Gizmodo
If you buy a regular old book, CD or DVD, you can turn around and loan it to a friend, or sell it again. The right to pass it along is called the "first sale" doctrine. Digital books, music and movies are a different story though. Four students at Columbia Law School's Science and Technology Law Review looked at the particular issue of reselling and copying e-books downloaded to Amazon's Kindle or the Sony Reader, and came up with answers to a fundamental question: Are you buying a crippled license to intellectual property when you download, or are you buying an honest-to-God book?
In the fine print that you "agree" to, Amazon and Sony say you just get a license to the e-books—you're not paying to own 'em, in spite of the use of the term "buy." Digital retailers say that the first sale doctrine—which would let you hawk your old Harry Potter hardcovers on eBay—no longer applies. Your license to read the book is unlimited, though—so even if Amazon or Sony changed technologies, dropped the biz or just got mad at you, they legally couldn't take away your purchases. Still, it's a license you can't sell.
But is this claim legal? Our Columbia friends suggest that just because Sony or Amazon call it a license, that doesn't make it so. "That's a factual question determined by courts," say our legal brainiacs. "Even if a publisher calls it a license, if the transaction actually looks more like a sale, users will retain their right to resell the copy." Score one for the home team.
There's a kicker, though: If a court ruled with you on that front, you still can't sell reproductions of your copy, an illegal act tantamount to Xeroxing your Harry Potters. You'd have to sell the physical media where the "original" download is stored—a hard drive or the actual Kindle or Sony Reader. Our guess is that it only gets more complicated from here. What happens when the file itself resides only on some $20-per-month Google storage locker?
For more details, have a look at the original, surprisingly readable legal summary:
The (Potential) Legal Validity of E-book Reader Restrictions By Rajiv Batra, John Padro, Seung-Ju Paik and Sarah Calvert[Columbia Science and Technology Law Review]Many users are unhappy that e-book readers, such as the Sony Reader and the Amazon Kindle, restrict the sharing, borrowing and transferring of e-books. While some argue that the "first sale" doctrine should allow users to transfer an e-book in the same manner as a hard-copy book, these contentious restrictions may be valid under current law.
The Sony Reader and the Amazon Kindle
The Sony Reader and the Amazon Kindle are portable media devices designed to carry and display e-books and other electronic documents. Kindle has a mobile broadband function that allows users to browse online content and download e-books while on the go. Alternatively, the Sony Reader requires users to download and manage their library of e-books via a home computer.
The contentious characteristic of both products is that they bar users from sharing their e-books with other users. For example, Kindle's license agreement grants a "non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy...solely for your personal, non-commercial use." Consequently, Kindle users may "not sell, rent, lease, distribute, broadcast, sublicense or otherwise assign any rights to...any third party." The Sony Reader has similarly restrictive language in its license, but does allow users to copy e-books to several other Readers as long as they are registered to the same account.
The First Sale Doctrine
Some users have argued that these license restrictions violate the "first sale" doctrine. Under the Copyright Act, the first sale doctrine allows the owner of a particular copy of a work to sell, lease or rent that copy to anyone they want at any price they choose. These rights only apply, however, to the particular copy that was purchased; any unauthorized reproduction or copying of that work constitutes copyright infringement. For instance, you can't give away photocopies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but you can auction your paperback on eBay when you're finished with it.
When it comes to digital works, however, two complications arise: first, consumers might only hold a license to the content, rather than all of the rights that come from a sale; second, without a traditional physical container for each purchased work, consumers may not practically be able to sell their "particular copy" at all.
License vs. Sale
The first sale doctrine only applies to the "owner" of a copy of a work, so end users who acquire content by license do not enjoy the right to resell their copies. Whether a transaction is a license or a sale is a factual question determined by courts—even if a publisher calls it a license, if the transaction actually looks more like a sale, users will retain their right to resell the copy. However, as more commercial transactions involve the transfer of digital content—particularly commercial software—courts have struggled to consistently make the distinction between license and sale. Software is increasingly transferred with highly restrictive licensing terms, but federal case law has not clearly determined whether these types of transfers are licenses or true sales.
