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Originally Posted by HarryT
Do you routinely sell your books after you read them? What percentage of the price of the original do you typically get by doing so?
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I routinely trade them for other books of equivalent value, or sometimes for other goods or services. (Minor housecleaning. Childcare for an afternoon. Not a business arrangement, but casual favors between friends.)
However, the right to resell an item is inherent in the purchasing (or other legal acquisition) thereof; the courts have upheld both the
right to resell software & the right to sell free promotional CDs. The right to resell copyrighted material--the First Sale Doctrine--was established in 1908:
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...copyright statutes, while protecting the owner of the copyright in his right to multiply and sell his production, do not create the right to impose, by notice, such as is disclosed in this case, a limitation at which the book shall be sold at retail by future purchasers...
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The judge in Vernor v Autodesk pointed out that calling a sale a "lease" doesn't make it so--there's a one-time payment, and no intention to reclaim the property at the end of use, and various other features that go with a "sale" rather than a "usage license."
It doesn't matter how many or how few people care to resell their used book, e or otherwise. The law allows them to be resold, and restricting that right goes far beyond the sales monopoly that copyright allows.