[Dave W]

I've been reading all the copyright threads and the ones about the Amazon/Kindle fiasco. There has been a lot of back and forth about what you really buy when you buy an eBook. One poster said that you only buy a license and don't really own the book. I strongly disagree with that unless there is a license that you must read and agree to with each book you purchase that is similar to what you do when installing software. I believe that what should be the case, if it is not, is that my ebook purchase should be exactly like a paper book purchase. That is, when I am through with it, I can lend or give it to a friend to read. I can even sell it at a flea market or give it to my local library. The technology is there to prevent me from making copies of my book to distribute to multiple friends at the same time. There should be only one copy of my book circulating at any given time. That's the way paper works.

Now let me tell everyone why that is my wish if not a reality. As ebook readers become more popular, I may want to give books as gifts to friends and relatives at Christmas or other occasions. I think that gift certificates are tacky. I want to gift the real thing. With a paper book, I buy one over the internet or a local book store, take it home, wrap it, then give it. Why can't I do likewise with an ebook? I own a Sony 600 reader which accepts memory cards. Why can't a publisher sell a card with a book or series of books burned into the flash memory? I envision this packaged similarly to paper books with the cover artwork on the package and including the infomational text that is usually on the cover or paper jacket of the book. The flash memory would be protected in a way that prevents it from being copied. Of course, hackers could probably defeat the protection, but then paper books can also be copied or scanned. So the paper vs ebook analogy still stands.

Do others on this site have similar thoughts? As with music, I suppose that the publishers see more profit if they force everyone who wants to read a book to buy it themselves. However, with the right marketing stategy, I'm not sure that's true. In the early days of video games (think Atari), the more protection applied to a game cartridge, the quicker it appeared on the hacker websites. The pirates wanted the bragging rights of having cracked the codes. Also, in the days of vinyl records and cassette tapes, it was easy to copy music, but most people perferred to have an original copy just to get the album cover. So, I'm not at all convinced that restrictive use of ebooks is the best policy. In any case, I'd really like to be able to buy ebooks the same way that I can paper books.

Dave W