Can I sell my K3 with my ill gotten books?

[greencat]

To the OP - probably not a good idea as it would be naughty and you could even get into trouble (particularly if you sold it to a copyright lawyer or author of one of the books on the Kindle).

I expect lots of people try it though. Certainly I see plenty of second hand computers for sale that are "pre-loaded" with expensive software which can be removed at the owner's discretion. Occasionally see the same for MP3 players too.

Not every seller knows it is wrong (and not all buyers know how to get hold of the digital material on the item either). There is also a degree of convenience factor too even for experienced downloaders.

I think there's an increasing number of people (especially younger ones) which don't really get the idea of paying for digital stuff and don't see any harm in not doing so either. If everyone you know is doing it, there's no obvious consequences and you aren't even being told it's wrong - it's easy to see how people can miss the lesson.

[wayrad]

Originally Posted by niceboy

I'm just curious in regards to karthwyne's comments... does karthwyne or others think I am doing something illegal or just plain wrong if I buy a second or third or fifth-hand paperback at a used book store? How about if I borrow a book from a library? Do people think my mom is doing something illegal if she lends me a book? What if she lends me a book she bought second hand? Is it wrong if I read a book on the shelf at a bed & breakfast or cottage resort? How about a book or magazine at the hospital?

I don't actually get how public lending libraries fit in with intellectual property rights? I am not pro illegal book piracy but I am just sincerely confused by the different standards that seem to apply to paper books and ebooks. I am wondering if people who think lending an eBook is theft also think borrowing a library book is theft. Do they think it is alright for someone to borrow a novel from the library or use a non-circulating reference book? How exactly is that not theft?

Are the above common practices in regards to paper books theft? Are they legal? Why do they seem to be socially acceptable? In the US are there specific laws that permit libraries to lend books and doctors to let people read magazines in the waiting room and church congregants to share common prayer and song books?

Is it okay for charities to send books to prisoners and soldiers to share among themselves? I just read an interview of a librarian who had worked at the Rikers Island facility... he was saying how best selling crime novels and thrillers were popular among the inmates and that the state was actually mandated to share these books among the prisoners. In the conversation there was no indication that either person thought the state was acting illegally in this.

I am honestly confused by the difference in what it seems people think is appropriate when it comes to eBooks as opposed to paper books and I would love to better understand the difference.

The copyright holder is the only one with legal authority to make and distribute new copies (or authorize anyone else to do so). The OP wanted to violate that right by distributing copies they had created (by downloading them onto their own media or device) without permission of the rightsholder. The examples you cite, on the other hand, don't involve making a copy at all and are provided for (in the USA anyway) under the first sale doctrine, if I understand the matter correctly.

The idea of "lending an ebook" gets different reactions from different people because it is often not clarified whether the lender is keeping a copy. There are a number of other factors that can come into play too, such as the incorporation of (perfectly legal) lending fuctions in at least one recent ereader model.

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

It's theft in my jurisdiction. Although I don't know of any prosecutions, mostly because the people providing the stolen IP aren't located here.

Also, even under federal law, criminal copyright infringement is still criminal, not civil.

The federal act allowing prosecutions for certain types of noncommercial infringment is called the NET Act, with NET standing for "No Electronic Theft."

The Bureau of Justice Statistics categorizes these crimes as "Intellectual Property Theft."

As a practical matter, most IP holders prefer to sue because they can do so easily and don't have to convince prosecutors to take time away from prosecuting murders and rapes to bring thousands of small theft cases. But, legally, in jurisdictions that have adopted most forms of the model penal code, most forms of "software piracy" would could be prosecuted as "theft".

Taht's why, in an international forum like MR, it's better to specify the jurisdiction.
In Italy theft and copyright infringment follow different procedures in the court, and they cannot be confused (they're even investigated by different enforcing agencies)...

So, if you specify "in the USA" whenever you call "theft" the act of downloading digital goods without permission of the copyright holder, a lot of confusion can be avoided.

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

Libraries pay a higher price for their books because it is going to be lent out to multiple people. They have a special type of license that comes with the purchase of the book.

Once again, it's better to specify "in the USA".
In Italy, public librariers get a significant part of their books from donations, and they don't pay nothing at all.
Library cards and book/CD/DVD/VHS borrowing is also completely free of charge.

Please, remember we "rest of the world", if you mind....

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by niceboy

I am honestly confused by the difference in what it seems people think is appropriate when it comes to eBooks as opposed to paper books and I would love to better understand the difference.

Look, last year a bought from a closing bookstore six cardboxes full of paperback books for 100€.
I then sold the books (after reading some of them) separately making almost 250€ out of them.

I've made money from authors' and publishers' effort without them making a single penny and I'm still a good person, even smart.

If i did it with ebooks I'd be Public Enemy #1.....

[niceboy]

Oh... I know that the OP wants to do is totally bogus... so did the OP. The saying goes that if you have to ask if something is okay you can be pretty certain it isn't.

First sale would apply to me selling a book I purchased to a used book store but not to them selling it to anyone else.

My question is why copy right violation (which is not theft or else it would be in the criminal codes as theft and would have put Bill Gates in prison for stealing the Apple OS that Apple had licensed from Bell.) is at the forefront of some people's minds when it comes to digital media but these people are not incensed when second-hand stores and churches sell used books, CDs, video tapes and designer clothing for that matter.

My confusion is over why new formats as opposed to new mediums develop fair practices different from precedent... would it have made much sense for laws and ethics to have been different for paperbacks then for hardcovers?

