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Originally Posted by riemann42
To return to the OPs question. Can there be a used market for eBooks? I repeat an emphatic No. Any attempt to do so would encourage more DRM.
However, you make a very valid point about Law right now. My suggestion is that we change this law.
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This is not a small, incidental special-law-about-digital-materials. This is one of the foundations of property law: if you own it, you can (re)sell it.
Removing that from digital content would be a
nightmare.
Does it include digital music purchased on CDs? Game programs on CDs, which have to be installed in a computer to be used? Can the discs no longer be resold? If a person rips their disc to MP3 to play on an iPod, are they not permitted to sell the disc later?
How will you tell the difference between a person who has a computer & has ripped the disc, vs one who's only played it on a CD player?
How will you deal with ebooks whose authors/publishers say, "A bit of sharing is okay; don't go overboard?" What law will categorize what kind of sharing that includes?
Why *can't* it be shared with an entire dorm? A single boom box can play music the whole dorm can hear. (Assuming a big box & a small dorm.) Why should text be less legally share-able than music?
What about software--does it become illegal to sell a computer with a proprietary OS loaded on it?
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Digital media ownership grants rights to content.
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Does that mean DVD owners would have the right to download & burn Blu-ray content, if that became possible?
Muchly important to all of this:
How will these laws be enforced, and will violations of them be criminal or civil? What's the crime and penalty for reselling a $5 ebook for $2.50?
Nightmare. What you're proposing is not a simple tweaking of digital legalities; it's a change in the basic nature of property law.
It's possible to get around that, by having *future* digital sales all be licenses instead of sales, in which case they can set their terms. However, in order to do that, they have to fit the legal definition of a "license," which requires more than a EULA that says "you may not resell this." They'd have to tell customers they're only buying usage rights, and define the terms, including how long the license lasts (in the US, it can't be "forever until we change our minds"), and the other terms under which those rights can be revoked.
Some textbook sellers do this now. I have my doubts about it succeeding for mass-market ebooks.