Quote:
Originally Posted by wizwor
How would you feel about a license server infrastructure for ebooks? Download an ebook to any device in any format as long as it is only on one device at a time. In the spirit of Fair Use and to accomodate remote reading, one device could read the ebook based on the existence of a local token (which could be removed from one device and installed on another).
You could loan your books to friends, sell them, or even donate them to libraries (formal or informal).
What do you think?
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I think it'd have a few logistics issues which could be smoothed over (there'd be the occasional glitch, and of course the worry about how stable the token-maintaining company is), but mostly, that'd be fine.
However, the big publishers will never go for it.They often don't allow books to be loaned through Kindle's one-time, two-weeks loaning process; they certainly won't agree to allow ownership of an ebook to be transferred. They insist that ebooks can't be donated, loaned or resold.
It's a terrific idea, and it's what DRM *should* be doing. People should be able to transfer ownership of their purchased ebooks to someone else, just like they can with pbooks. Instead, publishers are using DRM to promote a "one buyer = one reader" approach to books.