Buyer's E-Morse: 'Owning' Digital Books

[question everything]

JULY 23, 2009

Buyer's E-Morse: 'Owning' Digital Books
Purchasing Electronic Tomes Online Gives Readers Fewer Legal Rights to Share and Resell Than Hard-Copy Customers Enjoy

By GEOFFREY A. FOWLER
WSJ

Buying electronic books on the Internet is easy -- but so is taking them away. That became clear last week when Amazon.com Inc. used its wireless technology to reach into customers' Kindle e-readers and deleted some e-books written by George Orwell. Amazon, which returned the cost of the e-books, said it made the move when it realized that the publisher didn't have the proper rights to sell the book in the U.S. That didn't satisfy Antoine J. Bruguier, a 28-year-old engineer in Milpitas Calif., who was stunned to find his copy of "Nineteen Eighty Four" missing from his Kindle on Friday. "They have the technical ability to do this, but I'm not sure if they have the legal right to do it," he says. "I love my Kindle, but if they can take back a book after I buy it, that bothers me."

After angry customers called the company an Orwellian "Big Brother," Amazon promised to change its system and "not remove books from customers' devices in these circumstances," according to a spokesman. Regardless, the incident raises some difficult questions about what it means to "own" books in the digital age. The same legal conundrums came up with music. Consumers raised on sharing records and CDs suddenly found themselves challenged in court by music companies for violating intellectual-property rights when doing the same thing through computers. Books have a more entrenched culture of sharing -- libraries exist for lending dog-eared volumes -- raising potentially knottier legal issues. Some experts say that, barring a creative industry solution, these matters can only be remedied by passing new laws that clearly define digital ownership.

(snip)

In legal terms at least, buying an electronic book is nothing like buying an old-fashioned paper book. A copyright concept known as the "first sale" doctrine allows the owner of a traditional book to do pretty much anything with it, including reselling it or lending it to a friend. Owning an e-book is more akin to licensing a piece of software: access comes with fine-print terms of service, and often digital rights management software to ensure that you abide by the rules. E-books bought from stores run by Amazon, Sony Corp. and Barnes & Noble Inc. often work only on those company's own designated devices. Amazon's always-connected Kindle Whispernet and Google Inc.'s Web-based book search function both treat books like a service, which has its advantages. Readers using them can access a wide range of books anywhere, authors can update or correct their work, and an intelligent network can keep track of bookmarks and notes.

(snip)

Case in point: an ordinary bookstore wouldn't be allowed to come into a buyer's home to retrieve a book that he or she owned. Legal experts are divided on whether Amazon broke its own contract with consumers by removing the Orwell e-books. The fine print in the company's terms of service gives consumers the "right to keep a permanent copy" of purchased titles, but also reserves Amazon's "right to modify, suspend, or discontinue the service at any time." Still, U.S. law generally supports the terms of service imposed by companies -- so long as they're listed up-front. Few terms of service challenges for digital media have been taken to court. In 2005, Ms. Cohn's organization supported a successful challenge against the record label Sony BMG over its inclusion of digital rights management software on its music CDs, which limited their use. The record label eventually settled the case and stopped using the software.

(snip)

Sharing e-books puts libraries in a particular pickle. The Seattle Public Library has purchased 30,000 e-books and digital-audio books for its patrons to borrow. But those e-books don't reside anywhere at the library. Instead, it has a continuing license to them provided by a company. In exchange for maintenance fees and a full purchase price for each e-book, Overdrive Inc. runs lending systems for Seattle and 9,000 other libraries. When a patron wants to check out an e-book, Overdrive allows them to download a copy with software that causes the file to become unreadable after a due date -- after which another patron can check out that "copy." But there are strings attached: Overdrive's books can be read on computer screens and on Sony's Reader device, yet aren't compatible with Amazon's Kindle -- a top request from patrons. And should Overdrive ever go out of business -- or should something happen to its centralized collection -- the Seattle library's huge e-book collection could theoretically disappear. "I'm more concerned about structural, often accidental, massive loss of digital content than isolated, evil machinations," says the Internet Archive's Mr. Brantley.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124830307703373747.html (subscription)

[WeDidIt]

1. I wanted a Kindle

but not any more.

[abumbyanyothername]

7. Kindles have plusses and minuses.

I am pretty sure that Amazon deleted a book off my kindle, but I may have been reading on the web, can't remember (for those interested, the title was "Ten Acres Enough" an 1860s memoir of a Philadelphia businessman who became a New Jersey peach and strawberry farmer).

