I think about selling 1 or 2 of my readers, which I rarely use.
I'd like to "spice things up" a bit by adding (some of) the dedicated DRMed ebooks I've bought for the respective unit(s).
My question:
Is it legal (in Germany and in general) to sell the DRMed ebooks?
I've found some answers in the forums, but would like to have more detailled input.
My personal guess:
It's probably not legal.
Thoughts:
Yes, it's legal to sell the DRMed ebooks::
- They still would be DRMed. The buyer of the respective ebook reader wouldn't be able to distribute or even re-download them.
- I wouldn't sell them separately, but bundled to a specific reader. They'd be bound to that specific reader.
No, it's NOT legal to sell the DRMed ebooks:
- Theoretically, I could cancel the ebook reader I've sold from my ebook account, add a new one, reload the books on that again and sell this unit "fully loaded" again. (*)
- I still could read (some of) the ebooks on my other devices. (**)
(*) IMHO, that's not too practical. Mobipocket and others track the number of units in your account. They limit this number (to 4 or 6 at once) and probably easily could document, whether one has had 2, 20 or 200 readers per year active in his account.
(**) Is this actually harming anyone? Now I can read them on up to 6 units as well.
What are your thoughts or informations?
Another, more aggressive question would be:
Where is the line?
If, for example, Mobipocket allows 4 units at once:
I could use those 4 activations on my PC, 2 of my ebook readers and on another ebook reader of my wife.
Obviously, I'm allowed to loan it to her.
- But what would be, if I sold it to her? Or to my neighbour instead of my wife?
The distributors REALLY should find a more convenient and convincing solution....
