Dummies guide to shooting self in foot: Publishers dream of limiting resale of books
While Cory Doctorow and David Weinberger are lighting up the internet (cosmos 1, 2)
with their principled pleas to Microsoft on the perils of DRM - a group
of publishers are talking up trying to chisel away the first sale doctrine which allows you to resell the books you buy.
This is an interesting concept. Amazon.ca & .com let you list
your entire library for resale online for no cost other than sales
comissions. You need to reply to any sales within 3 days to
be valid, and that's it. A great way of getting rid of those
books you've already read.
You can also do the same with CDs, not sure if you can on Amazon yet
though. I met a couple of university students awhile back who
ended up taking this concept and creating Deja-Vu discs, a used-CD
music store with tons of high-quality material and guarantees on
quality. They ended up picking up a new Nissan 300ZX in their
first year I think.
Can you do the same with MP3s or Itunes you purchase? Resell them for 1/2 price, or compile an album and resell it?
My latest thing has been picking up books from garage sales.
Where else can you find brand new hardcovers for $1 or less?
One problem with this addiction is lack of space and shelves.
Another is lack of time to read all this stuff. Finally there's
keeping track of your books.
Here's one solution. Bibliophil.org
I haven't really explored this site yet, however it looks
promising. This is sort of like a file-sharing system for
books. You have a buddy list and your entire collection of books
online, which can be loaned, traded, or sold fairly easily.
One scary thing about this is the privacy concerns.
Since I'm a garage sale addict, I have noticed that you can judge a
book by its cover, and an owner by their books. Generally I can
tell almost immediately what interests, occupations, and training a
book owner has, simply by looking at 3 or 4 titles in their boxes of
books. It is really amazing.
Imagine profiling people based on their book lists. Marketing to
them based on their interests. Taking the idea of Chapters or
Indigo Rewards to the next level.
Sounds alot like Google GMail to me.
A couple books I'm reading right now:
Golf for Dummies
The New Investment Frontier II
The Discipline of Market Leaders
How the Cadillac Got its Fins
Trump's The Art of the Deal