Kindle and the Sony Reader are following this licensing trend and creating restrictive licenses that users must agree to upon using the product. If these agreements are found to be enforceable licenses, they could serve as the legal authority to limit users from selling or otherwise transferring the e-books they download.
Amazon vs. Sony
Both license schemes are equally restrictive, but each product limits use in a slightly different manner. Amazon Kindle's use license expressly limits the extent and use of both the device and the digital media. The Sony Reader's restrictions operate in two steps: a license to use the device and a second license to use the e-book library software (created by Sony). In both devices, users are not allowed to circumvent or alter the pre-installed software on the device.
For digital media, Kindle's agreement allows users one permanent copy. The Reader, on the other hand, allows one user to posses multiple copies as long as they are all registered to that user. Both regimes are equally restrictive on the distribution, copying, and sharing of purchased e-books (to other users).
The reason for the differences in these restrictions is a result of their technical characteristics. Amazon's wireless store requires the terms to be agreed on initially, while the Sony Reader's reliance on iTunes-like software allows a separate use agreement. In effect, both agreements accomplish the same level of restriction, but you have a little more leeway with the number of copies with the Sony Reader.
Hard Copies vs. Digital Copies
Another possible complication stems from the inherent difference between transferring an e-book and transferring a hard-copy book. The transfer of a hard-copy book is just that; the physical transfer of one copy. The transfer of an e-book, however, requires the digital recreation or copying of that e-book. Because the first sale doctrine allows transfers of only your particular copy, and not reproductions or recreations, a digital transfer of an e-book is probably impermissible. Thus, users of Kindle and the Sony Reader can only legally transmit works by selling the physical media on which they are stored—be that the e-book readers themselves or the users' hard drives.
While the restrictions on e-books may initially seem inconsistent with the rights granted for hard-copy books, these differences are the consequence of new digital products outgrowing traditional copyright doctrines. Such issues are currently being examined by legal scholars and industry insiders, but only time will tell whether this degree of control over digital media is acceptable to society.
Comments
I find the question of "what happens if it's content locked in some google on-line storage locker" particularly interesting; while I'm a huge fan of the right of first sale, and a huge enemy of restrictive licensing trends, here's the thing: while the right of first sale means that the product-maker has no legal mechanisms to stop you, there's also no onus on him to make your life any easier. There's no reason he can't just say "Sure, you have the legal right to sell your digital content to anyone you like. It's yours. But there's no advantage to us in facilitating it, so we don't offer any mechanism to transfer content between accounts." or even "Sure, you can sell your DRM'd music/software to whoever you like. But we're not going to update the DRM key for the new owner. Caveat Emptor"
You know, this debate is stupid. Forget for a minute that you are "buying" a book but just renting it. People rent movies daily from Blockbluster, etc. and don't mind paying $5 to rent and not get to keep the movie. Well, pretend when you "buy" your ebook you are just renting it but for a couple more bucks. I mean, most people don't read a book more times than they would a movie unless it's technical in which case you wouldn't buy an ebook anyway. I love my Kindle and the "rental" price of the DRM'd material suits me fine. If you don't like it, go to the bookstore, buy the hardcopy, and quick whining!!!!!
Dr. When
JPEG. Nuff said.
Books should be free like everything else. Fuck the system!
Perhaps flash memory will become so inexpensive in the future that selling the physical media issue will be moot.
Hey, Joe. Here's a 64k SD card with Harry Potter on it. Enjoy.
How much do e-books cost anyway? Because if it's around 15 bucks, pretty much how much actual books cost, then buying a book is -baaawww, what the hell am I saying? Books FTW!
I don't care about this. I'm not planning on openning up a book store anytime soon. I don't sell back many of my physical books anyways as I like to keep them.
What I do care about is DRM. What if Sony comes out with Reader 3.0 that puts Amazon's Kindle 2.0 to shame? Or vice versa? I can play a rented DVD on any DVD player I choose (or blu-ray player or computer). I can listen to MP3s on anything including a computer, iPod, Zune, etc.
