Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
The EULA is written like a license, but the transaction doesn't act like one.
In the US, the biggest difference between a license and a sale is time: licenses are temporary; sales are permanent. If the customer gets to keep it forever, it's very very hard to prove in court that it was a "license." Also, the site says "ready to buy? Add to cart" not "ready to license?"--that (1) leans towards it legally being a purchase and (2) leans toward *deliberate fraud* if they want to claim it's legally a license.
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Interesting. Good point.
However, I think that "Ready to buy?" still works for a License, as in, "Ready to buy your license?"
Also, most Software "Licenses" are a lifetime grant (at least in the case of the MS Licenses, whose terms I have gotten a taste of lately). If however, as you state, a License needs to be temporary, these terms are invalid, or at least subject to some discussion. The legal terms for a transfer of ownership of a company are complicated enough already...
I guess, aside from the legal question, I am curious if anyone else agrees with me that there is an ethical and practical issue.
I think that reselling an eBook is generally not appropriate. It robs the author of revenue, and is an extremely difficult transaction to perform considering that the seller must delete all copies, and inform all online merchants holding a copy in the seller's name that they no longer have rights to the download.
Of course, I think reselling a physical book is inappropriate as well. I do not, however, have a problem with giving it away, as this does not usually equate to a lost sale for the author, so there you go. How do we do that with a digital file?
Of course if the Author is Dead, and her poor widower is dead as well, and her children were a bunch of brats who need to learn to make their own damn living, then I can see a good reason to resell, but that's a Copyright issue and a whole different ethical (and sadly legal...) debate.
Also, outside of theory, have any of you actually resold an eBook? If so, how did you handle issues such as DRM, informing original seller, etc?
P.S. I hate rereading my previous posts and noticing the glaring grammar errors and non-sequiturs.