|
I'm not an english speaker, so my choice of words is not always appropriate.
Regardless, if you consider that what we do with ebook is not buying them (but buying their license), I think it's fair to consider that buying a license to read ebook is closer to renting ebook than it is to buying them. Not that I care, I don't even understand why that's a point of discussion.
Additionally, and I trust your choice of word "buying license to read ebooks", the sellers involved in this aren't very transparent about this even if it's in some legalese document appended to them that nobody reads. I've checked Kobo bookstore, Nook bookstore and Amazon, and all of them have "Buy" buttons, or "Put in the caddie" next to the "ebook" word, or "ebook version". None have an UI where it says "Buy the license" instead of "Buy the ebook".
Probably because being more transparent about it would hurt their sales (if their price remain the same). Not judging personally, but you yourself seem to blame the readers for not reading the legalese, yet what about this behaviour?
Finally, digital content you download on your computer has a physical presence. It can be duplicated, modified etc... as technology allows it (and it allows plenty). Unlike ideas.
You can have "instances" (programmatically speaking) of ebooks. Not instances of ideas.
|