Because Amazon’s or Apple’s closed resale markets will be run with their proprietary DRM controlled file formats, one can be sure that the few ebooks that are commercially successful best sellers will never be resold – there will be no market for “used” Harry Potter books so long as they sell as they do.

(2) Yes, many people would not bother reselling something for $1.50 if it required them to set up and monitor an eBay-style transaction. However, it’s likely that reselling will be integrated into the presentation software. So when the user finishes a book or movie, a pop-up will appear asking something like: “Do you want to keep this book/movie so that you can read/watch it again later? Or do you want to receive $1.50 for selling it back?” The user will click one of two buttons, and it’s the same work to keep the item as it is to receive the $1.50 cash back.

Depending on the popularity of the item, the user may get the $1.50 back almost immediately, or the content service may have to wait until the next buyer appears, which could take a few days in the case of something like “Hemingway’s Dark Night.” However, virtually all buyers would want to buy the $1.50 “used” copy instead of shelling out the full price, since there’s no difference between used and new for a digital object. Thus, even highly niche content will fairly quickly find a buyer for a used copy.

(3) Some of the people buying “Hemingway’s Dark Night” might want to keep it forever. But there will also be others in the following two categories: (a) they were disappointed by the work and *don’t* want to keep it – which happens often with academic work, or (b) they only needed it temporarily.

Apple and the others also need to deal with another issue before they get hit with a lawsuit or have to deal with less-than-friendly legislation. There needs to be some way to probate iTunes libraries and iBookstore collections when someone dies. Given that the value of those collections can run into the tens of thousands of dollars, that is no small deal. Since no money is changing hands, transfers via probate shouldn’t include publisher/author royalties.

And since family members may vary in which music and ebooks they receive, the process should probably include provision for transferring that ownership to multiple accounts.

Amazon looks to try to go down that road where apple is looking for another revenue stream they can use to gouge consumers.

Frak you Apple!

1) Clearly, at least in Europe for the moment, the principle of resale of digital material has been embraced by the Courts. So, a market will develop over there irregardless, whether administered by Amazon, Apple or third parties.

2) On the book side of things, the chief disadvantage will be to publishers (mostly Big Six trad publishers) who insist on aggressive pricing for digital editions, while new digital-native initiatives such as my own and many others will have the market advantage of limited resales. The incentive to resell a $15 digital edition for $7.50 (or a $40 textbook for $20) will be far higher than the incentive to resell a $3 digital edition for $1.50.

3) Another major disadvantage for Big Six trad publishers vs. smaller operations will be the fact that the largest resale markets are for blockbuster bestsellers and textbooks – any item with very high demand. Niche books such as my and so many other smaller operations focus on tend to be ones which people with specific esoteric interests, or fans of specific small-press or self-published literary writers, want to hold on to. For example, I don’t expect for their to be an enormous after-market for our recently published “Hemingway’s Dark Night: Catholic Influences and Intertextualities in the Work of Ernest Hemingway.” Anybody who buys that really wants it, and will keep it.

4) I suspect film-publishers will have limited exposure here, as the bulk of that content is either purchased on a limited pay-per-view basis, or through subscription programs such as Amazon Prime. The content tends not to be transferred to a device as a permanent digital file in such a way that it can be resold. In fact it is not “sold” in the first place, so much as licensed. In fact, in the burgeoning paradigm of digital access, film-publishers are better off than they’ve been previously, when their distribution has been cannibalized thru large after-markets for videos and DVDs.

5) I also suspect that distributors of music will not be overly hurt. Why? Well, just looking at my own habits – I don’t buy a song to listen to it just once. In the same way that I always kept my collection of vinyl albums, and then my collection of CDs, I wanted regular access to my favorite bands/artists/songs. Now I’m the same with my iTunes tracks. I’m never “finished” listening to ABBEY ROAD in the way I’ll soon be permanently be finished reading the latest blockbuster bestseller.

Anyway, there’s my two cents.

Until the legal grounds are clear I doubt either company will dive into re-selling digital goods anytime soon. You have to take patent applications for what it is, a defense against patent trolls and it is often nothing more.