a paper book and kept the scans?
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You can't, but there's an inherent disincentive in that the scans are shit whereas the copied file is exactly equal in quality to the original.
tl;dr You're comparing apples and oranges.
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You can't, but there's an inherent disincentive in that the scans are shit whereas the copied file is exactly equal in quality to the original.
Not only are the scans not shit (the quality is so good that your eye can't resolve any lack) but the scanned document can be OCR'd and searched, unlike the original.
Not only are the scans not shit but that argument is completely irrelevant.
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How do you prove you haven't scanned a paper book and kept the scans?
If you're scanning books, you probably don't value your time very much. I used to work at a Kinko's where I went to college, and at the start of the semester, we'd have a bunch of Asian students--and it was always Asians--who would be scanning textbooks. Of course, this was on a Xerox, so no OCR was being done. Now I know text books are expensive, but at $.07 per copy, plus the time you had to spend scanning it probably wasn't worth the $30 or so they saved by not buying a copy themselves. Not to mention th
Re:Physical vs. Virtual (Score:5, Insightful)
If you make a copy then you are breaking the law. It's pretty simple. It used to work on the honor system, you could sell a book without worrying having to prove beyond doubt that you did not make a copy. You used to do this with some software as well. Now they have created an inferior format of book designed to prevent resale.
Also remember that DRM does not exist in order to prevent copying! It exists in order to prevent resale. Calling it copy protection is naive, because all these formats are easily broken by the pirates (especially with games). What the publishers want is for every law abiding person to buy their own copy at full price. DRM is about extra revenue by preventing legal used book markets and not lost revenue due to piracy.
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When you sell a DVD how do you know you no longer have a copy of the DVD? If you sell the same book 1000 times on a public forum then you could prove you where making copies unless you could show you bought it 1000 times. If you where selling it on secret forum, well you can do that now, it is illegal but the buyer doesn't care.
The issue here is not can people break the law, because clearly they can. The issue is if I buy something electronic, then sell my only copy (or destroy all copies I have) once shoul
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The issue here is not can people break the law, because clearly they can. The issue is if I buy something electronic, then sell my only copy (or destroy all copies I have) once should it be legal.
On things like steam (or anything that authenticates every time the item is used) this would seem simple, all that I would need to do is transfer my rights to another account holder.
Oh, I completely agree with you, I just don't see a way to get it done without DRM needing to be implemented. On Steam, they already have it in place, no reason Amazon, Apple, etc. couldn't do this too, but I'm sure they'd want their cut.
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Why should you have to prove it? Why treat the citizen as a criminal until proven innocent? Meanwhile the actual criminals just rip off the books and do what they want because the DRM does not slow them down. Only the law abiding purchaser is being punished.
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Not at all. If you think I retained a copy, it's on you to prove I did.
I don't know where you live, in my country the justice works (usually) in such a way that someone accusing someone of a crime has to prove he's guilty, not the accused has to prove his innocence.
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Considering the DRM was there anyways, well...
And that was one of the big losses of the old Xbone D
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The way it's worked for centuries - the honor system. The police don't follow people home from the used book sellers to be sure they aren't keeping an extra copy. If someone is printing up a lot of copies for sale then the police are interested. So why not the same with e-books? Why treat all customers are criminals, when the real criminals are pirating the books already?
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It'd cost more to make the photocopies than top buy a new copy of the book
Not at all. It costs me an hour of my time, no more, and then OCR is a free benefit.
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Great compromise. I pay a tax to make a copy that I may only make if there isn't any kind of copy protection, no matter how useless.
Hint: The oh-so-important magic number needed to play DVDs IS considered a copy protection.
Question for 100 bucks: What DVDs may you copy?
Books Deteriorate (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Books Deteriorate (Score:5, Insightful)
A physical book can age 50 years without wear. That digital book's technology will be gone is 10 years and dead in 50. If something is unfair to publisher, it's how little consumers are willing to pay for a physical book. The digital version version has the same content without all that printing cost.
All that extra profit is a boon to them. I don't think there's enough digital resales to negate that.
