Would you buy the print or the ebook for the same price?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by meeera

In my jurisdiction, fine print is invalid if it contradicts the large print. I click a "BUY NOW" button on Amazon, not a "Lease Now". Clicking on the "How Buying Works" button gives further text which uses the word "purchase" repeatedly, with nary a "lease" or "license" or "rent" in sight. This particular example is untested in court, but I'm not calling it a foregone conclusion - tech companies have been hammered here on similarly misleading marketing, when they've tried to claim that the customer shoulda read the fine print.

You are buying a licence, just as you are with a paper book. When you buy a paper book you're buying a set of very restricted rights, too. You buy the paper, ink, and glue. You don't buy any rights to the contents of the book, and you are VERY restricted in what you're legally allowed to do with it. Bookstores don't explicitly tell you this - it falls into the category of "stuff the buyer is expected to know".

[Sregener]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You are buying a licence, just as you are with a paper book.

No, you are not buying a license when you buy a paper book. You are buying a copyrighted work, which comes with certain use restrictions (e.g. making copies without permission.) However, the physical book is quite literally yours. You can sell it, loan it, donate it to a library, and so on.

No one has the right to enter your home and remove it from your home, even if it was later determined that the store you purchased the book from had, in fact, stolen the books from another source. In other words, the "license" you seem to think books come with cannot be revoked, even if you violated the terms of that license. Thus, it is ownership in the real sense.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Sregener

Thus, it is ownership in the real sense.

No, it has to do more with posession of a phyisical object, and calling an ebook purchase "ownership" would not magically transfer that property to an intangible object.

You buy a train or plane ticket, but the line can still deny you passage for various reasons, and it has nothing to do with the fact they can't reach into your wallet and actually take the ticket. They can enforce that the passage is not transferable regardless of what first sale doctrine might say about the piece of cardboard in your wallet.

This is what you...and seemingly everyone hung up on "ownership"... are not getting. Calling it "ownership" doesn't NOT magically give you the same rights and properties over an intangible construct as it gives you over a physical object.

And it never will, and it never should because the inherent properties are different.
Vive la difference.
Heck. If the same rules magically did apply, then you would not be able download a second copy, read online or get any other benefit of digital cloud storage. Hey, you lose the copy of a book you 'own' you don't get to walk into a store a grab a free replacement, do you? You want to insist on identical rules without rationale, the you'd have to take it both ways.

It's our actual rights over the ebook we need to be working to adjust.
We mustn't be deluded and distracted into thinking that a meaningless equating of terms between things that can't be directly equated will magically give us those rights.

ApK

[MerLock]

Be intersting if publishers did an experiment. Like lower the prices of ebooks below the print version and make it DRM free. I'll be curious of sales would go up, down or remain the same.

People can dispute "owernship" as much as they like but I do feel like DRM ebooks are more difficult to lend/sell than a paper book. With a paper book, I can give it to anyone without considering if they own an ereader, if it's compatible with the one they have or if the DRM will allow me to transfer it over to them.

[spindlegirl]

Originally Posted by MerLock

People can dispute "owernship" as much as they like but I do feel like DRM ebooks are more difficult to lend/sell than a paper book. With a paper book, I can give it to anyone without considering if they own an ereader, if it's compatible with the one they have or if the DRM will allow me to transfer it over to them.

Karma points for that one. I don't have to consider ANYthing when transferring a physical book to someone. I don't even have to know the person's name. I can just say, "Hey, like this book? Yours!" and walk off with a smile on my face.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by MerLock

Be intersting if publishers did an experiment. Like lower the prices of ebooks below the print version and make it DRM free. I'll be curious of sales would go up, down or remain the same.

Tor have been selling their Books DRM-free for nearly a year now, after previously selling them with DRM. So far they haven't noticed any difference.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Tor have been selling their Books DRM-free for nearly a year now, after previously selling them with DRM. So far they haven't noticed any difference.

Tor may not be representative of the general eBook market, but their experience is certainly more encouraging then if they had seen the opposite.

I also note that while some sources have altered their business model by doing stuff like raising prices, or stopping giving so much away for free, or gotten out of the business entirely, I'm not aware of any source who sold books without DRM, and then said "you know, this just isn't working...we're going to add DRM."
Places notable for selling books DRM free--O'Reilly, Smashwords, Baen, etc. -- are all still doing it.

I think on the whole that says something.

[emoorman]

Going back to the original question, I don't need any more paper books. I have a wall full of them. If there's a book I want to read, ebook is my only choice, unless it isn't available. it is just too convenient to have the book on several ereader devices.

Yes, I grit my teeth when I see a $14.99 ebook price and I usually wait for a month or so to see if the price goes down. it usually does. I still don't waant to miss a book from a favorite author. in the mean time, there are many good reads for $3.99 or less on Amazon and other book sellers.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Tor have been selling their Books DRM-free for nearly a year now, after previously selling them with DRM. So far they haven't noticed any difference.

They only did the DRM Free part, not the lower price part. They've only become non-Agency recently.