Re-selling DRMed ebooks: Legal or not?

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It is of course the same law, but it applies in the eBook case because the "act" of lending generally involves making a copy.

I'm not sure why you think that lending would require creating multiple copies. You can give someone a file that way, but you certainly don't have to. It's trivial to give someone a file without keeping a copy of it for yourself at the same time.

[HarryT]

You really think so? If you keep backups of your data, you'd have to destroy all backup copies of the file. That could be very far from trivial, especially if your backups are on DVD or off-site.

I agree that it could be done, but I think personally that it's far more likely that someone is simply going to make an illegal copy and give that away, don't you? That's just human nature.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

That's standard copyright law, it has nothing to do with digital vs physical. You can not distribute copies, it doesn't matter if they are physical copies or digital copies.

As Elfwreck says, the medium doesn't matter.

However, this discussion has nothing to do with distributing copies of eBooks. We're talking about selling the original, which should be legal. Again, the medium doesn't matter.

And, assuming your reader doesn't have internet access, you get the book onto your reader HOW? By copying it from your computer?

That's how mine works!

The only way I can see to make an ebook analogous to a pbook would be to deploy some sort of technology that would erase the original once a successful copy operation is accomplished, thus allowing only one copy of the ebook to be in the possession of the buyer. That, by the way, would be doable if the only way to download and load a book onto the reader would be to use the manufacturer’s library software. But then some hacker would find a way to circumvent that and the pirates would be off again!

[wodin]

And as for backups, do you have backup copies of your pbooks?

[tompe]

Originally Posted by wodin

And, assuming your reader doesn't have internet access, you get the book onto your reader HOW? By copying it from your computer?

Well, you can move it to your computer instead (mv in Unix). So you do not have to copy. But this is a technical discussion and they usually have very little to to with how laws work.

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by wodin

And as for backups, do you have backup copies of your pbooks?

I might be wrong, but I believe e-retailers such as FW recommend it .... they can't guarantee to store them for you....

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by wodin

And, assuming your reader doesn't have internet access, you get the book onto your reader HOW? By copying it from your computer?

I often download ebooks directly to my Reader; it's common for my only copy to be on my Reader's memory card. (At least, until I get to my home computer and copy it.)

If I plugged my Reader into the computer and saved books from Fictionwise to the memory card, I should be able to sell that memory card.

Whether I've made other copies in the meantime doesn't matter... I'm allowed to photocopy some or all of a book for personal use, and later sell the book. If I keep the photocopy around and re-read it later, that might be a violation (but might not; it's a fuzzy area of the law), but if I destroyed the photocopy later, nobody would question my right to sell the original book.

[rrburton]

There is a difference between what pirates and hackers "can" do and what is actually right which we are discussing here.

It seems that it comes down this - electronic versions are inherently different than paper versions. You can hand your paper version of something to another person. To lend someone your electronic version you must break the copyright rules to do so. Even if your intent is to copy the work to a medium then immediately delete it from it's previous location you have broken the rules by having in your possession momentarily 2 copies when you had only paid for one copy in the first place. The only way around that is to initially obtain the electronic version onto a storage medium and lend your original storage medium which defeats the flexibility of the electronic medium partially.

[GeoffC]

lend someone your electronic version of a book, but if that book is DRM'd it means they cannot read it on their device

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by wodin

And, assuming your reader doesn't have internet access, you get the book onto your reader HOW? By copying it from your computer?

Mount the reader or the SD card as an external drive and "save as" there instead of on the hard disk

The fact that you can do copies or backup copies does not mean that you can't sell the files. You can make copies and backups of CDs and software, yet you can legally sell the originals too. I guess the law would say that you have to destroy the copies and backups, but whether or not one does so does not affect the legallity of the sell itself.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You really think so? If you keep backups of your data, you'd have to destroy all backup copies of the file. That could be very far from trivial, especially if your backups are on DVD or off-site.

I agree that it could be done, but I think personally that it's far more likely that someone is simply going to make an illegal copy and give that away, don't you? That's just human nature.

So what you're talking about is an assumption that everyone will break the law (nice attitude there), rather than discussing whether or not selling eBooks is inherently illegal. If this discussion is about your opinion of human nature, then I'm not sure why we're talking about it?

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by wodin

The only way I can see to make an ebook analogous to a pbook would be to deploy some sort of technology that would erase the original once a successful copy operation is accomplished

Maybe we should send a suggestion to Microsoft to build something like that into the next version of Windows. I'd recommend calling the command "move" instead of "copy".

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by rrburton

There is a difference between what pirates and hackers "can" do and what is actually right which we are discussing here.

Exactly. In order for something to be done legally does not mean that it has to be impossible to do it illegally. It just means that there is a way to accomplish it within the law. You can certainly transfer an eBook without keeping a copy for yourself. Discussions about "backups", "copy vs move", and "human nature" have nothing to do with whether it's legal to sell eBooks. That's just talking about HOW you would do it, not IF you can do it.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by rrburton

To lend someone your electronic version you must break the copyright rules to do so.

That is not true.

Even if your intent is to copy the work to a medium then immediately delete it from it's previous location you have broken the rules by having in your possession momentarily 2 copies when you had only paid for one copy in the first place.

That is not copyright infringement. If what you said is true, then every time you read an eBook you are breaking the law. In order for the application to display the file to you it has to make a copy of it into memory. Having copies in your possession is not illegal.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Look at the terms and conditions of the site where you bought the books. I believe you'll find that on most - probably all - sites, the books are specifically stated to be "non transferrable" and those are the terms that you agreed to when you bought the books. You cannot, therefore, give them to anybody else.

That's certainly what those sites would like you to think.

But let's suppose you went to the JCPenny site and bought a t-shirt. And on the site, it says that you are the only person that can wear the t-shirt. Do you think for a minute that such a condition means that you can't give or sell the t-shirt to someone else to wear?

Of course it doesn't. If you buy it, you can transfer it. JCPenny cannot "sell" you a t-shirt on the one hand, and keep you from doing whatever you damn well please with it on the other.

And the same thing goes for ebooks or anything else you buy. If you pay for it, and do not agree to return it, you own it, and can do whatever you want to with the specific file you have downloaded. You can't copy it and sell it while retaining the original, because there are specific laws against that. But you can give the original away, or sell it, or delete it, or compress the file, or put it on your Sony even though you bought it at Amazon, if you can figure out how to do it. Not illegal. Not a violation of the contract. Not immoral. Not fattening.

NOW - having said that, please note that the original question was about the situation in Germany, not in America. What I have written above is about the situation in America (except, incidentally, as regards real estate) and probable the same for any country where the legal system is derived from the English legal system.

It is possible that in Germany, the law is different. But nobody who is not familiar with German law is in a position to say one way or another, and I doubt that you are any more familiar with German law than I am, we being good English cousins.