Ebook Reselling -Yea or Nay-

[Economic Genius]

[QUOTE=Giggleton;1441666]Greetings,

I've been thinking about first sale rights of ebooks lately.

Laws are written to serve us, when they no longer do, it is time to discard those laws.

To make a long story short, do you think it's ok for someone, to resell ebooks they've purchased to another, as long as the sale deletes the original copy from the sellers device?

[/QUOTE
Giggleton, I agree wholeheartedly this is what my business is based on

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

To make a long story short, do you think it's ok for someone, to resell ebooks they've purchased to another, as long as the sale deletes the original copy from the sellers device?

Personally, under the terms you state, I see nothing wrong with it.

But what I don't see is how a secondary market in ebooks wouldn't destroy the primary market. I think that this hasn't happened in the physical book markets because the inefficiencies of distribution prevent it. Those inefficiencies are practically eliminated in the digital world.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Being written isn't the problem... it's making sure that the truly great ones have the best chance of finding their way into my hands. I'm not interested in an unfiltered, free-for-all, publisher-less book world -- at all.

I like filters too, if you buy a book on Amazon you become a filter for others. I'm not too sure about the efficiency of Amazon's relevancy algorithms and to be honest I prefer the human touch.

Actually, the filtering will be the most important part in the new era.

[wyndslash]

Unfortunately, most reviewers tend to review based on how much they liked it and only that. I was going to get an ebook by an indie author since the reviews were good, but on goodreads I saw a reviewer who said that it was FULL of grammar errors and that killed it for me. Strangely enough, none of the other reviewers had mentioned it.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by wyndslash

Unfortunately, most reviewers tend to review based on how much they liked it and only that. I was going to get an ebook by an indie author since the reviews were good, but on goodreads I saw a reviewer who said that it was FULL of grammar errors and that killed it for me. Strangely enough, none of the other reviewers had mentioned it.

In that situation I would ask the author for a review copy and then send them back a version with the corrected grammar. Unfortunately the Kindle software does not have an easy method for this, but I assume it is being worked on.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by wyndslash

Unfortunately, most reviewers tend to review based on how much they liked it and only that. I was going to get an ebook by an indie author since the reviews were good, but on goodreads I saw a reviewer who said that it was FULL of grammar errors and that killed it for me. Strangely enough, none of the other reviewers had mentioned it.

Beware of such critiques from a single source. The reviewer that may have an axe to grind or maybe the book hit a pet peeve once or twice and became "FULL" of errors - it happens.

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

anyone who supports reselling must support DRM.

Exactly. On a large scale, that is the only logical conclusion I can see, unless part of the plan is to destroy the market for people writing new books.

Sure, there's a rationale for being able to sell "used" ebooks, but it only works if there's a mechanism for ensuring that the seller doesn't retain a copy. Selling a copy while keeping a copy sure looks like a violation of copyright to me.

Some people will be honest, of course. I trust my readers enough to sell books without DRM. But part of that trust includes a social contract that they're not going to turn around and screw me by selling duplicates of my books to others.

[smurfymom]

I used to sell and also trade books after I read them. Now with ebooks I cant do that. It is stupid. If we cant be allowed to trade or sell them then they should be cheaper.

[pdurrant]

I'm torn on this one.

So long as the retailer continues to provides on-line access to copies of the purchased ebook that can be re-downloaded at any time, I don't see how it can be possible to sell on an ebook.

And yet, on the related question of whether an ebook can be inherited, I'm firmly on the side that says, "Of course ebooks can be inherited".

I'm not sure what the eventual outcome will be, but at the moment the publishers are certainly trying to have their cake and eat it too; they want to forbid reselling of ebooks, and no doubt inheritance of ebooks too. But they still want to charge as much as for paper books.

I suspect it will eventually require specific legislation, and it'll probably happen with music first.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

It's a nice thought, but there's no legal infrastructure for it. All of our legal rights involving nonphysical things require pretending they're physical in some way. Some scholars suggest this is a limitation of the human brain & our communication patterns--we need metaphors that relate to the physical world.

