Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
You need the licence, because it grants you the rights you actually need to read the book. If you were governed purely by the law of the land, for example, then assuming that NZ copyright law is similar to that of the UK, you wouldn't be able to read the book because the act of transferring it from your PC to a reading device would be a breach of copyright (you're creating an extra copy of the book). The licence is what grants you that right. Eg, in Amazon's case the licence grants you the right to "view, use, and display such Kindle Content an unlimited number of times". Without that right, you couldn't copy it to any device other than the one on which you originally downloaded it.
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Okay, so I wasn't able to put concicely everything I would expect to be ableto do with the book as a buyer.
But it is what an ordinary buyer is lead to believe by the sellers message that counts under consumer law, buyers are not expected to be lawyers or experts, and if there are limitations on the sale then the seller has an obligation to make those clear. If the seller leads the buyer to beleive that they will be able to read and transfer the ebook to their device, then it is reasonable for the buyer to expect that they will be able to do that when they buy the ebook. That doesn't mean that the buyer knows that they are only buying a licence.
If the licence contained no limitations at all then it would not be necessary for the seller to make the difference between buying and licensing clear. But if the licence contains limitations on the sale then the seller should make it clear that the buyer is only buying a licence, and the consumer laws say they should do that in a way that is clear and not easily overlooked. It is not enough to point to terms and conditions.