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Any recommendations for such stores? I know of https://www.downpour.com for audio books and I get all my audio books from them since they are DRM-free. Would love to know of such a service for ebooks, but for fiction.
If you live in the US and have a library card, try Overdrive. You can check out a huge catalog of eBooks for essentially free (since it’s paid via your local library).
I'm genuinely curious - what is the "light" side of DRM?
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But did they use the word 'buy' in their online store? Did they list the item as 'book title' instead of 'book title license'? I'm sure there's a "licensed, not sold" line buried somewhere in the EULA, but why would that take precedence over the prominently-displayed "buy"? Is the "buy" a lie? If so, how is a consumer supposed to know which statements are lies and which are not? For all they know, the EULA could be t…
I keep hearing complaints in the US that EU regulations strangle companies, but as a consumer I’m wildly envious. When I vaped, I tried to get a new disposable part in the EU. I had to upgrade my whole mod because the parts on the market in the US were illegal in the EU because they leaked. The US is sold products that force you to buy more “juice” and make messes. And in the EU, the juice flavors must each pass test…
It's all a matter of what the regulations actually are. Most of them get sold as "consumer protection" but in practice are written by the industries the consumers are supposedly being protected from, in order to create barriers to entry and destroy competition.
> The US is sold products that force you to buy more “juice” and make messes.
Is there something forcing you to buy those ones? Can't you just order the EU one and have it shipped to you in the US? (And if the thing preventing that is regulations, well, "we need more regulations" is probably the wrong fix.)
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The right sale doctrine doesn’t apply to products like these; these are licenses to use. If they were first sale doctrine products, you could sell your goods on secondary markets, which you cannot.
So does the first sale doctrine not have any teeth at all? What is to stop companies from throwing a license on everything they sell, making the first sale doctrine meaningless? Could a bookseller add a license to a physical book, and suddenly you can't sell it or lend it out?
But there is another case that went all the way to the supreme Court regarding resale of textbooks. Kurtsang v wiley. Textbook publisher Wileyclaimed that because they put "not for sale in the US" on their cheaper, but nearly identical international version textbooks, that meant they could dictate as such.
But the defendants prevailed and the supreme Court ruled that the first sale doctrine applied and lawful purchasers of the books could import them and sell them wherever they want.
This is a rather recent precedent because Costco lost a similar case v Omega a few years earlier, but it did not set a precedent.
The textbook one did.
But I suspect that there were some additional copyright and licensing complexities that made the Disney case different. Especially since it was two copies of the same item, just in different formats. Also, Disney, so probably the most experienced, well funded, and vicious gang of lawyers in existence.
But I'm not sure if a straightforward resale of a digital item has been tested in the courts. It seems with the Kurtsang v Wiley precedent, you would have a good chance of winning.
1. How much cost is really involved in keeping up the DRM server in maintenance mode on Azure? 2. Maybe this will give the EFF enough case study to argue (successfully, finally) that the DMCA allows corporations to create rules that violate other existing laws such as the right of first sale.
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If you live in the US and have a library card, try Overdrive. You can check out a huge catalog of eBooks for essentially free (since it’s paid via your local library).
Overdrive ebooks are DRMed (or at least the majority of them are).
I'm genuinely curious - what is the "light" side of DRM?
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Sometimes Barnes & Noble break and enter my house and take off with my bookshelves. Oh wait, nevermind, that's never actually happened.
A better analogy: Barnes and Noble sets up a reading room down the street where you can pay a discounted amount to read books rather than buy them. One day you stop by and the place is boarded up, but the guy outside apologizes and explains that they had to close because it wasn't making enough money, then he gives you a full refund plus $25.
okay, they're refunding people, which is a decent enough move (still inconvenient though). presumably, they didn't do it out of the kindness of their own heart, but to avoid controversy/lawsuits, what with public opinion slowly swinging away from DRM and towards right to repair.