This is a new printing distribution system for an old media... it is not a new media. I feel that it is write to castigate the ethics of digital piracy but loss of income to authors is a red herring in that no author has lost money to digital piracy and no musician has lost money to digital piracy. Arguably and only arguably publishers and labels might claim to have lost money due to digital piracy but it doesn't hold up. Study after study shows that piracy and even counterfeits expend the market and increase legitimate sales.

Likewise DRM does not seriously impact piracy... the source of most blackmarket eBooks as I understand it is scanning and OCR not DRM cracking.

BTW libraries actually buy books at discount and do not enter formal agreements with copyright holders concern terms of lending.Smaller community libraries depend heavily on donated second-hand books in North America too.

I am not advocating piracy and theft... I am suggesting a more coherent legislation of digital media based on traditional media standards as opposed to software and industrial process standards which are not proper analogous.

The writer Charles Wolforth made a interesting point vis a vis the BP Oil Spill and the pathetic fallacy. He suggests that because corporations have successfully legislated in the United States the rights of individuals without any of the responsibilities or liabilities of individuals that the American public has come to identify with corporations and attribute human motivations to them while in fact they are legal/economic entities and in fact not people and thus can not be and should not be regulated according to the standards of people but must be treated in accordance to what they are... namely legal constructs or fictions fabricated for the purpose of obtaining and extorting special privileges.

An interesting thought experiment is to ask the average American if trade unions should be accorded the same rights and privileges, tax breaks and corporate welfare as corporations. The corporation is a legal construct that protects the interests of capital and the union one that protects the interests of organized labor... rather symmetrical... but somehow the American public views them is very different.

No problem to have your city saddle your children with hundreds of millions in debt for a sports stadium on behalf of an owner who claims 50% the box office, concessions and licensing but lo what wrath is heaped upon the player with possibly a five year career who fills the seats and wants a 5% or even 2% piece of the action in salary. Interesting stuff.

[wayrad]

Originally Posted by Format C:

Look, last year a bought from a closing bookstore six cardboxes full of paperback books for 100€.
I then sold the books (after reading some of them) separately making almost 250€ out of them.

I've made money from authors' and publishers' effort without them making a single penny and I'm still a good person, even smart.

If i did it with ebooks I'd be Public Enemy #1.....

Just idle curiosity on my part, but is it actually illegal to transfer ownership of an ebook - assuming you retain no copy yourself - in Italy (or in the USA for that matter)? I mean, it probably wouldn't be practical in most cases because of DRM, but I don't see anything morally wrong with it, assuming the file was unmodified and you didn't keep it yourself. Seems like it would be OK regardless of whether you regarded it as analogous to a pbook or a software license. However, if there is anything I've learned from following these discussions it is that analogies are dangerous.

[OakIris]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

Her thoughts are to sell it at more than retail because of the books she's loaded onto it.

Then she can pay the $139 and still be ahead.

Tho, again, why anyone would buy a USED kindle with books they can download with just a little research for free......
Instead of buying a NEW Kindle and getting them themselves, (IF they choose to) is the question.

Guess there is one born every minute.

I understand what you are saying, but still, it is a USED Kindle with a definite cosmetic blemish, so I don't see how she can expect to get more than retail price for it - especially, as you point out, the books can be easily obtained elsewhere. Oh well!

I am also astonished that she chose to post this thread here on Mobileread. She obviously is not very familiar with the folks on this site or she would have known the outrage she would stir up - or maybe she just likes to poke a hornets' nest and see what results!

Holly

[wayrad]

Originally Posted by niceboy

First sale would apply to me selling a book I purchased to a used book store but not to them selling it to anyone else.

Where is this true? I know it isn't in the USA - used-book dealers need not compensate the copyright holder.

[niceboy]

I once had someone bring me a bound copy from India of a book of mine that was still in pre-publication galley... Didn't love the intact typos but whatever. The bane of my existence is plagerism not piracy.

Here is a fun story:
mobile.salon.com/mwt/feature/2010/11/05/cooks_source_internet_revenge/index.html

[BearMountainBooks]

So...why would I want to buy a Kindle from someone who...shows that their hands might not be all that honest? There's tales all over of people selling Kindles and then the buyer finds out that kindle has been marked on Amazon as not usable.

If someone were to indicate they had...acquired something illegally, I am not likely to want to do business with them. I might be the next "mark."

[Esquire1]

Originally Posted by Format C:

Look, last year a bought from a closing bookstore six cardboxes full of paperback books for 100€.
I then sold the books (after reading some of them) separately making almost 250€ out of them.

I've made money from authors' and publishers' effort without them making a single penny and I'm still a good person, even smart.

If i did it with ebooks I'd be Public Enemy #1.....

Are you being serious? You can't be this dense.

[OakIris]

Originally Posted by Esquire1

Are you being serious? You can't be this dense.

Ummm, I could be wrong, but, even without the smiley in his post, my interpretation was that he was being sarcastic, not dense.

Holly

[ski_power]

Wouldnt he have to return his kindle back to Amazon???
I remember having to...

OP thinks they just gave him one for free?

[wayrad]

Originally Posted by ski_power

Wouldnt he have to return his kindle back to Amazon???
I remember having to...

OP thinks they just gave him one for free?

Presumably they would get charged for the new one if they didn't send the old one back. What they thought was that somehow their illegal books would make the old one bring enough on Ebay or whatever to not only cover the cost of the new one but give them a small profit.

Yup, that's really what they said.