Selling ebooks online - copyright/resale laws

zig

Hi all,

I’m just wondering does anyone know where the legal status of this lies.

Myself and some colleagues are building a website that sells a digital version of books and the book contains modification and technology to improve its readability. A bit like a typical ebook only more interactive and fun to read.

We have a rule that you must have bought the book to use the app. (We will carry out our own verification). If they have not bought the book we will sell it to them.

Can anyone offer any assistance as to the legality of this?

Basically the success of our product would still create sales for the publisher, not take sales away.

Edit: just to add a bit of a real life analogy,

Would it be legal for me to buy a book, add some notes, make some small modifications and sell that book onto someone? Not as my own work, but simply as a resale.

I’m not sure if there is much of a difference.

Graham

I don't think you ever actually buy ebooks, you usually acquire a license.

I'm not sure how relevant that is to your idea but the KindleAmazon eBook license agreement might be worth a look.

pedroeibar1

zig wrote: »

Hi all,
.....We have a rule that you must have bought the book to use the app. (We will carry out our own verification). If they have not bought the book we will sell it to them.

How are you going to do this and how much will it cost?
Other than the 'kiddies' market, who buys books because they are more 'fun to read'??

zig

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

How are you going to do this and how much will it cost?

They would enter the ISBN on purchasing and we would identify it with a photo of the book with same number. Failing that, simply a photo. Not saying this is ideal by any means, but we are happy be seen to be at least trying our best to make sure we are only dealing with verified book owners (as oppose to encouraging free content).

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

Other than the 'kiddies' market, who buys books because they are more 'fun to read'??

Sorry, there is much more to it which I am too lazy to get into now as its not feedback on the idea that Im looking for, we've done extensive market research and have launched MVPs to smaller groups with great success and have a proof of concept. Where we are stuck really is more the legal/content side.

zig

Graham wrote: »

I don't think you ever actually buy ebooks, you usually acquire a license.

I'm not sure how relevant that is to your idea but the KindleAmazon eBook license agreement might be worth a look.

Cheers Ill take a look at that! Any info may help us!

Graham

Business model aside, I suspect you may need access to a reasonably large legal fund for this venture.

I'd strongly recommend you go and chat with an IP lawyer before investing too much time/money/effort.

Either that or proceed with the blessing/support of the publishers whose work you're planning to profit from. Maybe on a rev-share/licensing basis.

zig

Graham wrote: »

Business model aside, I suspect you may need access to a reasonably large legal fund for this venture.

I'd strongly recommend you go and chat with an IP lawyer before investing too much time/money/effort.

Either that or proceed with the blessing/support of the publishers whose work you're planning to profit from. Maybe on a rev-share/licensing basis.

Thanks, I'll do some research on IP lawyers today!

Regarding blessing/support, interestingly , we actually have support of alot of authors of the books, and they own the copyright of the text itself (lots of school books in our case so the content is pretty generic as is). so theoretically we could press ahead with that but we would actually like to use the published books too as it will really help with marketing. Not to mention, we would like to get into fiction and other stuff later down the line if its going well.

The issue with dealing with publishers is, you are basically dealing with their reseller guys, so you are kind of in competition with them so as a result they are not being very helpful. But you're right we are still trying to press ahead with getting the approval from people higher up in these companies. Im sure we could but we dont want to give up all our profit margin from the software itself to the publishers. Also, dealing with them is sort of holding up the show so to speak.

So we are sort of considering the "Ask for forgiveness, not for permission" approach and just give royalties if it does start growing as an idea. They may be far more interested in us if we are growing in the future.

The problem now is that we are nobodys but that could be a good thing too in terms of just pressing ahead.

Pelvis

I can't see how this is legal in any way tbh. You're taking someone else's original work, modifying it, and selling it on for profit without giving a cut to the publisher.

Also your "verification" is anything but. How do you take a picture of an e-book? Buying a hardcopy does not entitle you to a free ebook, and how does providing the ISBN verify a purchase?

"Asking for forgiveness, not for permission" may be a costly approach.

Graham

Maybe approach a smaller publisher to start with, preferably one you can do a face-to-face with. Have a blow-their-socks off demo to show them.

Use them as a showcase to leverage when approaching the big boys.

It's an interesting idea and I can see it might have scope to expand in all sorts of directions but I suspect you'll get battered black & blue if you try the 'ask forgiveness' approach.

Some of the very significant academic publishers (think xxxx University Press types) have a large library of old style e-learning content that would be ripe for the digital book treatment. At least one of them is currently investigating ways to bring the presentation of that content up to date and making it accessible to a wider audience.

pedroeibar1

zig wrote: »

They would enter the ISBN on purchasing and we would identify it with a photo of the book with same number. Failing that, simply a photo. Not saying this is ideal by any means, but we are happy be seen to be at least trying our best to make sure we are only dealing with verified book owners (as oppose to encouraging free content).

That is unbelievably naïve. Any idiot can stroll into Easons and take a photo of an ISBN. You also have several false assumptions on publisher/author copyright.

zig wrote: »

Sorry, there is much more to it which I am too lazy to get into now as its not feedback on the idea that Im looking for, we've done extensive market research and have launched MVPs to smaller groups with great success and have a proof of concept. Where we are stuck really is more the legal/content side.