Amazon sells its music in MP3 format killing all DRM. If they would get smart and DO THE SAME FOR BOOKS and I just might buy a Kindle. Till then, I will use my Sony Reader.
Whether it is a book or an e-book, a music CD or a music download make no mistake that by law you are NOT buying the product, you are buying rights to use it.
Many people confuse that, no you can not do whatever you please with it...you have the freedom to use it as much as you desire but is limited to monetary gain, which in this case includes selling the item.
Granted selling the copy you have to someone else is no one's business but it is a tougher task to do with digital DRMed products.
Kinda sux to think that "buying" an e-book has nothing to do with owning it. Basically your not buying anything even though you forked out your cash for it, your just getting a right/privilege.
Well duh... do you think you own a movie when you rent it or see it at a theatre? People this day and age are so blasted worried about ownership... all the "me" people. Do you think you really own your home? Your property? Good luck with that. You'll be worm food in a few years anyway.
@WD40: You are slightly wrong on this point. With a book, CD, or DVD you are selling a physical product that cannot (legally) be reproduced. You do own it, no licensing about it. You do not have any kind of legal reproduction rights to it, hence no xeroxes of a book.
Basically, think of it as buying a CD that just happens to have music on it.
The issue at hand is that digital media breaks the bond of having to transfer the original media when you sell it. This allows you to make multiple copies of it, in its original form, and distribute them.
Basically, if you loan someone a book, you can't read it at the same time as them. They have the physical media, and it can't be in two places at once. If it was an e-book, you could make a copy of it and give it to them. You retain your copy, and they have theirs. You can both read it at the same time.
Hmm....thinking about it, the best way to do it would be some kind of read only flash drive. Like those mini-SD cards. then you just have to pass that tiny little guy around and insert it into your Kindle.
Why would I want to pretend the things I bought are rentals? It isn't my job to give up my legal rights just to make Sony or Amazon happy.
The problem is that Amazon and Sony are pretending to sell the book to you, using words like "buy" and "purchase." If they are going to just rent you the book they need to charge less and call it a rental.
@by WD40 at 02:01 PM
Actually, WD40, you are buying the product when you buy a book or CD. You own the physical media and the right to re-sell it at any time for any amount of money and without needing permission or paying royalties to the copyright owner thanks to the Doctrine of First Sale. That's why used bookstores, record stores, video rental stores and libraries exist. Really.
*gets headache
effin hell...
I make my living as an author, and the numbers involved in publishing are tiny compared to music and movies. That is, a book that sells 10,000 copies in a week can easily make the New York Times best-seller list. That kind of number would be a joke in music or movies.
When MP3 downloading took the profit out of selling recorded music, bands changed their revenue model to performance. What used to be a long commercial to sell the record, now is the main source of income for performers. Authors can't charge $60.00 and up per ticket for performance. All of our income is based on royalties, which is based on sales. We accept that people will borrow books, will get them at the library, and will sell them back to used book stores, and that is built into the business model, but I'm a little worried about a time when books can be peer-to-peered the way music is. I think a lot of authors are going to have to go back to waiting tables for a living.
(Please, please, please, don't bring up Cory Doctorow. He doesn't make a living on his novels. He is not representative of most professional writers.)
For those of us who make our living on this, I think it would be better for Amazon and Sony to change the "term" for electronic books. Yes, you rent them. You can keep them as long as you'd like, but you rent them. Like Amazon Unbox, say. I have the movie on my Tivo or computer, but I have limited use of it. The average e-book of my novels costs $9.99. The hardcover usually goes for $24.00, the paperback $14.00. So there is a discount for the cost reduction in production and distribution -- maybe there can be a limit to use as well. It's all how you look at it.
Oh hell, nevermind. Would you like rice or baked potato with your steak?
