5 ms·

Just a late note: if Amazon, or whoever, sold me, by mistake, a pirate copy of some paper book, I'd be rather miffed if one of their employees came into my hous

by ableal 17y ago

Just a late note: if Amazon, or whoever, sold me, by mistake, a pirate copy of some paper book, I'd be rather miffed if one of their employees came into my house and took the book from my shelves. With electronic devices, the "sellers" are making it normal for them to keep the keys to the house. Sounds more like a rental, with rather uninhibited landlords ...

hga 17y ago
True, but if you were ever under the impression that you were buying Kindle books instead of renting them you weren't paying attention. As of yet, the doctrine of first sale just does not apply. And that makes sense given the architecture: even if your Kindle could hold every book you "bought", the system still protects you against loss or destruction of that device (or it's inevitable eventual replacement). Given that, the legal liability of Amazon changes a whole lot from the old world where they had no responsibility after shipping it to you.
- ableal 17y ago
  Good points, thanks. I didn't look because I'm not interested in DRM'd files - never "bought" one yet. Arguably, it may be deceiving the customer to have the buttons say "Buy" instead of "License". The terms are elusive; with a couple of minutes of clicking, I only found this for the paper+ebook "Amazon Upgrade": http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=110749011 http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=1... You may return a particular Online Book for a full refund within 30 days of your purchase date, provided that you have not accessed more than 20% of its digitized pages. Interesting. P.S. Ah, terms for ebooks are under the Kindle hardware (unlike MP3s, etc.) http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200399690 http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=2... [...] Amazon grants you the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy [...]. Digital Content will be deemed licensed to you [...] you may not sell [...] I seem to remember some legal kerfuffles a while ago about resale of boxed software (with the 'first sale' you mentioned). Things don't seem to be going well for "buyers" ... (And I wonder if that is really good for sellers, in the long run.)

by ableal 17y ago

hga 17y ago

True, but if you were ever under the impression that you were buying Kindle books instead of renting them you weren't paying attention. As of yet, the doctrine of first sale just does not apply. And that makes sense given the architecture: even if your Kindle could hold every book you "bought", the system still protects you against loss or destruction of that device (or it's inevitable eventual replacement). Given that, the legal liability of Amazon changes a whole lot from the old world where they had no responsibility after shipping it to you.

ableal 17y ago
Good points, thanks. I didn't look because I'm not interested in DRM'd files - never "bought" one yet. Arguably, it may be deceiving the customer to have the buttons say "Buy" instead of "License". The terms are elusive; with a couple of minutes of clicking, I only found this for the paper+ebook "Amazon Upgrade": http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=110749011 http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=1... You may return a particular Online Book for a full refund within 30 days of your purchase date, provided that you have not accessed more than 20% of its digitized pages. Interesting. P.S. Ah, terms for ebooks are under the Kindle hardware (unlike MP3s, etc.) http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200399690 http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=2... [...] Amazon grants you the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy [...]. Digital Content will be deemed licensed to you [...] you may not sell [...] I seem to remember some legal kerfuffles a while ago about resale of boxed software (with the 'first sale' you mentioned). Things don't seem to be going well for "buyers" ... (And I wonder if that is really good for sellers, in the long run.)