Quote:
Originally Posted by pdurrant
It's true, and same applies to all digital media - music, audio books, video. Although in general Amazon are a bit nicer about the terms than most, and say that you are allowed to let anyone read your ebooks so long as they are on devices authorised to your account.
IMO, the law needs reform in this area. Whether one should have the full resale rights that one has with physically embodied media is debatable. But I think there should certianly be some provision made for bulk transfer of rights in purchased electronic media.
As the law currently stands, all rights to your purchased media terminate on your death.
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That last point is interesting, because it seems difficult to enforce. Presumably, anyone who can access the devices and storage media containing a deceased person's digital content can continue to access that content, indefinitely. Can't they? Or do the content providers, upon learning of a customer's death (e.g., via a notice from the credit company registered to the deceased's media account) revoke the rights? But then, of course, anyone with access to such an account could update said account with another credit card and keep on truckin'. Of course, freebies acquired from sites that don't require a credit card account (e.g., comiXology, Feedbooks, Gutenberg) would never be the wiser.