An interesting discussion over at Teleread (
http://www.teleread.com/chris-meadow...oks-work-redux) has got me thinking about some of the legal issues around p-books and e-books. Since I'm a software developer, and not a lawyer, this falls under the heading of idle speculation.
When a consumer purchases a physical book, it's a single "buying a book" transaction. From a legal perspective, it seems to be two:
(1) The purchase of a physical artifact, and
(2) the licensing of the content.
Legally, the rights that the consumer has seem to be wrapped up with the physical artifact.
So, when it comes to e-books, there's no physical purchase, only licensing of content (hence the statement by Amazon and others that e-book buyers are only licensing content).
Obviously, re-selling p-books is legal, in that one has a right to sell the purchased physical artifact. The licensed content comes along for the ride. But logically, it doesn't feel quite right...when I "buy a book," the point of the transaction is acquire a copy of the content for personal use. So when I re-sell, the thing of value that I'm selling is access to the content. To say that my right is to sell the artifact and not the content seems...ummm...disingenous.
The Teleread thread is about the (il)legality of reselling e-books, because the rights issue gets even more stark. There's no physical artifact, so (in law) no right to re-sell.
So is the law simply out of step, or behind, on this issue?
Publishers, it seems to me, are trying to have it both ways. By pricing p-books and e-books at the same level, they're saying that content is what they're selling and that packaging is irrelevant. But by stripping the consumer of the right to re-sell, share, pass on, or donate the book, they've created a virtual artifact that is "less than" it's physical equivalent (and so the overall cost of an e-book is actually higher).
Since the laws that get made seem to be heavily weighted toward (or are actually written by) those groups with enough money to pay lobbyists and purchase influence, I've no faith that legal thinking will reflect any sort of fair outcome. But I'm extremely curious about what a truly fair outcome would look like.