Loaning and exchanging e-books - is this legal?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Elsi

Hence my observation that it's safe to lend an eBook by lending the device with the eBook loaded onto it. (Consider the Algonquin Hotel lending Kindles to its guests.) I believe that would be considered legal in any court. I also believe it would be acceptable to the EULAs from various sellers.

Bring along a USB cable, a laptop, kindlepid.py and mobededrm.py and have a field day downloading Kindle eBooks, removing the DRM and walking away with them. The only way this could be prevented is if only Topaz format eBooks were loaded.

[Andurian]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Bring along a USB cable, a laptop, kindlepid.py and mobededrm.py and have a field day downloading Kindle eBooks, removing the DRM and walking away with them. The only way this could be prevented is if only Topaz format eBooks were loaded.

A similar story could be told - "Bring an accomplice to distract a store's loss prevention people, a coat with big pockets and have a field day walking away with MP3 players."

If people want to break the law and steal stuff, they will.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by moz

So where Fictionwise say "this book is licensed exclusively to you" they actually mean "to the specific device you happen to own right now"? What about people like me that don't own a device?

You must own a device! How else are you reading electronic media? A computer is a device.

Dale

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Do you routinely sell your books after you read them? What percentage of the price of the original do you typically get by doing so?

I routinely trade them for other books of equivalent value, or sometimes for other goods or services. (Minor housecleaning. Childcare for an afternoon. Not a business arrangement, but casual favors between friends.)

However, the right to resell an item is inherent in the purchasing (or other legal acquisition) thereof; the courts have upheld both the right to resell software & the right to sell free promotional CDs. The right to resell copyrighted material--the First Sale Doctrine--was established in 1908:

...copyright statutes, while protecting the owner of the copyright in his right to multiply and sell his production, do not create the right to impose, by notice, such as is disclosed in this case, a limitation at which the book shall be sold at retail by future purchasers...

The judge in Vernor v Autodesk pointed out that calling a sale a "lease" doesn't make it so--there's a one-time payment, and no intention to reclaim the property at the end of use, and various other features that go with a "sale" rather than a "usage license."

It doesn't matter how many or how few people care to resell their used book, e or otherwise. The law allows them to be resold, and restricting that right goes far beyond the sales monopoly that copyright allows.

[moz]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

You must own a device! How else are you reading electronic media? A computer is a device.

What I'm finding is that I don't like reading off LCDs so I'm not reading much, as I've also developed a distaste for deadwood. Until I buy a new liseuse I don't have a device for reading ebooks.

Long answer: That's a question that copyright people are better off not asking. In hardware I read stuff on a desktop pc or a laptop. In software I have either VMware for Windows (on the laptop) or for Linux (on the desktop) running on the relevant operating system. Then I have an application view virtual machine running Windows XP that in turn runs the reader application. So it is "the same" virtual machine in both cases, but depending on how you look at it it's either a copy of the VM or a clone. Either way, I have a completely separate VM with an activated copy of Microsoft's reader and the relevant tools to make DRM-infested lit files readable. I expect that when I have to deal with other DRM formats I'll do the same for them.