Secondhand ebooks?

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You are clearly the exception, Tommy. I've bought probably 100+ second-hand books from Amazon over the years. Never have I received one that anyone could have mistaken for a new book.

But these cases can happen so is it OK for me to give or sell the new paper book to a friend? If so then your argument about the difference in circumstances between selling ebooks and paper books are irrelevant for the discussion.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by HarryT

But those aesthetics matter to a great many people. I have dozens of second-hand books for sale on Amazon, and they sometimes take months to sell, despite being much cheaper than the new book. I conclude from this that the majority of the book-buying (or the Amazon book-buying, at least) customers prefer to spend the extra for the new book. That effect would not exist for ebooks; there would be no reason to prefer a new book to a second-hand one, because the two would be indistinguishable from one another.

When I started reading books I was reading the books that my parents and my grandparents had bought. I also read books from the library. I don't need the books to be virgins.

What if the second hand ebooks couldn't be sold through the normal distributors? What if it would be something like going to a second hand brick and mortar store and buying/selling a microsd card with a book on it?

[tompe]

Originally Posted by covingtoncat73

Yeah, you have a good point. eBooks don't get "worn," I guess. I wonder how long the ePub and Kindle format will last, from an archival standpoint.

Anyway, I have been the happy recipient of $1 (plus shipping, so $5), slightly worn hardcovers from Amazon Marketplace. I don't see how there could be such a thing as a "used" eBook, that is true, but I do think their prices should be lower.

But "used" is not a requirement for a paper book to be second hand. So it seems to me to be an irrelevant argument.

[QuantumIguana]

That a used paper book might be "good as new" is irrelevant. You can do whatever you want with your used paper book: read it, loan it out, sell it, make hats out of it. One thing you can't do with it is make a copy of it. You can't sell your copy of an e-book without making a copy of it.

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

That a used paper book might be "good as new" is irrelevant. You can do whatever you want with your used paper book: read it, loan it out, sell it, make hats out of it. One thing you can't do with it is make a copy of it. You can't sell your copy of an e-book without making a copy of it.

That's about what I was going to say. When you resell a paper book, you are selling the only copy (unless you spent time making a photocopy which would likely cost more than the original). When you resell an e-book, you are making copies of it. Even if you are going to erase the original (or just say that), you still have made a copy of it. So you are not selling your one and only copy and you still have access to it for as long as you like.

Selling a paper book does not rely on the honesty of the seller (much), selling an e-book would rely on that completely and is not something that the publishers or authors should be expected to accept.

If a way is made to ensure that there are not duplicate copies after an e-book is resold, then that should change things. But, at least with current technology, would anyone accept such a solution? The only way I can see this happening with current tech would be to have a 3rd party (or the original retailer) have some form of access key that could be passed to the new owner. Hmmmm, kinda sounds like DRM to me... Plus it wouldn't then be able to be sold by me to my neighbor without getting Amazon involved.

[Cpl Punishment]

Originally Posted by AndrewH

It must be nice living in a world of such absolutes.

Much simpler.......You have a middle ground to having integrity...?? That was rhetorical...of course you do...

[GreenMonkey]

Originally Posted by HarryT

But those aesthetics matter to a great many people. I have dozens of second-hand books for sale on Amazon, and they sometimes take months to sell, despite being much cheaper than the new book. I conclude from this that the majority of the book-buying (or the Amazon book-buying, at least) customers prefer to spend the extra for the new book. That effect would not exist for ebooks; there would be no reason to prefer a new book to a second-hand one, because the two would be indistinguishable from one another.

I sell books on Amazon too, and the biggest problem there is $.99 books from the big resellers on Amazon (honestly I'm not sure how they even make money on those..even if they make a bit on the shipping).

Anything posted at the minimum sale price tends to go pretty fast.

[DuskyRose]

Originally Posted by GreenMonkey

I sell books on Amazon too, and the biggest problem there is $.99 books from the big resellers on Amazon (honestly I'm not sure how they even make money on those..even if they make a bit on the shipping).

Anything posted at the minimum sale price tends to go pretty fast.

In the US, I know more people who trade their used books on web sites than go to Amazon or Ebay to buy them. The site I use has facilitated the trades of over 13,000,000 books since opening, at the cost of media mail or below.

I think those are a bigger competitor for used book sales than any of the other venues.

As to used ebooks, I just don't see there being such a thing. When trading or buying used books, I've gotten some that were like new, and some where I would clearly be the last owner. Eventually, the MMPB's will fall apart and disapear, taking themselves out of the game.

But ebooks don't suffer age like physical books do. I feel like they'll always be new, whether someone else owned the file or not.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

That a used paper book might be "good as new" is irrelevant. You can do whatever you want with your used paper book: read it, loan it out, sell it, make hats out of it. One thing you can't do with it is make a copy of it. You can't sell your copy of an e-book without making a copy of it.

Yes you can, simply sell time share access to your personal cloud server collection of ebooks. That way you don't need to make any extra copies of your ebooks...

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

Yes you can, simply sell time share access to your personal cloud server collection of ebooks. That way you don't need to make any extra copies of your ebooks...

Somebody has to make a copy or how could they read them on their reader or computer. If you open a web page you have a copy of that web page on your device.

Are you imagining that the book would be automatically be deleted from your cloud server when someone accessed it? Perhaps never to be seen again? Would that even be acceptable to you?

Why would anyone pay for a pirated book anyway, although I know some do. More importantly, why would you be selling access to books you do not own, when you have always contended they should be free.

Get a grip on your integrity man!

Helen

[tompe]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Somebody has to make a copy or how could they read them on their reader or computer. If you open a web page you have a copy of that web page on your device.

Legally that is not considered to be a copy.

[DarkScribe]

Originally Posted by tompe

Legally that is not considered to be a copy.

It is a copy, and legally so, but not thought of as such by most people. Software exists that allows anything stored in the cache to be retrieved - music, images, video etc. If I can recover that cached copy and load it into another application, perhaps give or sell it to another person I doubt that any court would agree that it was not an il/legal copy.

One of the useful things about Safari (discussed in another thread) is that from its main menu you can access/intercept those cached copies even if they are "non-downloadable" as is the case with protected Flickr images.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by DarkScribe

It is a copy, and legally so, but not thought of as such by most people. Software exists that allows anything stored in the cache to be retrieved - music, images, video etc. If I can recover that cached copy and load it into another application, perhaps give or sell it to another person I doubt that any court would agree that it was not an il/legal copy.

You "doubt"? Do you know what you are talking about or are you guessing?

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by tompe

Legally that is not considered to be a copy.

It is not considered to be illegal to open a webpage made available, but how can it not be legally considered to be a copy?

Helen

[tompe]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

It is not considered to be illegal to open a webpage made available, but how can it not be legally considered to be a copy?

Helen

Because if it was considered to be a copy it might be illegal to open a web page.