Thing is, writes Fowler, owning an e-book is more akin to licensing a piece of software than it is to owning a bound volume: access comes with fine-print terms of service, and often digital rights management software to ensure that you abide by the rules.Īnother difference: Real books can be shared with a friend or sold, but e-books with digital rights management software cannot. “What this incident shows is that the law gives radically more control to the company than the system ought to,” says Harvard’s Lawrence Lessig. Some experts are saying that these matters might best be remedied by passing new laws that clearly define digital ownership. according to Fowler, the incident raises some difficult questions about what it means to “own” books in the digital age. Amazon, which returned the cost of the e-books, said it made the move when it realized that the publisher didn’t have the proper rights to sell the books in the U.S. The issue came up last week when reached into customers’ Kindle e-readers and deleted some e-books written - ironically - by George Orwell. It’s a provocative question explored in an article Thursday by the WSJ’s Geoffrey Fowler.

Do we as consumers ever really own the digital stuff - books, music, etc.

Kindle drm