Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike L
It is certainly a benefit to both the seller and the buyer. The problem is that it would seriously degrade the overall e-book market. There would be no incentive for people to buy new e-books if they can buy them second-hand (at a presumably lower price). So authors and publishers would suffer, and that might discourage them from producing e-books in marginal cases. In the long run, that would be bad for us all.
I'm not saying that the judgement is necessarily wrong, only that it is a mistake to consider the benefit without looking at the possible consequences.
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It could work the other way. If re-selling ebooks were legal it could mean that prices for used copies kept parity with the new ones. I can imagine publishers and/or retailers could have some fun with limiting copies and playing with the price point.
Imagine for example you have a new release by someone you hope is the next big thing. So you hype an "event" release of say 1,000 inidividually water-marked copies at a premium price (say up to 200% of normal). You then watch carefully the second-hand market. If the prices rise it means the books are sought after and a success, if they stay the same or drop then probably not. Crucially it also gives you a nice indicator of how to price the book.
Of course it would rely on pirated copies not affecting the market for genuine copies - but that's no different to the current case.
Not that I think this will happen but it's fun to speculate.