Secondhand ebooks?

[spindlegirl]

Originally Posted by The Terminator

Actually that's not true, you can not totally delete a book from Kobo. When you delete the book from your library it goes into your purchase history. And you can re add it to your library.

I think not being able to sell an eBook after you've read it is a small price to pay for all of their other features.

I just went into my kobo account and deleted a book, "Homespun Bride" (because I was able to obtain a DRM-free epub from the recent Harlequin freebie in the freebie thread).

When you FIRST delete a book from your library ("I'm Reading"), it goes into "Purchased". Then you go into "Purchased", hit delete, and it goes into "Trash", Then you go into "Trash", and hit "delete forever" Then it disappears from every section of "My Library". forever.

It is a 3 step process, but I guess they want to make sure a person doesn't accidentally delete a book they really want to keep.

[JoeD]

Originally Posted by Pismire

Out of curiosity: say I am on a train, happily reading my book. Someone next to me glances over and reads part of it. Am I committing a crime here, by not successfully protecting the book, therefor making its content available to others? Is he committing a crime by trying to read my book without having payed for it?

Just don't read it out aloud... public performance rights and all that

Although not quite as daft as everyone been able to listen to the same radio station on their own "private" radio at work (including customers) without paying anything, but if you get rid of the hundreds of duplicate radios/headphones and use one, you're violating performance laws and have to pay £100's for a license... Makes perfect sense.

Especially when you consider that radio stations are either already paid for via the tv license fee or are ad supported, in which case the more ears it reaches, the better.

But I digress.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No. You're not making a copy of the book, hence copyright law doesn't get involved.

What if they are taking a picture of you reading?

[danskmacabre]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

What that sounds like is me simply moving my bookshelf from my room to my front yard and placing a sign that says read what you will.

Not really unless you photocopy your books many times and stick them out on a shelf outside.

You might say that with physical books only one person can read a book at a time, but it is definitely possible for one to hold the book and another to read over that person's shoulder.

Possible, but very impractical, very uncomfortable for the person reading over the shoulder and you'd both have to read at the same rate or one would have to wait for the other to catch up.
Whatever the case I personally hate people reading over my shoulder... *ugh* gives me the chills.

Also handing out copies doesn't require being in the same physical location to read the book.

I am of course simply making a weird analogy, as you have just done.

You are, but I was pointing out that copying and distributing books for all (apart from the exceptions I stated) is illegal.
I made a specific point of copyrighted material, much of what we buy out there IS copyrighted.

Getting back to the reality, If I host my ebooks on a personal server and allow browser based cloud access to them, but for only one user at a time, would that be allright??

Not being an expert on copyright law, I can't accurately, absolutely answer that question.
I'm guessing you probably wouldn't be allowed to (personal use only or something with ebooks?), but maybe someone else can answer that question properly.
A very interesting idea tho.
How would you secure it so people can't just take copies of all your books? If you allowed browser based access to the books it would be easy to rip.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by danskmacabre

How would you secure it so people can't just take copies of all your books? If you allowed browser based access to the books it would be easy to rip.

Why would I need to secure my browser based ebook server? I simply could state that only one person is allowed access to a book at a time, the burden of whether or not to infringe would be on the user.

Taking this one step further, the site would be a conglomeration of multiple users who each share their ebook libraries under the same stipulations as above.

You might say this would instantly make all books available to everyone without needing to copy a single one, and you would be right. But what does this mean for the future of copyright and artistic creation?

[danskmacabre]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

Why would I need to secure my browser based ebook server? I simply could state that only one person is allowed access to a book at a time, the burden of whether or not to infringe would be on the user.

Taking this one step further, the site would be a conglomeration of multiple users who each share their ebook libraries under the same stipulations as above.

You might say this would instantly make all books available to everyone without needing to copy a single one, and you would be right. But what does this mean for the future of copyright and artistic creation?

It's a very nice "Ideal world" idea, I suspect that in practice you will get in legal hot water, but like I said I'm not an expert on these subjects so I really don't know the legality of that.

Why don't you try it out as an idea to implement? I think you should do your homework first before putting your ebooks online though and I think there will be complications.
I'm pretty sure the big publishers will be after you if you did, but I will be pleasantly surprised if they don't.