Plusses -- love being able to tote 300 for the weight of a single paperback, love the adjustable fonts, love the autobookmarking function.

Minuses -- wish I could more easily share clipped materials, some charts are unreadable in kindle format as the print is too small.

I am still glad to have a Kindle but it could be vastly improved. Also, I think it's a crime that Amazon takes 70% of the sales price of the book in addition to charging for the reading device.

[ljm2002]

12. That's the funny thing, isn't it...

...this cannot have been helpful to Kindle sales.

It has certainly put me off seriously considering a Kindle.

It's funny, too, how much these corporate copyright pigs hate it when individuals share files, utilizing technology. And yet they have no problem reaching right through and grabbing something off your device, if they think they can get away with it.

Bastids.

[azmouse]

2. To me, there is nothing like actually holding a book in my hands.

And if this is the future of e-books, they can keep them.

[Posteritatis]

9. My books still work after a tumble down the stairs, too

And it's not illegal for me to let someone else read them, and I don't need to adhere to more than the most basic TOS for them.

I so very hate the fact that spending money for something and owning it as a result is in decline as a concept these days.

[azmouse]

18. I love seeing my shelves filled with books,

and reminiscing about how good (or bad) they were.

I'm a book addict. I freely admit it! :hi:

[abumbyanyothername]

11. every single person who I have heard say this who then

bought a kindle, loves it.

[azmouse]

16. And maybe if I tried a Kindle I'd love it too.

But for the same money I'd pay for the dang thing, I could buy a LOT of paper books (and have them to share with others).

For the foreseeable future, I'll stick to my old-fashioned books.

[Posteritatis]

22. Will they still two or three or five years from now when they can't read "their" books anymore? (nt)

[question everything]

13. Same here.

Nothing like sitting at a comfortable chair, or bed, or on a train or a plan and flip through pages, even going back several pages. With dog ears, and coffee stains..

[azmouse]

19. And the thicker the book the better.

I love to have really long reads and spend days or even weeks with a great story.

[Moondog]

15. + 1

[silverweb]

24. Ditto that.

I initially found the idea of electronic books attractive because it would decrease paper demand (thus saving forests), as well as limit clutter/save space (I keep most of my books forever). Theoretically, anyway.

But nothing else feels like a "real" book. Besides, I have no desire to read an electronic screen for pleasure after looking at an electronic screen for work all day.

So I buy 95% of my books used and try to keep my bookshelves reasonably neat. :D

[tj2001]

3. Best to stick with plain old vanilla pdfs

no tracking no bullshit

[Eric J in MN]

4. Additionally, people generally shouldn't "buy" digital-download movies from amazon.com.

I've done that, and some of them stopped playing because their system thinks I've transferred the movies to multiple computers. I've actually only used those movies with one computer.


It's a better deal to "rent" a digital-download movie from amazon.com for $4 and know it's temporary, than to "buy" a digitial-download movie from amazon.com for $14 and find that the latter movie is only temporary, too.

[formercia]

5. We go to book sales

We have hundreds of great books, purchased for a small fraction of what they cost originally.

[azmouse]

20. I could spend hours going through used book stores.

So many books, so little time. :)

[SoCalDem]

6. Why are p[eople surprised about this? The "kindle guy" explained how it would work... many times.

He's been on Charlie Rose & Tavis Smiley & on other shows too..

Kindle is NOT like buying a book from a bookstore

Craig Ferguson joked the other night ""books..like very long tweets"..

and kindle is just another way to read those very long tweets:)

[Eric J in MN]

8. Do they use the term "Buy" or "Rent" for Kindle books?

If Amazon uses the term "Buy" then I can understand people being surprised that a book they bought was removed from their Kindles.

[jmowreader]

14. Since they're software, probably "license"

[Scout]

10. i have absolutely NO desire to switch to e-books....

what a crappy way to try to enjoy a good read.

i'll stick with printed books, thanks.

[SoCalDem]

17. and if you leave your book in a cab, or someone steals it

it's cheaply replaced:)

[Lorien]

21. I'm sticking to used and libary books

besides, a lot of what I read are books that are art related. Kindle won't help with those glorious full color illustrations and photos.

[Hannah Bell]

23. capital sees the future as itself in possession of all data, with lots of people paying license fees

for revocable use & ability to go in & change data w/o users' knowledge.

no used bookstores, no ability to loan or give to others, no newspaper morgues, etc.

much like orwell's world of 1984. no history.