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That digital book's technology will be gone is 10 years and dead in 50.
Only if you're stupid and buy the digital book in a proprietary format.
.epub or .txt and you'll be able to read it forever. (For the uninitiated, .epub files are just HTML in a ZIP container.)
Get a book as
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Copyright also deteriorates, at least it is supposed to.
Re:Books Deteriorate (Score:5, Insightful)
But it doesn't even start to until the one who originally held it has started to deteriorate himself...
I mean, just to give everyone and idea what kind of bullshit we're dealing with here (i.e. "death + 70 years"), if Paul McCartney died TODAY, along with Ringo Starr, "Love me do", released 1962, would enter public domain in 2087 (because copyright expires at the end of the year, not the day it happens).
One hundred and twenty five years after it was created.
To put this into perspective, that would basically mean that you can sensibly expect something written around 1890 to enter PD today. If you're into ballet, you're in luck, The sleeping beauty [wikipedia.org] is from that year. Though... I'm not so sure if you get that past Disney, after all their version isn't old enough to enter PD already.
Or ever.
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Oh, another cute anecdote that could illustrate just HOW LONG this is: "Mein Kampf" entered PD at the beginning of this year.
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Of course digital files deteriorate, get lost, not as fast as DVDs, (it only takes 5 seconds for a child to pick it up and ruin it) possibly blue-ray (no personal experience), but hard drives fail, the data gets lost, files get corrupted, ransom-ware encrypts your hard drive. Floppy drives where terrible I didn't trust them long enough to copy them from computer to another.
Image quality improves, file formats change, .... how may of my old C64 games do I still have? the answer is none. Do your dos games sti
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Um, books last for hundreds of years.
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How is it unfair to publishers? Publishers don't like resold books but it is still fair. Just because a publisher is greedy has nothing to do with what's right or wrong or fair. We've had used book markets for centuries. We've been allowed to give away books forever. Now with DRM the publishers have a means to stop their arch enemies, the book resellers, and nullify any legal rights to reselling. The thing that is unfair here is in restricting the market.
Not that most physical books last longer than t
digital media... the Lucy of the new age (Score:2)
Yes, you should be able to resell (or gift) them (Score:2)
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I think you are wrong about them never degrading, in a practical sense say an e-book cost say $10 to buy and say you could sell it for $5 maximum $9 (after selling fees) , because people would be more willing to buy from the original seller. Most people would not be bothered selling their copy they would probably just keep it around just in case they wanted to read it again, just like they do with real books. Those books would be lost.
The introduction of libraries didn't halt the sales of books, and neither
No, it requires DRM (Score:2)
It would be fine for it to be illegal... (Score:5, Insightful)
For me, it would be fine for it to be illegal, if they gave you a generous discount over the printed version. I mean they could tell you this book is $10 in the paper book form, part of which has to cover printing/distribution etc, and this book you will own completely and can do as you please with including selling or lending. Then, the same book is $2 in e-book form, but you don't actually outright own it, so you can't sell it.
Something like that would be fine with me. As it is now, they tell you the e-book is also $10, but at the same time try to restrict what you can do with it.
The question is whether copyright should exist (Score:2)
Ebooks are not the same as physical books in one important manner. You can sell a physical book under current law because you are not making a copy of it. With electronic books however making copies is trivial and in fact it is in practice the only way to distribute ebooks. So selling an ebook is not the same thing as selling a physical book and currently reselling an ebook without the permission of the author is in most cases copyright infringement unless submit to some pretty harsh DRM.
Whether you thin
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Copyright exists to address the free rider problem [wikipedia.org]. If you wish to do away with copyright you need to come up with an alternative for dealing with the free rider problem.
