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Originally Posted by zacheryjensen
No, it's not a loss of a sale. Period.
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Of course it's a "loss of a sale." If I buy a used copy of a book, I'm highly unlikely to re-purchase it as new.
Selling and buying used books is unquestionably a legal act, but the author is still not receiving royalties from that sale. It's not "theft" (which I don't think was Crowl's point anyway), it's not infringement, and it's not a one-to-one loss (the psychology of pricing is far more complex than that). I might even buy a new copy of a different book by that author at some point. But there is little doubt that the publisher loses part of a sale, and the author does not receive royalties, when used books change hands.
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Originally Posted by zacheryjensen
It's impossible to even read an eBook without making at least one copy. That's one copy beyond the one you paid for. The fact that the data in that eBook is copied over the internet hundreds of times–literally–before it reaches your device or computer....
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So what?
Once I purchase a digital file, I have the right to make copies -- for
personal use only. I can keep a copy on my Kindle, my iPhone, my computer, and dozens of copies in backups. All of this is perfectly legal.
However, you are not allowed to make a copy of the digital file and redistribute it to millions of your bestest Internet buddies whose names you don't even know.
While I concur that some aspects of current copyright law are less than ideal (specifically, copyright terms in the US and many countries are too long), the general concept still applies. More importantly, while it is correct that as end-users often lose some abilities and conveniences in the digital realm (e.g. transfer of ownership), you gain others (the ability to back up your purchases, and relocate them to a safe location; the ability to view content on multiple devices).
The goal of copyright is to protect the rights of the entities which have put their time and resources into producing and distributing content, without putting end-users into a death grip. Laws in cases like this will
always require a compromise between the rights of the end-user and the rights-holder. If you land too hard on the side of the end user, the producer (e.g. artist, publisher) will suffer; and vice versa. Fortunately, we are already seeing a few inklings of restoring some of these rights; e.g. "loaning ebooks" now has a toe-hold with the Nook, and hopefully this will expand in the future. It may well be possible that a company like Amazon, whose DRM system relies on an Internet-connected database and has the ability to remove copies from some of your devices, will initiate a "used ebook" market some day -- possibly one that even gives the rights-holders a cut of that sale. (I don't have high expectations for this, but it's technically feasible, and Amazon has crossed swords with publishers on used books.)
It's also possible that ebooks will largely go DRM-free at some point, but even so I don't know of a legitimate way to actually "register" a used sale -- i.e. any such action would rely on an honor code, where you give me the $5, I give you the file, and then permanently delete it and all my backup copies. The mere fact that I can put those backups on a static container like a CD, though, pretty much quashes that as a legit ability.
And, last but not least, I'd say the loss of the ability to resell a used book is a justification for a lower price for ebooks (more than the 12% or so by eschewing the production of physical copies).
As such, while copyright law can use some improvements, and things would be better if certain abilities can be restored to the end-users, I'm not about to scream bloody murder because I've lost the right to re-sell a used ebook.