Christopher Moore
The issue is more subtle than that. Books can be copied, too, as can CDs. The issue with digital downloads is that there is no easily definable "original" to give to some one that will automatically deprive the seller of the use of the original. But, we still rely on the honor system that when books or CDs are sold that the seller is not keeping an un-authorized copy, hence the re-sale of a digital download is fundamentally no different than the re-sale of a physical book or CD.
However, many currently implemented DRM schemes already have provisions for de-authorizing specific songs on specific devices and transferring the authorization to another device, so such a concern about people keeping copies is really a red herring. The real issue is that copyright maximalists don't want there to be a legal secondary market for copyrighted works. If they were a car maker, for instance, they wouldn't want you to be able to buy used cars. Instead, everyone would always have to buy cars new from the maker, even if a friend or relative had a spare care they didn't need.
Not analogous. They don't say "purchase this movie" when you buy a ticket to the performance of the movie or when you specifically rent the movie on DVD.
Amazon and Sony claim they are selling you an e-book rather than renting it. They do that because people pay more for purchases than rentals. If they just want to rent you the content they need to call it a rental and charge less, but they want to have it both ways--but legally, they can't.
Face it this isn't for us any more than microwaves were for our grandparents. This is for our kids, but if your onboard fine. Personally I am sticking with paper.
I just can't see my myself pulling this out of my pocket when I'm on the throne. How many books can you read at one time anyways? And just how cool are you going to feel when you forget this on the plane.
ONE MORE GREAT PLUG FOR THE PAPER BOOK....
I found myself on a long flight one evening. Nothing to do. Reached in the seat pocket infront of me to grab something to distract myself, and what do I pull out? Heinlein's Starship Troopers. "That crappy movie" I says, then commence to read for lack of anything else to do.
Wow, almost missed not 1 but 2 connecting flights.
Want to do a little bit to improve your fellow man?
Bring a book on a trip, then leave it.
I do it everytime now and just wanted to take a moment to say "Your welcome, it was my pleasure."
@jchasse: Hmm...never thought about leaving a book like that. Kind of a cool idea. They don't clean out those pockets between flights? Kind of scary, actually.
Ok. John Scalzi, then. Or TOR, for goodness sake. And, yes, books can already be traded like mp3s. However, currently people, for whatever reason, still prefer physical books to electronic ones, though that may change.
Let's get to the real heart of the matter, the secondary market. The secondary market is a more traditional part of being an author than copyright. There has always been a secondary market, but there hasn't always been copyright, which is a government granted and enforced privilege that allows an author to have a monopoly the right **to copy** a written work for a specified period of time. Copyright is not a right to control whether people can re-sell a work they legitimately purchased.
With physical books, the secondary market is inefficient. Books are expensive to acquire, market, store and ship. And physical books get damaged and degrade with time. Authors and publishers fear a digital secondary market because it is very efficient. Books are inexpensive to store and ship and they stay perfect over time.
However, digital copies don't last forever either. Consider that I don't know where the license keys to old software is and my computer either crashes or has to be upgraded periodically. So, the digital secondary market isn't perfect.
What is the answer? I don't know, but I suspect that trying to change laws to support a technologically challenged business model may not be the answer. Change can suck, but that doesn't mean it isn't going to happen.
Get a PocketPC & uBook - you'll never look back.
You have a Tivo? You realize, of course, that a Tivo deprives the copyright owner of revenues they could make by selling you a copy of the work you recorded for later viewing? Fortunately for you, the Supreme Court denied the demands of the movie industry to ban all devices capable of recording broadcast television. The MPAA said the VCR was to the movie industry what the Boston Strangler was to women.
BTW, Unbox is evil. Amazon reserves the right to remotely revoke your purchases at any time for any reason, it's like you being able to remotely make the copy of Blood Sucking Fiends vaporize Mission Impossible-style at any time of your choosing, without warning or recompense to me. It would give you the ability to hold our culture hostage--and yes, I do consider your works a part of our culture, though don't take that to mean I think your books should be nationalized or some such. But, I don't think you should have the right to control whether there should be a secondary market. To do so would be to reverse course and allow authors to retroactively control our collective culture.
