European ruling could have major impact on e-books

[geoffwood]

Originally Posted by jswinden

Even if just for computer software that is a huge step in the correct direction for consumers. Consumers buy but cannot control what they bought. Now they can trade and sell THEIR property regardless of what a software company desires.

The only problem is that they don't actually own anything. When you "purchase" an e-book from Amazon, you acquire a license, not ownership. To quote from the Kindle agreement;

the Content Provider grants you a non-exclusive right to view, use, and display such Digital Content an unlimited number of times, solely on the Kindle or a Reading Application or as otherwise permitted as part of the Service, solely on the number of Kindles or Other Devices specified in the Kindle Store, and solely for your personal, non-commercial use. Digital Content is licensed, not sold, to you by the Content Provider

The Content provider may choose to allow you to transfer the license, but it is not your property and you do not own it. If you want to stick to concepts of property and ownership, then you need to stick to physical books.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by geoffwood

If you want to stick to concepts of property and ownership, then you need to stick to physical books.

Even with a physical book, you only own the paper, ink, and glue that it's made from. You don't own the words in the book, other than a rather limited right to read them to yourself. You can't, for example, hold a public performance and read from the book without the author's permission.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by crich70

I think she means that the Kindle reading app and others aren't physical media. They're just data that you download and each copy downloaded is in effect a new copy of that software. If I have a old copy of Win 98 and sell it to you I am reselling the physical media and the data that was burned to the disc by Microsoft way back in the 90's but every copy of the Kindle App is in effect a new copy, created when you download it.

The point of the ruling was that the right to resell licenses attaches to purely digitally distributed software, not just that distributed as physical media.