[danskmacabre]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

and you would be right. But what does this mean for the future of copyright and artistic creation?

Who knows, but there are already charity type shops over here in the UK where you can give pbooks to and they give them away to anyone coming in to take what they want.
They do have a donation box to keep the place running but it's not mandatory to donate money.

This is not worlds away from your idea with ebooks.

[Cpl Punishment]

Originally Posted by plib

I'm awed by, and bow my head to, the depth, persuasiveness and rhetorical brilliance of your argument.

[Pinecone]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

You are not supposed to have copies on any of those drives.

Fair use allows copies for back up.

And I have Sony x50 readers. So all books are sideloaded. Which requires that I download onto my computer, then load them on the read. The Sony software does this. So I always have a minimum of 2 copies.

I travel a lot internationally, so I carry a spare reader (main is 650, spare is 350). So I ahve the same books on both. Still legal.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Pinecone

Fair use allows copies for back up.

And I have Sony x50 readers. So all books are sideloaded. Which requires that I download onto my computer, then load them on the read. The Sony software does this. So I always have a minimum of 2 copies.

I travel a lot internationally, so I carry a spare reader (main is 650, spare is 350). So I ahve the same books on both. Still legal.

Do the books you have come with something like this:

Originally Posted by Miss

"No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retreival system...by any means - electronic...or otherwise - without the prior written permission of the publisher."

[HomeInMyShoes]

Originally Posted by Pinecone

Fair use allows copies for back up.

Not in my country anymore.

[spindlegirl]

Well, as for me, my conclusion to whether or not e-books can ever be "sold secondhand" is that for relevance to my overall life, it doesn't really matter.

I was just downtown today and went to my library and lo and behold, they had a discard sale. "Stuff a bag for a dollar". Either cloth or plastic or whatever, as long as it was a grocery bag and you could really pack the books in. I got 2 books that my in-laws liked, 3 that my daughter liked, 1 that my son liked and 2 that I liked. I *could have* crammed in a few more but it was a plastic bag and i didn't want to carry more. There were very recent titles by Lee Child, Sue Grafton, Stephen King, some I have seen on recent NYT lists.

All in good shape, and I was able to give them to people I knew liked them.

With the exception of a few that I have bought brand new over the past 20 years, most of my books are Library discards, hardcover, in VERY good shape, discarded only because they had the "number of loans" and had to rebuy the books I presume.

When they have a "Stuff a microsd card" sale for $1 on Ebooks, then, DRM or no, I'll think about it

[plib]

Originally Posted by The Terminator

Actually that's not true, you can not totally delete a book from Kobo. When you delete the book from your library it goes into your purchase history. And you can re add it to your library.

I think not being able to sell an eBook after you've read it is a small price to pay for all of their other features.

Spindlegirl appears to have addressed the deletion question. As for other ebook features being worth the surrender of ownership rights I disagree. There is nothing they offer that it worth what amounts to a rewrite of the law and a surrender of long existent ownership rights or even, if you live in places like the US with restrictions on DRM removal, fair use rights. That is the first step on a long slippery slope that I want no part of, although the content owners would of course love it.

[Lynx-lynx]

Originally Posted by spindlegirl

I just went into my kobo account and deleted a book, "Homespun Bride" (because I was able to obtain a DRM-free epub from the recent Harlequin freebie in the freebie thread).

When you FIRST delete a book from your library ("I'm Reading"), it goes into "Purchased". Then you go into "Purchased", hit delete, and it goes into "Trash", Then you go into "Trash", and hit "delete forever" Then it disappears from every section of "My Library". forever.

It is a 3 step process, but I guess they want to make sure a person doesn't accidentally delete a book they really want to keep.

Yep - same process for me using my Kobo Aus account.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by Miss

Okay, I know there technically isn't any such thing. But say someone purchased an ebook, read it, and then wasn't planning to again. Would it be legal to send it to another person and then delete all your own copies and backups of it? Are such things done at all?

Enlighten me, please.

Ethically or morally, that's fine. BUT legally, it isn't. The book is registered to your account, so you technically still own it, and could theoretically redownload it. If you could transfer the registration to your friend, then it would all be kosher (especially because then you wouldn't be stripping DRM, which may or may not be legal where you live).