Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
It would kill the market. No reason to buy a new ebook if you could buy a "2nd hand" one, because (unlike a paper book) they'd be identical.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer
Or perhaps it would lead to more creative promotions. Or maybe just less promotions. Or maybe it would allow producers to sell for more in the first place because consumers are willing to spend more on a product they can resell. A robust used market in the physical goods space often supports and enhances the market for new goods, and I'm not convinced the same couldn't be true for digital goods.
I just don't think it would necessarily "kill" the market, but it would definitely change it and make for some interesting scenarios.
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I kind of lean toward agreement with Ninjalawyer, though I see where HarryT is coming from, from a practical standpoint. Home cassette recorders were supposed to kill the record industry, VCRs were supposed to kill the movie industry. Hell, the phonograph was supposed to kill live music. We see now that those were alarmist reactions that didn't pan out that way at all - quite the contrary in fact.
And yet the digital realm is a different beast. I think the key component in selling used is to make sure the original owner really does reliquish the file. With the "tools' that are out there, I don't know that that's possible. So I agree with Harry T that if not done properly (which may well be impossible), a used market could harm primary content creators and the "new" market.
It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.