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It's interesting that Tom Kabinet is only charging a 10% commission. I don't know what their return policy is if the seller doesn't get what they expected. My assumption is that Tom Kabinet doesn't pay for the used ebook until they have a committed buyer but maybe they don't pay the seller for a couple of weeks after the sale to make sure it's not returned. I don't see the 10% commission as being sustainable when they have to police if the seller has a valid copy and take the legal risk if they don't.
My question is that how much cheaper would it have to be for someone to buy a used ebook. The rights holder is only getting 5% and the quality is unknown. I'd guess that most people that are price sensitive and aren't worried about the author getting compensated would just download from a file sharing site.
On the selling side I have the same question. How much would you have to get to bother trying to resell versus not being able to re-read it in the future.
It might stop the publishers from being able to price the ebooks equivalent to a paper book but if they price it like the rental they claim it is (a temporary license for only one person to read it) then I think it would kill any viable market to sell them used.
I don't feel strongly that I need the right to be able to resell my ebooks but I also don't see a value to anybody else to buy them. I just don't see this as a make or break thing for publishing. If they price the ebooks properly it would kill this as a viable market. The only exception I can see is for educational text books that cost $100's and maybe people should be able to resell those like paper books. Either that or build the cost into the course tuition.
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