That's the wonderful thing about the legal system: When life changes, laws can be rewritten to suit. And the present metaphors being used, which were essentially inherited from other uses, can always be replaced with new metaphors that make more sense in the present context.

It just means taking the time to develop those metaphors, and the laws around them, instead of lazily jury-rigging laws that don't really work. That's something that the digital industry has needed to do, and has avoided doing, for far too long, and which has been the direct cause of many of the digital battlegrounds we've witnessed since the first piece of software was copied and shared on a floppy disk.

Originally Posted by starrigger

But part of that trust includes a social contract that they're not going to turn around and screw me by selling duplicates of my books to others.

Thanks, Jeffrey, for mentioning the Social Contract; the concept that seems to have been tossed by the consumers of digital content, and which needs to be reinstated before it's too late.

[MartinC]

Originally Posted by wayrad

I don't see anything ethically wrong with selling a "used" ebook, but what would be the point? My used paperbacks never fetched much, and my main motivation in selling them was to clear out space for new ones.

Absolutely. And in fact I normally give them to a charity shop. So if we give our unwanted ebooks away, does that make us... um... pirates?

[HansTWN]

What charity shop would accept your donation of ebooks, given the current state of affairs?

There are two problems with reselling ebooks. No reliable system exists yet to prevent the seller from having access to the original. And ebooks remain in "as new" condition for ever. This is different from software, who would still want to buy a copy of Windows 95?

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

There are two problems with reselling ebooks. No reliable system exists yet to prevent the seller from having access to the original. And ebooks remain in "as new" condition for ever. This is different from software, who would still want to buy a copy of Windows 95?

Win95 was atrocious. So were several of its followups. Plenty of people still want to buy WinXP, even though it's no longer supported.

No reliable system prevents the seller of a pbook from having a copy of that, either; it's just been the case that so far, those copies were lower-quality enough to be assumed to be a disincentive for copying and reselling for most people.

Insisting on different rules for digital purchases than physical ones will take, among other things, publishers & stores being willing to spell out the terms of the license, as opposed to sale. Sales are simple: you buy it, you own it; what you can do with it is defined by plenty of laws. Licenses are different for each license; there are no assumptions--and no limitations except as spelled out in the license itself.

"Breach of contract" by violating the license is not the same as a crime. Reselling one's Fictionwise purchases may be against their TOS, but if no copies are made for the sale, copyright infringement may not come into play. (If, for example, someone buys ebooks & downloads them to a memory card, and later sells the card, without making any extra copies.)

As much as I'd like to advocate for a system like the B&N or Kindle's loaning feature that allows for complete transfer of ownership, I'm convinced that anything based on current DRM models is doomed to failure; there's just too much incentive to crack them just to retain access if you don't have an interest in transferring ownership.

Perhaps resale is not socially/economically feasible, but giving them away should be possible, because without the ability to share ebooks with friends, they're *never* going to become the dominant form of literature. Nobody got to love books by buying them full-price, or even only by reading them at libraries. Kids aren't going to become devoted ebook readers by limiting themselves to what their parents agree to put on their credit cards.

This is a problem that *must* be solved. The current "solution" is "secondhand ebooks" (and music, and movies) "are on quasi-legal to illegal download sites," which, as much as it disturbs publishers, is likely a very stable arrangement.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

This is a problem that *must* be solved. The current "solution" is "secondhand ebooks" (and music, and movies) "are on quasi-legal to illegal download sites," which, as much as it disturbs publishers, is likely a very stable arrangement.

Nothing is very stable when it comes to electronics unfortunately.

The nightmare is the creation of an actual darknet, setup orwellian style with access completely controlled. Will we allow our government to shut down our network and replace it with one whose specifications are dictated by the same conglomerates that are responsible for our current copyright legislation??

The torrent traders are not the pirates here, the pirates are those who rape the earth and humanity in the name of profit.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

The torrent traders are not the pirates here, the pirates are those who rape the earth and humanity in the name of profit.

So torrent down loaders have no personal gain? They get free books, they rape the earth and humanity to save a few bucks, for personal profit. At least those in Somalia do it to avoid starving to death.