“Sony Developing New DRM to Make Used eBooks Viable”

[hansl]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Trouble is, it really does need to be combined with strong DRM, because otherwise people will just sell their books and keep a copy for themselves anyway.

I think a watermark with accumulating "sold-by" and "bought-by" statements on each sale transaction in the original and the sold copy could be sufficient. The seller would be obliged to remove his copy. The watermark would prevent the seller from selling an ebook twice. Seller and buyer are identifiable. This means whenever authorities get hold of a storage medium of yours with previously sold content, they've gotcha.
Ok, you could strip the watermark from your copy but this requires criminal energy which none of us can imagine. Means which DRM cannot be stripped? Then you have an illegal copy of copyrighted content anyway.
Personally, I think that keeping a copy of a sold ebook which has been read before the sale isn't of much value anyway. It will be forgotten on the shelf. However, publishers probably need to impose a waiting time period until an ebook may be resold in order to avoid a first-sell-then-read avalanche.

[hansl]

Originally Posted by darryl

More seriously, this is trying to apply print book principles to EBooks. An ebook is a computer file, and it is essentially meaningless to talk about it being used.
[snip]
Let's not pretend that ebooks and print books are the same.

The file is not ageing but the content is.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by hansl

I think a watermark with accumulating "sold-by" and "bought-by" statements on each sale transaction in the original and the sold copy could be sufficient. The seller would be obliged to remove his copy. The watermark would prevent the seller from selling an ebook twice. Seller and buyer are identifiable. This means whenever authorities get hold of a storage medium of yours with previously sold content, they've gotcha.

If these records are kept locally, as part of the book file, a simple backup/restore gets around it. The only way to make this work is to require authorization from a remote server when you sell the book - and really, when you open it to read it, too. And we know how committed Sony is to keeping their cloud going for their customers. Why anyone would ever trust them again, I have no idea.

[the.Mtn.Man]

Everybody is missing the forest for the trees here. The real problem is that publishers are still trying to enforce rules of scarcity where it makes zero sense. Talking about a digital file being "used" and therefore somehow less valuable is completely illogical. The first publisher to come up with a common sense business model that doesn't treat digital books like a physical commodity is going to make a fortune and leave everybody else in the dust.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by the.Mtn.Man

Everybody is missing the forest for the trees here. The real problem is that publishers are still trying to enforce rules of scarcity where it makes zero sense. Talking about a digital file being "used" and therefore somehow less valuable is completely illogical. The first publisher to come up with a common sense business model that doesn't treat digital books like a physical commodity is going to make a fortune and leave everybody else in the dust.

Exactly.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by the.Mtn.Man

Everybody is missing the forest for the trees here. The real problem is that publishers are still trying to enforce rules of scarcity where it makes zero sense. Talking about a digital file being "used" and therefore somehow less valuable is completely illogical. The first publisher to come up with a common sense business model that doesn't treat digital books like a physical commodity is going to make a fortune and leave everybody else in the dust.

Not at all. We are neither missing anything nor is it senseless or illogical. We quite simply acknowledge the reality of our system of economic need and incentive. It's the best system anyone has come up with so far, though you are free to try to make a better one.
In our system scarcity is merely one factor we use to determine value, not the only one. In fact we've made laws and treaties specifically to help establish and protect the value of intangibles like intellectual property. Calling the transfer of a license 'selling a used eBook' makes perfect sense, both as a convenient analog to used pbook sales, as as a literal reference to selling your licensed rights after you have used them.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by ApK

Not at all. We are neither missing anything nor is it senseless or illogical. We quite simply acknowledge the reality of our system of economic need and incentive. It's the best system anyone has come up with so far, though you are free to try to make a better one.
In our system scarcity is merely one factor we use to determine value, not the only one. In fact we've made laws and treaties specifically to help establish and protect the value of intangibles like intellectual property. Calling the transfer of a license 'selling a used eBook' makes perfect sense, both as a convenient analog to used pbook sales, as as a literal reference to selling your licensed rights after you have used them.

The problem as I see it can be neatly summed up in a single question. Why would anyone "buy" a "new" ebook when they could get a "used" ebook of identical quality for a lower price?