Ok, I stand corrected. If you are really renting an ebook then is should be stated and priced as such. But, I understand both sides of the coin. I love ebooks and don't mind the price but I do believe it should be possible to transfer ownership to a different device. That is why I convert all music to mp3. oh well.
@The.Ubertard: You know I specifically buy my reading material because of this. My Fiance rolls her eyes when I spend money on books instead of just going to the library, but I think its important to support the authors I enjoy.
As for the digital model, maybe its fair for your books, but most paperback novels are $7-8 these days. $10 for electronic versions plus having the shell out for a reader hardly sounds like a deal. I'm not worried about the rent vs buy. I just want it to make financial sense to move to digital.
@Namtillaku:
You know I have been a handheld software developer for just over eight years. And for the longest time I used a ppc to read ebooks I found off usenet. I loved the fact I could read in the dark, a godsend on overnight flights. Not to mention being able to listen to music and read a book all in one little package.
I may be in the minority but usenet led me to buying a shi#-ton of books by authors I would NEVER have found on my own. (I'm not kidding when I say a shi#-ton either, I just had to move a bunch into storage.)
Its been a long time since I used an ebook reader though. I still develope but now I appreciate "getting outside" a bit more. An ebook does great for the first night(s) of a weekend hike then its just extra weight to schlep.
That said, I recently purchased an ipod touch and based on the screen and touch functioanlity could really see myself getting into an ebook reader again. Except I noticed that , atleast for this class of device, the usable battery time has not improved a whole hell of a lot.
Shoutout to Baen Books! Their model led me to buy more books from them than any other publisher by a factor of 4 or 5 to 1.
[www.baen.com]
errata:
"TOR" should have been "Baen Books." Sloppy writing on my part. The point being that Baen **gives away** free electronic copies of their books. Cory Doctrow is not the only example of this model.
Does that mean it will work for you? Not necessarily. But we aren't necessarily **entitled** to the success of any particular business model, either. So, just because the author's market is becoming more complex doesn't mean you are entitled to have the government shore it up anymore than VHS duplication houses are entitled to force movie distributors to distribute their movies on VHS tape.
This is exactly why I won't buy a Kindle -- and I also won't buy songs from iTunes or the like.
Give me good old-fashioned books and CDs anyway. At least that way I actually own my library.
Actually, many songs are available now on iTunes as DRM-free high bit rate downloads. But, that still isn't the same as having an uncompressed CD as your backup. CDs are, perhaps, more future proof than a collection of ACC files and, if you tire of them, you can re-sell CDs. The possibility of an iTunes secondary market is much more iffy due to industry pressure to destroy any such thing.
So, if you die can you will your DRM'd iTunes songs and your DRM'd Kindle Books to people. This is an area that is still fairly new.
What do you think Christopher Moore? Should all that investment in digital media purchases disappear in a puff of smoke when you die or should it be transferable like physical copyrighted media? Likewise, should my bank account not be transferable or inheritable just because it is electronic and not a deposit box full of paper currency? What is the difference? After all, the government just licenses the currency to me anyways--I'm not allowed to make copies!
I think amazon and sony have a great point. Unless people were forced to sell the actual MEDIA (hdd, thumb drive, etc) that the file is on, they could just sell unlimited copies to as many people as they wanted. That's not right either
Same is true for DVDs, CDs and books since you could always keep a copy regardless of whether you give up the physical media, but re-selling them is legal--regardless of how much the MPAA, RIAA and the publishers association object. Would you really ban used books stores? Because that is what Amazon and Sony are trying to do to the digital age.
And when the thing dies? Do I get to re-download the things again for free, since it's still for me?
I have...books. I will continue to buy...books.
And this 'business model' bullsh-t strikes me as hinky as well. It's more expensive to buy/rent a non-physical product? Do the publishers pull a record company on you and charge you for the 'printing' like the record companies charge the artists for 'pressing' MP3s???
What if I want a 'digital' copy of something I already have as a physical book?
