ReDigi revisited: will you be able to sell “used” e-books?
I last wrote about ReDigi more than four years ago
so it was quite interesting to see it pop up in the news again, especially in this
Publishers Weekly article by Andrew Albanese
Let’s start out with taking a step back, and looking the issue from outside this specific case.
There are advantages and disadvantages to e-books (electronic books) versus p-books (paperbooks).
When the Kindle first caused the explosive growth in what had been a marginal part of the market back in 2007, the differences were more pronounced.
Some of the advantages of e-books were (and still are, for the most part):
- No need for storage
- Lighter to carry
- More accessible, especially through enlargeable fonts (but also through text-to-speech)
- Many free books available
- Many more less expensive books available (there are a lot of ninety-nine cent Kindle books available)…this doesn’t mean that e-books are always less expensive than their p-book equivalents
- Multiple people on the same account can be reading the same book at the same time in different geographic locations
- Books are able to “stay in print” longer
- Onboard dictionaries and other references
- Independent publishing is much easier, leading to more diverse offerings
Some of the advantages of p-books were
- No platform issues (you didn’t need a specific type of device to read your purchase)
- Color
- Ability to give as a gift
- Ability to donate
- Ability to sell and buy used
- Lower entry price point (you didn’t need to buy an expensive device to get into it, even if the content later could be cheaper with e-books)
You probably noticed that I didn’t say that the p-book advantages are the same in the way that I did with the e-books.
That’s because e-books have been catching up with p-books in some ways.
We can now give Kindle books as gifts (at least, within the same market…USA to USA, for example).
We can now see e-books in color (on tablets…that wasn’t really available until there was a joining of the e-book market and tablets).
We can gift e-books to non-profits, and through
AmazonSmile
have Amazon donate to non-profits we choose.
In terms of the high initial cost, e-books can be read on SmartPhones and computers much more effectively, making it practical for many people to read Kindle books without first buying an expensive device…that, and the entry level price of a Kindle
Kindle E-reader – Black, 6″ Glare-Free Touchscreen Display, Wi-Fi – Includes Special Offers (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)
has come down from just about $400 to about $80 at time of writing (about an 80% reduction), with tablets available even less expensively.
Still, we can’t sell used e-books.
I’ve written about that quite a bit before. The basic thing is that when you buy a Kindle book, you are really buying a license to read it. It’s very different from buying a physical copy of a book, and just like e-books versus p-books, there are advantages and disadvantages. I wrote about those in this popular post of mine:
which I also wrote about the same time as the last time I discussed ReDigi.
That brings us back to that specific case (see how I did that?). 🙂
ReDigi tried to set up a used e-book marketplace. They tried to emulate the way selling a used p-book works. The seller would, effectively, surrender their license. ReDigi would hold it, then re-sell it to someone else, taking a cut.
That’s not exactly it, but the key argument was that there wasn’t a duplication of the ownership: no more people had access to the e-book after the sale than had access to it before.
A judge ruled against ReDigi, although it was more on the process (which created an unauthorized copy) than on the concept.
ReDigi went into a type of bankruptcy.
Now, at the time, Amazon was also considering setting up an authorized e-book resale market, although it didn’t end up happening.
Legal cases can take a very long time, even decades, to finish. As I read what happened recently (and I am not a lawyer), the winners made a tactical mistake, and wanted ReDigi to go into a different, more permanent kind of bankruptcy. That opened up a line of defense for ReDigi, like when someone in a criminal case calls a witness or opens a line of inquiry that lets the other side use tactics which would otherwise have been out of bounds.
It’s possible that this case will determine new definitions of Fair Use, and may open up that used e-book after all (and, by the way, could clearly establish the right of the owner of a copy of a paperbook to digitize that book for their own use…that’s generally assumed to be the case now, but it would be nice to see it much more “officially” decided).
If that happened, what would it mean?
One possibility would be a rise in the price of tradpubbed (traditionally published) e-books.
Authors don’t get a cut when you buy a used p-book in a used bookstore, so the initial price of the p-book takes that into account. It’s part of why paper textbooks are so expensive: they may be resold several times.
If the same sort of thing happens with e-books, then those prices might also go up.
That might mean that indies (independently published) books get more of a price advantage…although the resale market would presumably affect them as well. However, the resale for a lesser known author could be a lot less likely than for a brand name author, so there may be less risk for them. Some indie authors are also not trying to make a living at it (although many are), which means they again feel less pressure if they don’t maximize their revenue. That might be true if, for example, what they really want is to be read, and they either have an effective day job or don’t need income.
Readers could benefit from the system because they might be able to buy books more cheaply and recoup purchase costs through resale.
Tradpubs really don’t want this to happen. One of their arguments is that a used p-book has been degraded, and will eventually fall apart and not be able to be resold. A “used e-book” is a perfect replica and the same license could hypothetically be sold hundreds of times. This is similar to what they have argued about library licenses in some cases, when, for example, they restrict the number of times a book can be loaned before a new license needs to be purchased.
My feeling is that the best solution is probably one similar to what Amazon was considering, where the resales are licensed and controlled. I don’t feel like you automatically have the right to sell a contract…your apartment landlord can say you can’t sublet. The idea does appeal to people, and by making it legal, the author could actually be compensated multiple times for the sale of the same book…potentially making a used e-book market better for authors than the p-book market.
We’ll see what happens…
What do you think? Should consumers be able to sell “used” e-books? How much does that matter to you? If they can sell them, how should publishers and authors be compensated? If a market was established, how would that affect the market? Do you care about selling used e-books…have you just accepted that you don’t do that with e-books? Feel free to tell me and my readers what you think by commenting on this post.
My current Amazon Giveaways
Amazon Giveaway for And Then There Were None!
https://giveaway.amazon.com/p/3e6a60b4814649a3
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Follow @TMCGTT on twitter
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Giveaway:
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It’s going on that long in part so that it covers the actual 40th anniversary of Star Wars (of the release in the USA) on May 25th 2017. Also, this book, which has good reviews and is new, is $14.99 in the Kindle edition…which is a lot for me for a giveaway. 🙂
Good luck, and may the Force be with you!
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the award-winning, highly-rated mystery by my sibling, Kris Calvin!
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Thanks to the hundreds of people who have entered my previous giveaways for a chance to win Kris’ book! I don’t benefit directly from Kris’ book, although we have had a lot of conversations about it. 🙂
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