No it doesn't. Copyright exists for only one reason: to create an environment where people will create more content. It's all about the benefit to society, not about the creator "getting what he deserves". Whatever definition of copyright creates the "best" society is the optimum definition. More liberal copyright rules promote wider use of material, but more restrictive rule promote more creation of material. A balance must be struck, but there are no sacred cows. If it turns out the best balance exists wh
I vote No here's why (Score:2)
Self interest. My teenage horde of comics, scfi fi pulps and ancien Hardy Boys novels ain't selling on Ebay because all the potential customers torrent the entire history of Superman off piratebay thus leaving my carefully bagged collection worthless...with transferable digital copies you create a LEGAL aftermarket of say all of the X-men series for 0.5 cents.
No. (Score:5, Interesting)
I really wanted to say yes, but there are a lot of issues with this concept. It benefits the readers but hurts society at large, (undermining ownership rights, lowering the number of copies floating around for non-owners to discover, use).
The used market is predicated on depreciation preventing people from competing with the original sellers. You buy X brand new for $Y, use it up some, then sell it for $Y - z.
Without depreciation, what you are doing is more similar to renting a book, rather than buying and reselling it. You get full use of it, but it is returned in practically the same state, with only time being gone.
Renting e-books would be a BAD idea - it would hurt the writers tremendously and the general population would no longer own the books, which would leave the population open to giving up ownership rights, something that has high value for society, but low values for the individuals as a whole.
A better question would be to clarify ownership after Death. I bought ebooks, and both they and my account should be inheritable after death.
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Renting e-books...like many libraries do now at no cost to the reader?
Do libraries hurt writers?
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Creators of music have realized that the sale of recorded music won't be their primary source of income at some point in the future, so they now stress concerts and merchandise (and have been moving in this direction for a long time). Authors are going to have to find a place in a world where book distribution is frictionless. I don't know what the answer is, but I'm not in favor of creating legislation that props up their old business model until they are settled into a new one.
This isn't an idle question.
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Does that mean you're also opposed to reselling gold, land, etc since it does not depreciate over time?
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I really wanted to say yes, but there are a lot of issues with this concept. It benefits the readers but hurts society at large, (undermining ownership rights, lowering the number of copies floating around for non-owners to discover, use).
The used market is predicated on depreciation preventing people from competing with the original sellers. You buy X brand new for $Y, use it up some, then sell it for $Y - z.
Without depreciation, what you are doing is more similar to renting a book, rather than buying and reselling it. You get full use of it, but it is returned in practically the same state, with only time being gone.
The Depreciation of value after the initial use is an excellent point. A CD (as so many folks are using as their example) is instantly recognizable as being used after it's initial use because it has been removed from it's original packaging. Even if the CD/Case/etc is in perfectly new condition it has lost some value for that reason alone. If they could find a reasonable way to accomplish something similar, flagging the E-book as Used after it's initial sale/purchase so it is recognizable as pre-used, i
Are you asking the right group of people? (Score:5, Funny)
This is sort of like asking a tree full of squirrels if they think plastic domes should be banned from bird feeders.
We've been coming here rattling our cranky fists about this for the past 18 years or so (about digital rights, not bird feeders).
Well, let's see... (Score:2)
These losers in the Media companies have been saying that they should be treated like regular physical copies, that they can be considered stolen if copied even though the original is still right where it was to start with. So YES, anyone should be able to re-sell them.
Absolutely (Score:2)
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I should have the right to sell an commodity I own. Digital or not. Any problem assosiated with that is the original manufacturers problem not mine! Look at DVD's or CD's. They are digital. I can sell a CD, but could have easily copied the songs. How is that any different?
I think that is technically Illegal as well, just inherently limited by the physicality enough that they dont bother fighting it. Though as somebody else noted above, the re-selling markets of physical media all hinge on the idea of depreciated value after it's initial use. Even if the CD is in otherwise perfect condition, it's still not in it's original packaging (usually shrink wrap) and is recognizable as such, so you dont ever get the full value. And if you could get the full value, there wouldnt be
What a dumbass clickbait question (Score:2)
Yes (Score:2)
or they need to be super cheap.
an e book should be 1/3 third the cost of a paperback.
Yes (Score:2)
I am sorry if that upsets your profit margin, but I am in favor of products rather than services.