How could anyone spend cash to ‘do extensive market research’ when the basic legal core of the business model has not been clarified?

Any book publisher that heard your comments above in a pitch would be so scared of your naivety and ignorance of the publishing industry that it would run a mile for gear of contagion. Legally your model has no hope of survival on what you have described; you would be closed down by injunction immediately.

It also is more than arrogant to say that you are ‘too lazy’ to give more precise detail; so rather than expand in greater detail I’ll just lazily say that you have fallen in love with an idea and your star-struck view is blanking out the many holes in your project.

zig

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

Any book publisher that heard your comments above in a pitch would be so scared of your naivety and ignorance of the publishing industry that it would run a mile for gear of contagion. Legally your model has no hope of survival on what you have described; you would be closed down by injunction immediately.

It also is more than arrogant to say that you are ‘too lazy’ to give more precise detail; so rather than expand in greater detail I’ll just lazily say that you have fallen in love with an idea and your star-struck view is blanking out the many holes in your project.

1. It is not the "legal core" of the business model and it is not our only option, it is an option we would like to consider, hence I started the thread.

2. You're not "any publisher" and this isn't a pitch. I have no interest in convincing you that this is a good idea.

3. Why aren't you telling me the false assumptions so? Thats why I started the thread, instead of just telling me Im naive, ignorant and arrogant and star struck.

4. "Too lazy" was my way of politely saying I am not looking for feedback on the viability of the business. I have posted very thorough threads here before on feedback on ideas and completely respect peoples responses, so much so that I happily scrap ideas based on things that people point out. I also dont want to be sharing details when by own admission my question is obviously related to legal uncertainties.

5. You seem pissed off, you can deny it but you seem it either way to me so I dont really need your advice because I dont think its motivated by answering the question, and more motivated by proving a point that I am lost in an idea. Both replies seem that way to me.

pedroeibar1

I never get annoyed by the stupidity of posters, although I admit some content is so inexperienced it astonishes me. In your case it is like a person who can drive now saying he has the skills to open a garage/main dealership.



Giving legal advice is against the charter. You came looking for advice, you got it, some good, and some bad. Take your pick.


You might like to research ‘assertion of copyright’ and the ‘moral rights of authors’. (I am one. )

zig

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

You might like to research ‘assertion of copyright’ and the ‘moral rights of authors’. (I am one. )

Like I said already , we have author approval and they are the copyright owners of the text.

I’m just gonna ignore any of your other insults tbh. I’m too busy this morning.

pedroeibar1

That's not what you wrote in your OP, but it does not much matter as you also need the copyright holder (not always the author, as you have incorrectly assumed). Google Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. Have a look at Article 6 in particular.

zig

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

That's not what you wrote in your OP, but it does not much matter as you also need the copyright holder (not always the author, as you have incorrectly assumed)

I have not assumed that, you have assumed that I havent bothered to discern the difference when speaking to authors. Please do not forget that authors and/or publishers make the value of a full sale from this.

I am only replying to you now because I am caught in a stupid internet argument, not because either of us are learning anything. So Ill stop now.

To the others, Graham and Pelvis, thanks for the feedback, you're right in that the ask for forgiveness approach is probably too messy in this case.

And I never even thought about the e-book situation and the lack of ISBN.

My motivation to ask the question was because we want to move fast with this, not because we want someone to be out of pocket as a result of our product. And unfortunately when you're trying to deal with a reseller in a bid to be a reseller yourself, as you can imagine, they aren't going to go out of their way to help. Some publishers have been positive however and we do have meetings set up.

Having the copyright holders on board is great because if we really wanted we could launch the product now with their content. The issue is we would love to actually represent the published book, for our own reasons (marketing/sales) and also for the publishers sake.

We're not trying to do anything sinister. We just want to move forward and make an attempt at proving the concept publicly, whatever way that is achievable and moral, we will take.

pedroeibar1

zig wrote: »

I am only replying to you now because I am caught in a stupid internet argument, not because either of us are learning anything. So Ill stop now.

Despite it being an interesting topic I’m certainly learning nothing useful from you.

Apart from the other pointers I gave you,(e.g. the Berne Convention, which covers the basis of the law on this topic) you should also familiarise yourself with the ‘doctrine of first sale’. And it appears you still don’t accept you’re wrong on IP copyright – who, for example, owned the copyright for the Beatles’ music? (If, as you say you are too busy, I’ll tell you – it was Michael Jackson;)).

If your project involves interfering with a book, all you can do is deal jointly with author, publisher and copyright holder(s), it won’t work singly. Also, eBooks legally are more like music and quite different to printed, as you are dealing with a specific and limited licence agreement, so copying/distributing/selling would be a breach of that licence agreement, unless of course everyone agreed with what you want to do, which in my experience is highly unlikely.

Digital_Guy

Maybe start with royalty-free works to prove out the concept? Otherwise it sounds like a real mindfield!