Quote:
Originally Posted by charlesatan
I can understand the argument that eBooks should cost less than their print counterparts, but definitely not that they should cost less than secondhand books (which can arise anywhere from remaindered copies to disposing of a book to make space).
The benefit of eBooks for me is that it's convenient, and I'm paying for the convenience one way or another.
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The problem is that ebooks ARE competing against used books. If we're stuck with DRM then we should at least get the right of first sale and be allowed to resell it via some online marketplace.
It seems that Amazon (and others) could easily allow us to put the book up for resale. I could finish reading the book, choose to resell it on their website. It'd go into a pool of available copies and become unavailable to me. Let's assume that the new book cost $12, so the used sells for $6. Once somebody buys it I get a cut (say $2) the publisher gets a cut (another $2) and Amazon gets a cut (yet another $2). The used copy sold for half price, yet everybody got some money. This system would allow for a healthy used market without the publishers whining that they're getting cut out. They'd get more than they do with used paper books (which is $0!) and somebody has to buy the original copies that go into circulation. Even if they put an artificial limit on how many times that a book could be resold (say 2 times, the last buyer gets a slight discount since they can't resale it) it'd still be better that what we've got now.