There is an error in the article. Kindle books can be read on up to 6 Kindles registered to the same account.
From Amazon: "Content from the Kindle Store: Books and other non-subscription items you purchase from the Kindle store may be downloaded to up to six Kindles registered to the same Amazon.com account. If you have exceeded your download limit, you must delete the item from one Kindle to transfer it to another."
Subscriptions are limited to one Kindle at a time but deleting from one permits its download to another.
If we want to eliminate DRM from e-books, we have to be prepared for the resulting effects on the literary economy. People will undoubtedly send e-books that they bought to friends, so authors will get less money for their work. This will cause some authors to stop writing because it isn't worth their time or effort anymore. There will be less variety in published works; probably only a few authors (the very best-selling ones) will keep writing professionally.
We have to consider this before we decide whether DRM should really be abolished. Think about what's in the best interest of society. Maybe there are enough people willing to write for free on web sites that professional authors are obsolete, but my gut feeling is that we'll be hurting ourselves if we let people freely copy every book.
not only does BAEN give away free samples and have DRM free files, a group of fans got together to bring a DRM free reader to the people.
[naebllcc.ipower.com]
It currently sells for $375.00
They are working on bringing the price down eventually.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not against a secondary market. The key word being market. By the same token, the "change or die" model many of you are advocating puts an author in an awkward place. Especially a new author, who doesn't have the name or resources to promote his work. "Market" does not imply unlimited distribution of digital copies.
While Prince or Motorhead might be able to sell their work directly to the public, bypassing publishers and distribution networks, most artists and authors function in a much smaller world. As I stated before, musicians, who were, at one time, recording artists who performed to sell recordings, changed their income source to performance and selling merchandise at performances to make their living. Authors can't do that. And unlike film, we don't have Box Office, a limited content delivery system, to offset the losses from copying.
Heartburnkid asks about inheiritance of digital media. I have no problem with that. I have no problem with a secondary market -- with people selling one copy of a digital book to a used book store, or
leaving it to their kids. DRM pisses me off, too. Every time I want to rip a Sony or Columbia DVD so I can watch it on my Iphone I'm irritated by DRM. Yes, I've paid for the DVD, but now I can't watch it on the machine I choose? So I get that part.(I'm sure there are tools out there to foil the Sony DRM, but I don't have them.)
I don't stand outside of the library yelling at people who take my books out. And I think the DMCA is deeply flawed, so I'm not some shill for "the man".
If as some of you suggest, that authors don't deserved to be paid for their work, then so be it. I'll go back to waiting tables, but the quality and availability of the books you have to choose from is going to suffer in the long run. Maybe that, too, is inevitable. The latest best-sellers in Japan are written on cell phones, in text-speak. Maybe books will die out as an art form. So be it. I'm only saying that it worries me because in the mean time, I have to pay my bills, and if the shift in revenue models comes as quickly as it did in music, I'm going to be standing in line for soup with a lot of my writer friends. Just a point of view as a creator and a consumer of content.
There's not that many of us. It probably won't really have an effect on anyone else.
@androver: Because that totally happened in the music industry after MP3 came out.
Oh wait, it didn't.
Dillenger:
Just got back from the Baen site. You're right, they do have a free library of e-books. But you don't see Greg Benford, or Robert Silverberg, or many other authors there. What you find there are books that have, more or less, lost their revenue stream. They aren't making any money anyway, is what I'm saying. I couldn't find a single book in the free library that had an Amazon ranking above 109,000, and most were over 200,000. (to be fair, I only check six, randomly) That's effectively, no sales. I'm friends with a couple of the "free" authors, so I'll ask them what their say was in going free. I suspect that it was that or let the book go out of print. Faced with the same question, I'd give my books away, too, hoping they'd motivate people to buy my "in print" books.
@HeartBurnKid: Again, musicians changed their income to performance, from recording. Authors can't do that.
People already do this with physical books by sending the original. That, too, has "effects on the literary economy" and has always been thus.
