Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Amazon wants to get into the used e-book business

This must have authors, writers, musicians and many more individual artists worried.

http://www.wired.com/business/2013/02/amazon-used-e-book-patent/


Can you picture a tattered e-book? What is a used e-book? And how many times does it take for it to be used? Looking at it simply. It is used after one person has read it. That means it is used after one sale....think about it....one sale of an e-book.

It's a touch and go situation I believe, and I'm a little hesitant to go with Amazon. I do hope it is ironed out before my next release, which was Mid May. Please take a look and let me know what you think. Perhaps someone can explain how they can do such a thing?

Have a great day. :)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That seems rather ridiculous to me, especially given the already low price of digital books. It also seems very unclear how this would work. Are Amazon proposing to sell rights to a buyer to on sell a 'second hand' copy? As one person pointed out, there's nothing second hand about a digital copy. When does on selling 'second hand' digital works (which could be regarded as new) become distributing? How many copies does it take?

I suppose I can see what they're driving at. They want people who purchase a digital copy of a book to have the right and ability to sell it as 'second hand'. I for one couldn't be bothered.

As the article pointed out though, it seems like a very good way to undermine their own sales. Maybe this is a campaign of theirs to get legislature in place to prevent such a thing.

Maria Zannini said...

What I want to know is how can we be sure they're only reselling ONE copy of the ebook? Who watches them?

And how long before the average consumer can also "resell" their ebooks--especially once DRM becomes a moot point?

Suzanne Brandyn Author said...

Hi Sandy and Maria,
It's an important headline that all authors should be aware of. I am trying to follow it closely.

It's not only books, it's music as well. But as you said Sandy, the article pointed out, Maybe this is a campaign of theirs to get a legislature into place to prevent such a thing. I hope this is the case.

Maria, exactly, but will it be one book or more. I think It's be more than one.