Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
How could it not be correct? They should know whether they're selling you a book or a licence, don't you think?
|
The legal cases that established the first-sale doctrine also involved contracts stating something like "this is a license, not a sale." The courts ruled that if the exchange of product-for-money acted like a sale, it was a sale, regardless of the terminology used.
Some of the key aspects of "sale" vs "license" were "unlimited time" and "no expectation of return." It was ruled that you can't say, "we've licensed this to you forever, and you can only use it in the following ways, but we don't ever expect to get it back and you don't have to make any more payments."
Amazon does claim to license ebooks, not sell them, but whether that's actually what's happening legally hasn't been established.