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Originally Posted by Phogg
I do not underestimate people in any way.
If it did not matter to sales, The agency book sellers would simply state they are leasing the works of authors, an no DRM scheme dreamed up yet would require any additional legislation of any sort to become enforcible. Just like the limitations when you lease a car.
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One of the legal problems with the "lease/license" model for ebooks, is that in the US, a license needs an ending date. There is no "you pay for this and you can't transfer it and can only use it in the ways I allow, forever, but there's no expiration date on the contract between us; you get to keep using it in the ways originally authorized forever--unless my computer system changes, in which case, you can maybe only use it on the original authorized devices" and so on.
"Permanent licenses" were deemed to be "sales" in a couple of critical court cases. (Movie houses "licensed" old movies for destruction into cellulose-based stuffing and similar manufacturing uses, not to be resold & watched--but the buyers sometimes managed to salvage a whole movie & resell it.)
US v Wise includes details like,
"appellant knew that films, unlike other copyrighted works such as books, phonograph records, and sheet music, are not generally sold but are licensed for exhibition," which point goes the other way for ebooks: everyone knows you "buy" books; you don't license the viewing of books.
A "license agreement" that said,
"Said print is furnished you for your personal use and enjoyment and shall be retained in your possession at all times; said print shall not be sold, leased, licensed or loaned by you to any other person and shall not be reproduced in any size or type prints, or otherwise; and said print shall not be exhibited by you publicly for profit, paid admissions or otherwise, but the use of said print by you shall be confined to private home showings and library purposes."
Was ruled to be a sale--it gave permission for use, indefinitely, with no plan to return the item, which means that resale of it is legal.
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There would be no question when they go after people who copy and give out said works either - the public understands the limited use that comes with rental.
Win/win for the publishers.
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Except for the persnickety "hope that these license terms actually hold up in court as a license" part. (In addition, of course, to the "try to sell license to view for the same price as ownership of a book" if they're not allowed to label the license & sale the same way.)
If I were a clever-and-rich IP lawyer who wanted to be richer, I'd look into a class action lawsuit against Amazon for claiming to "sell" Kindlebooks while only licensing them, with an amount of damages equal to, oh, 2/5 of the sales prices of those books--a standard used-book-store payment rate.