02-10-2011, 01:11 PM | #1 |
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am i allowed to give away a legally bought ebook?
when i buy a paper book, i can give it to a friend or to anyone i like to give it too, without a restriction.
in my experience books are a great gift and very much appreciated. does the same apply to an ebook that i have legally bought, can i give this away without restrictions as well ? is there a difference between europe and the us? i hope someone can explain this to me. |
02-10-2011, 01:17 PM | #2 |
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My understanding is that typically when you purchase an ebook via Amazon, etc. you are not purchasing any rights to the material, but only a license to use the material. You do not have any ownership stake in the book so can not "give it away".
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02-10-2011, 01:18 PM | #3 |
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I think it depends on where you buy it. Read the terms you agree to when ordering a book.
As I understand it, it's not allowed if you buy from amazon. Smashwords's boilerplate copyright text includes something on the lines of "if you want to give this book away, purchase a copy for each person you want to give it to", so that would be OK. (They have a rather different selection than Amazon, though.) |
02-10-2011, 01:21 PM | #4 |
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You can buy it as a gift at Amazon and it will be sent to the recipient. I don't know if you can do this on any other sites.
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02-10-2011, 01:26 PM | #5 |
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It's usually more of a technical issue. Practically all commercial books employ DRM which will not allow you to do that (easily, legally).
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02-10-2011, 02:06 PM | #6 |
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Anybody who sells you an ebook will tell you that no, you can't give it away. Their license will say so, too. Whether or not that license is enforceable legally is a question that has not yet been answered, and may vary by state (in the US) when it is. In California, for instance, software sold (or that comes bundled with a new PC) with a similiar license restriction can, indeed, be given away or outright sold, under Softman v. Adobe, which ruled that if you 1) pay a one time fee, and 2) get unlimited use, then it's a "sale of goods" not a license, no matter what the license says, and as such the "first sale doctrine" applies.
The other issue is DRM restrictions. The DMCA prohibits cracking technical measures to prevent copying, but makes exceptions for certain purposes. Unfortunately, it doesn't really define what all those purposes mean, and it's entirely unclear how the courts will jump on this. (In the end, of coruse, it doesn't matter much if you have the right to give away or sell an ebook you own, if the publishers is willing to throw lawyers at you, because you're not going to spend $100k defending your right to give away a $10 ebook). |
02-10-2011, 02:21 PM | #7 | |
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Quote:
I don't give away ebooks from which DRM has been removed, even without keeping copies, since there is no way to control what will be done with them, and I'd have some responsibility if they were to get into the wild. You might want to read some of the many exhaustive previous discussions of this topic. But be aware that they sometimes become acrimonious. Last edited by wayrad; 02-10-2011 at 02:37 PM. |
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02-10-2011, 04:31 PM | #8 |
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DRM can be broken.
Everyone seems to be being very sanctimonious. If you don't want to go down rather dodgy paths, take the option of either buying a pbook or have the book sent to your friend's ereader in the first place. Of course, if you trust them enough, you could alway loan them your reader for a few days. Personally, I'd be too worried that my reader would be damaged by even the most careful friend. Last edited by BookCat; 02-10-2011 at 04:34 PM. |
02-10-2011, 04:58 PM | #9 |
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My dad always said "it's easier to get forgiveness then permission". Who's going to stop you?
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02-10-2011, 05:31 PM | #10 |
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Kimdle has that share feature now.
Hi Barcey! Where ya beem? |
02-10-2011, 05:37 PM | #11 |
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sometimes i pretend that we're talking about physical books and permission, and I realise how silly drm is
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02-10-2011, 05:52 PM | #12 |
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As an author and ebook publisher, I certainly like to be paid for every copy of my work that is distributed. With that said, I also realize that if a few people like my ebooks well enough to pass them on to their friends, my writing career certainly will not suffer. Each time someone reads one of my ebooks, there is a real good chance that reader will take a few minutes and look for more of my work. I certainly don't condone piracy, but some loss of sales may actually be good for my bottom line.
Ronnie Coleinger |
02-10-2011, 07:15 PM | #13 |
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I've heard of authors themselves uploading their own books to torrent sites for that reason. It stimulates sales.
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02-11-2011, 12:02 AM | #14 | |
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Generally speaking, it seems like the bigger a name you are, the more you'll be hurt by piracy, if only because everybody knows who you are to begin with. It's been a long, long time since Stephen King got any new fans because somebody passed on a bootleg copy of one of his books to a friend. But a relative unknown is far more likely to find new fans that way than, perhaps, through any advertising their publisher does. I suspect there's no One True Way to approach the issue, and every author needs to figure out what's best for himself. |
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02-11-2011, 12:30 AM | #15 |
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There are some places you can buy an ebook withe publisher's blessing for you to pass it on to someone else,ie there is no DRM. You can do just what you can do with a pbook. Where possible this is where I get my books, although the question is academic as I only know 2 other people who have ereaders and we don't like the same sort of books.
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