You can't have it both ways (Score:2)
If you want the ability to re-sell an electronic copy of a work, then you have to accept DRM (and consequences for cracking it.) A physical book (say, a 500-page novel), has built-in "copy protection" in that it is tedious, at best, to make a copy to keep for yourself prior to sale. (And if you do make a complete copy for yourself, it is uncontroversial that this could, in theory, get you in trouble.)
If a publisher can be reasonably assured that the user will not sell a copy while keeping the one they hav
The devil is in the details! (Score:2)
As stated the question can neither be answered yes nor no. There's too many edge cases.
If the DRM requires access to a validating server, then the items should be freely re-sellable....and anyone who buys them should realize that they are getting a volatile good. But they usually *don't* realize that. It's usually sold as if it were permanent.
If the DRM doesn't require access to the internet, isn't limited to "so many plays", etc., then it should be vendible. But what's the life of the storage medium?
If
Resell???? (Score:2)
What about when you die? How can anyone inherit a digital library which may have cost the original owner thousands of dollars?
If I due with a $50,000 credit card debit, does that evaporate along with my library or do my heir get stuck with one and lose the other? It's not like it's a tangible object, after all.
Both sides of the issue. (Score:2)
I'm on both sides of this issue. On one side if I buy a thing I should be able to resell it. On the other side, a virtual product is fundamentally different than a physical product (intangible vs. tangible) and if you want to be able to resell a book, buy an actual book.
I've purchased a bunch of Music, TV Shows and Movies on discs and if I sold them I'd have to ship the discs to the new owner. If I bought a song (DRM-free) through iTunes and went to sell it how do I package up the song? I've got a copy on m
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Sorry to disappoint but the courts have already ruled that you can sell what you have purchased as long as you don't do so commercially.
Which is why you don't buy software. You license it.
Re: NO !! (Score:2)
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Re:NO !! (Score:5, Insightful)
And the ECJ ruling in UsedSoft vs. Oracle specifically declared that reasoning invalid, by saying that if it quacks like a sale, and walks like a sale, and acts like a sale instead of renting it out... then it's a sale and the first sale doctrine applies.
A license that requires payment of a one-time fee is a sale. And the ECJ specifically mentioned that the language in the license can be disregarded in that case.
rent versus own (Score:3)
For a digitial material what is the difference between renting and owning? You rent the book, read it. Now you have read it. Now consider instead buying a book. Ideally this costs more than renting it. Now you have read it. It's not like you are going to put a digital book on a bookshelf. You could sell it but that's a hassle. Indeed the cost of renting it ought to be about the same as buying it minus what you could re-sell it for. SO really in an ideal world renting is what you really want for a d
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If selling copies were legal, it would make it impossible to sell copies of digital goods, as there's always be someone willing to sell for cheaper and the race to the bottom would make everything free.
Not if people actually sold the digital goods, meaning, they didn't keep a copy of their own, and they only sold it once. Then it's quite like any other used item sale. (It's not exactly alike, of course.)
Now if you're going to counter that people wouldn't do a legal resale as I specified above, I'll counter that by saying a law against resale won't stop those people either.
Re: NO !! (Score:5, Insightful)
Except we aren't talking about theft here. We're talking about the resale of something that should be treated as property. It really is a double standard you're pushing there because an individual end user license is no more less of a fiction than an actual copyright. If you can't own one, then you shouldn't be able to own the other.
The idea of being able to own and transfer partial rights to something is actually terribly mundane outside of the area of entertainment products.
I should be able to transfer the ownership of my iTunes copy of Age of Ultron just as easily as I can transfer ownership of the physical copy.
Of course this triggers an interesting engineering problem but it doesn't nullify the basic idea of personal property.
Re: NO !! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Maybe readers should be able to resell once or twice, but that's it. The third owner shall be the permanent owner.
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If all ebooks were free, more students could go to school across the world.
And nobody would be writing them, because there is no business case.
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Well, if all ebooks were free, fewer ebooks would be made because there is no financial interest in doing so. Passion is great, but if the only driving force behind content creation is someone pushing an agenda, we'll get an awful lot of religious bullshit books and very little scientific reading material.