[latepaul]

Originally Posted by darryl

The problem as I see it can be neatly summed up in a single question. Why would anyone "buy" a "new" ebook when they could get a "used" ebook of identical quality for a lower price?

That argument works both ways, i.e.

Why would I sell my "used" ebook at a lower price when it's identical to a new one?

[darryl]

Originally Posted by latepaul

That argument works both ways, i.e.

Why would I sell my "used" ebook at a lower price when it's identical to a new one?

You're question is correct. Why would you? But the argument doesn't work both ways. Only one way. "New" and "Used" ebooks are identical. As there is no deterioration in quality, you would be competing directly with the seller of "new" ebooks. This is why I think this concept is essentially a nonsense when applied to ebooks.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by darryl

The problem as I see it can be neatly summed up in a single question. Why would anyone "buy" a "new" ebook when they could get a "used" ebook of identical quality for a lower price?

Because if no one buys new, then there is no used to be had. It could be the same reasons some people buy new hardbacks rather than wait for cheaper versions. They want to read it sooner.
Maybe publishers will start to include some new value-adds for "new" buyers.

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by ApK

Because if no one buys new, then there is no used to be had. It could be the same reasons some people buy new hardbacks rather than wait for cheaper versions. They want to read it sooner.
Maybe publishers will start to include some new value-adds for "new" buyers.

True. It's the same market Baen covers with their $15,= e-ARCs. You get it early (six months before HC/normal ebook release), but you pay almost double for it.

Still, it works; I grab every David Weber e-ARC they bring out :-)

[darryl]

Originally Posted by ApK

Because if no one buys new, then there is no used to be had. It could be the same reasons some people buy new hardbacks rather than wait for cheaper versions. They want to read it sooner.
Maybe publishers will start to include some new value-adds for "new" buyers.

But the market would very quickly reach a point where there would be no sales of "new" ebooks. I'm not saying it is not possible to create a so-called used market for ebooks. It is just very foreign to the basic concept of electronic files, and would be very highly contrived. I really don't think it would be worth the trouble, and it really would take a lot of thought to come up with something halfway workable which retailers and publishers would want to be involved in. One thing I can think of is that bookstores or publishers might agree to buy back your electronic files with payment in the form of a credit off a "new" ebook, probably one credit redeemable per book. This would provide a seller with a market for their "used" electronic files without a corresponding buyers market.

Or perhaps the "used" ebooks could be run through a random corruption algorithm prior to sale to simulate wear and tear, spills etc. Yes, I am joking.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by darryl

The problem as I see it can be neatly summed up in a single question. Why would anyone "buy" a "new" ebook when they could get a "used" ebook of identical quality for a lower price?

For one thing, if no one buys new eBooks, there won't be a used eBook market. For many people the price is not the key -- they want the book, or DVD or (whatever) as soon as it comes out. Others are willing to wait -- or, perhaps, to buy a used book they just discovered for the first time. When I go to Amazon for an MP3 album, I'll often find that the used CD is much cheaper and buy and rip that CD myself.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by darryl

But the market would very quickly reach a point where there would be no sales of "new" ebooks.

If you mean new sales of any one particular book might slow to halt sooner than they otherwise would, it's certainly possible. But I posited earlier (maybe in another thread, I can't recall) that perhaps it would be offset by the generation of MORE sales during the shortened period because the possibilty of recouping some cost in the used market may attract buyers who would otherwise have waited for a reduced price or a library copy or other non-purchase option.

I'm not saying it is not possible to create a so-called used market for ebooks. It is just very foreign to the basic concept of electronic files, and would be very highly contrived. I really don't think it would be worth the trouble, and it really would take a lot of thought to come up with something halfway workable which retailers and publishers would want to be involved in. One thing I can think of is that bookstores or publishers might agree to buy back your electronic files with payment in the form of a credit off a "new" ebook, probably one credit redeemable per book. This would provide a seller with a market for their "used" electronic files without a corresponding buyers market.

I agree, except that I think it could be worth the trouble, not only in and of itself, but as a step toward changing markets and systems in a potentially better, more innovative and adaptable, direction

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by susan_cassidy

It seems odd that Sony would get re-involved in ebooks after stopping making ereaders and closing their bookstore.

It's a different part of Sony, one which develops tech but doesn't actually sell to consumers.