Quote:
Originally Posted by HansTWN
There are two problems with reselling ebooks. No reliable system exists yet to prevent the seller from having access to the original. And ebooks remain in "as new" condition for ever. This is different from software, who would still want to buy a copy of Windows 95?
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Win95 was atrocious.
So were several of its followups. Plenty of people still want to buy WinXP, even though it's no longer supported.
No reliable system prevents the seller of a pbook from having a copy of that, either; it's just been the case that so far, those copies were lower-quality enough to be assumed to be a disincentive for copying and reselling for most people.
Insisting on different rules for digital purchases than physical ones will take, among other things, publishers & stores being willing to spell out the terms of the license, as opposed to sale. Sales are simple: you buy it, you own it; what you can do with it is defined by plenty of laws. Licenses are different for each license; there are no assumptions--and no limitations except as spelled out in the license itself.
"Breach of contract" by violating the license is not the same as a crime. Reselling one's Fictionwise purchases may be against their TOS, but if no copies are made for the sale, copyright infringement may not come into play. (If, for example, someone buys ebooks & downloads them to a memory card, and later sells the card, without making any extra copies.)
As much as I'd like to advocate for a system like the B&N or Kindle's loaning feature that allows for complete transfer of ownership, I'm convinced that anything based on current DRM models is doomed to failure; there's just too much incentive to crack them just to retain access if you don't have an interest in transferring ownership.
Perhaps resale is not socially/economically feasible, but giving them away should be possible, because without the ability to share ebooks with friends, they're *never* going to become the dominant form of literature. Nobody got to love books by buying them full-price, or even only by reading them at libraries. Kids aren't going to become devoted ebook readers by limiting themselves to what their parents agree to put on their credit cards.
This is a problem that *must* be solved. The current "solution" is "secondhand ebooks" (and music, and movies) "are on quasi-legal to illegal download sites," which, as much as it disturbs publishers, is likely a very stable arrangement.