[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Sure. How?

Same way ebooks are sold now. "Here's my server; pay me and you get access to the download options."

Publishers aren't all that upset about used book stores. If the book shows up in the UBS, it already sold once, and generated revenue for the merchant who sold it and the publisher who published it.

Used ebooks have been sold once, too. Making it possible to sell an ebook and remove copies from one's own hardware is a tech issue; it should be just as legal to sell used ebooks as pbooks, which can also be photocopied before selling.

There are nascent lending programs for ebooks, such as the one implemented by Barnes and Noble on the nook - you can lend a purchased ebook to another nook owner for two weeks. The significant part is that while it's on loan, you don't have it.

If this were possible (1) with every book, not just the ones bought through B&N where the publishers granted permission, and (2) any number of times, for any length of time, it could fill that niche in the digital book culture. The fact that it's not, shows that publishers *don't want* book sharing. It's not harder to make it loanable any number of times. It might be harder to have a variable loan length, but if they got rid of the # limit, you could just re-loan the book to the same person.

This is one major stumbling block to used ebooks. If I sell you, or give you, a printed book I own, I no longer have it. How do you enforce that with ebooks?

They same way they "enforce" it with pbooks, and with used CDs and videos. Nothing prevents anyone from making a copy before selling those.

Speak for yourself. Getting a copy passed along by a satisfied reader is only one way books find an audience.

It's not the only one, but it's a substantial part of literary culture, especially youth literary culture. High school kids can't buy ebooks without adult supervision from most places online, but they can buy & share pbooks with each other, and they'll share ebooks if they're interested in those.

That's questionable. I'd make a fair bet that ebooks will take over the mass market PB segment, and they won't need an equivalent of a used book market to do it.

They don't need it to take over mmpb's market--they need it to compete with torrents and filesharing sites. The longer publishers wait to figure out how to allow ebook sharing and used ebook gifts, the larger the pirate market will be. Especially because a growing number of people are learning to crack DRM so they can read their already-purchased Kindle books on their new Nook, or vice versa, with no intention of sharing--but when their cousin says "hey, I'd like to read that," they happen to have a copy available.

How large a segment of the market do you assume that is? I knew very few people who read at all that don't buy some new books, even if the majority of their purchases are used.

I buy some new pbooks, even now... a handful of religious & gaming books every year. Tiny niche genre presses.

The market segment for used books is nonexistent, from the publishers' perspectives. They can't see it; it makes them no direct money, so they're pretending it doesn't exist and doesn't matter to ebook sales. They believe they've found a way to make money without the "leakage" of used books.

They have no idea how many of their customers are also used book buyers, and that removing used books from the equation removes new book buyers as well.

Refusing to offer cheap, non-DRM'd music for years worked so well for the music industry; I'm sure the same tactics will be equally successful for book publishers.