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Old 07-24-2012, 10:52 AM   #144
Elfwreck
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT View Post
I doubt anyone would get sued, but Amazon have illustrated their willingness to close people's accounts who violates their terms of service, and re-selling an eBook is most assuredly a violation of Amazon's terms of service, regardless of the law. A private seller such as Amazon is perfectly at liberty to impose terms of service which are more restrictive than the law.
A bookstore cannot set (or at least, cannot enforce) terms of "you may not resell our books" any more than publishers can. The first-sale doctrine can't be eradicated by a license agreement. (At least in the US.) If ebooks are indeed sold, not licensed, the first-sale doctrine applies to them.

I'm not sure if a store is allowed to refuse to do business with people they know have resold books; very few business have attempted to remove customers on the grounds that those people committed some legal act that the business doesn't like. (I suppose someone could research Christian book stores and find out if any of them have refused to sell things to people whose religious convictions they disliked, but that wouldn't be definitive; bringing religion to the table changes the debate a bit.)
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