Article in the Economist on eBook Lending

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Canada also punishes people for copyright infringement that hasn't even happened. Interesting place, that. However, I believe the returns in question were required of retailers who had gotten early shipments, not individuals, and telling people not to read their books was toothless; they didn't send goons to anyone's houses to take their books away.

The ruling about not reading the book, and being required to return it, applied to individual purchasers, and many did return the book, although obviously the chance of being penalised for not doing so was vanishingly small.

[jbcohen]

I would like to take a slightly different take on the current topic. As an IT professional I need to understand not the legal aspects of ebooks rather I need to understand how Amazon and Barns and Nobles will actually acomplish this. I am told that DRM is acomplished by providing the ereader the key to the book that you have purchased. I belive that the key allows for an expiration date. Can anyone explain the mechanics of how this is acompished? I also belive that epub does not include DRM? When striping out DRM, I am told that the software recovers the password to the key from the file then uses that key to decrypt the ebook.

How will this elending be acomplished?

[DuncanWatson]

The ePub format supports more than one DRM scheme. B&N's version is almost trivial to break. The B&N DRM in EPUB doesn't contain an expiration date.

I think that is about all I can say on MB.

[GlenBarrington]

Not the book itself. You own the paper, I guess. But certainly, the intellectual property the book represents is not something you own. The thing about digital versions of any sort of art work is that it is 100% intellectual property with no media to clutter and confuse the ownership of the thing.

I don't have a problem with someone enforcing thier property rights. But if I buy the license to some intellectual property, I want it to be convenient to use.

Then again, if I agree to a certain set of licensing rules by purchasing a license, shouldn't I be expected to abide by those rules?

I don't think it is the simple Black & White issue that some would have us believe.

[GreenMonkey]

Good article.

And for those with the "suck it, you agreed to the licensing terms"...

Last time I saw, the license terms for Kindle...

http://www.tosback.org/policy.php?pid=35

424 versions. Have fun with how often it changes. I don't even know where the licensing details for e-books themselves are...in there somewhere?

The itunes agreement, last I saw, was 91 pages long. It's kind of ridiculous. If someone made me sign a 91 page agreement to walk out of Best Buy with a DVD, and that I could never sell it to someone else, and it would only work on Best Buy branded DVD players, I'd tell them to take their DVD and stick it.

This is why I almost never buy commercial, DRM'd ebooks. You guys that think they are the future...it'll go the way of the mp3, eventually. Easier and better to pirate than to buy it. You get a better (non DRM'd product) that way. Makes no sense.

[GreenMonkey]

Edit: Duplicate post...oops

[dacattt]

Originally Posted by GreenMonkey

Good article.

And for those with the "suck it, you agreed to the licensing terms"...

Last time I saw, the license terms for Kindle...

http://www.tosback.org/policy.php?pid=35

424 versions. Have fun with how often it changes. I don't even know where the licensing details for e-books themselves are...in there somewhere?

Yea, and that's exactly the point. They're tripping all over their legal departments. We, on the other hand, just want to read "our" books.... anyplace we want, anyway we want. Simple, or should be... that really the point.

Putting a whole changeling usage agreement behind a "Buy" button just irritates the customer.... and irritate the customer... they go elsewhere... from other stores... to darknets....

That's the point of the article.... think about water flowing downhill... what's the easier path? The publisher is building not just dams, but walls around themselves that are not customer friendly. So, the customers flow around those naturally seeking the easy path. The publishers are missing that water will erode those foundations as well...

Me, I just want to read. ...And so do a lot of other folks. Sometimes I want to swap with my friend. She buy's things I won't spend money on, and visa versa. No intention to steal the books. Just want to read... so delete after the loan on her books... and I'd like to not worry where my own "bought" books are in 10 year.