Digital publishers are trying to take advantage of DRM to make sure that not even the "original," or the original license, can be transfered, ever, so that even model of limited secondary market for books where only the original can be sold is not possible. It isn't a matter of digital copies being freely copied and distributed, it is a matter of book publishers trying to destroy the secondary market they have always hated but couldn't get rid of because of the Doctrine of First Sale. Publishers are now trying to use DRM technology to do what copyright law doesn't allow them to do, prohibit a secondary market.
I'm not **advocating** a change or die model, just reporting reality, which is really more "change is an inevitable component to continued success." You don't keep writing the same book do you? No, unlike a factory or office worker you don't do the same thing every day, you **change** what you write each time. Your business is all about change. And no business model is immune to change.
You say that ""Market" does not imply unlimited distribution of digital copies." Indeed, not, however the publishers aren't just trying to prevent some sort of new fangled unlined free for all, they are trying to use technology to eliminate the traditional secondary market where people can re-sell their individual copy of a work. Publishers have always hated the secondary market since it limits their ability to create artificial scarcity, and their ability to receive royalties every time a work is transfered. They want all book sales to be new sales, regardless of what copyright law allows, thus they are using DRM as an end run around the legal Doctrine of First Sale. It remains to be seen if it will work. I hope to goodness it doesn't.
As it is, the secondary market is the only reason that many books even still exist. Due to the fact that many, perhaps most, copyrighted works are orphaned works they only are available as used. If DRM is used to lock up works, many will die like seedless plants. Granted, the most famous and profitable may not be among these since they will be **actively** hoarded under electronic lock and key by publishers but many works would wither away and disappear, as vendors, publishers, media and DRM go through various changes.
Already there are examples of people being left holding useless media from Google or Major League Baseball, media that they purchased but that the seller has decided to no longer support the DRM for, leaving the paid for media to rot and taking customers for a ride. That's DRM. That's culture and value being desiccated. That's BS we shouldn't stand for.
So, the problem I see with your position is that you want DRM because it could be used to prevent piracy--seems reasonable--but in reality DRM is used to completely crush a legitimate secondary market ; DRM locks content forever, even when the media is obsolete and needs to be format shifted to watch; and DRM makes your purchases unilaterally rescindable without recompense. DRM is just bad all around.
@Skeptic:
I agree that, fundamentally, you should be able to transfer your ebook freely to someone else, as long as you no longer have use of it. If someone would come along with a way to implement this, I would be completely for it.
However:
1. I'm not sure if it's technically possible.
2. It would still be a form of DRM, so I don't think most people would go for it.
My main point is that we, as a society, created "copyright" to encourage innovation. We said that it's in society's best interest to prevent unlimited duplication of creative works. We're free to rescind that right, of course, but there may be consequences that we don't like.
Are we moral enough to pay authors if we like their work, even if we could get the same thing for free almost as easily?
Personally, I think that DRM on books is fine, but they should go into the public domain much faster...maybe 10 years after first publication.
@ Androver
Transfer is already technically possible and has been implemented by many vendors. iTunes is capable of doing this already, as it has authorization/reauthorization ability, as do Zunes and all Plays for Sure players (which they have to have due to the "subscription" model that necessitates revocation of authorization when a subscription ends.)
"Are we moral enough to pay authors if we like their work, even if we could get the same thing for free almost as easily?"
That remains to be seen. However, for certain works the answer is "yes," but perhaps not for the broader category. But, it is possible to market products that we can get for free. Bottled water is actually no purer than the nearly free tap water we have at home, which has far more stringent government mandated quality standards, yet the bottled water industry is very profitable.
However, I think bringing copyright terms back to a reasonable length is important. We don't have 90 year corporate patents or life of the author plus 70 year patents, neither should we have such terms for copyrights. There are works from the 1880's that are **still** copyright, but that fact isn't causing those authors to generate more work. --And to those authors who will claim that they deserve to make money off their efforts forever, well why should it be any different for you than any other worker? We have to work, save our money and live off our savings. I don't get royalties for every car I put together for ever or some such. Why are you so special?