Quote:
Originally Posted by scveteran
I could agree with your argument about being able to sell or loan out the ebook on one simple condition. That there is a system in place that ensures that only one ebook reader at a time has that ebook available to be used. This would also require that no one would be able to make a copy of the file. It is strictly transferred from one reader to another. So when you loan it out, you can't access it. When you sell it, it is gone from you forever.
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Barnes & Noble has this tech--their loaning ability could just as easily be giveaway-permanently ability. It's as effective at preventing unauthorized copies as any other form of DRM.
But they didn't make it usable the same way physical book loans are, and they didn't make it able to be permanent, and they allowed publishers to refuse to participate.
The technology to transfer ownership of ebooks without allowing unauthorized copies exists; publishers are refusing to allow customers to exercise their rights.
re: criminal penalties--
Quote:
Originally Posted by Iphinome
[Citation Need]
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Copyright Infringement—Penalties—17 U.S.C. § 506(a) and 18 U.S.C § 2319
Up to 5 years, $250,000, for "the reproduction or distribution, during any 180-day period, of at least 10 copies or phonorecords, of 1 or more copyrighted works, with a retail value of more than $2,500."
Hm. Which seems to mean that copies of Harry Potter ebooks aren't prosecutable by this law, because they have no retail value--they aren't on the market at all. All a person would have to do to avoid this law is make sure their distributions stayed under $2500 retail value in a 6-month period. If they're distributing content that isn't purchasable, this law may not apply at all. (Books that aren't commercially available as ebooks; comics/manga; digital conversions of out-of-print albums.) Even distributing songs--you'd have to prove an awful lot of distributions to hit $2500 worth of copies at $.99 each.