It is not a question that we think about a lot, those of us who relish the digital reading experience, but who do those books we read belong to? We already know that we cannot freely lend ebooks to others, with rare exceptions, and I think we know that we cannot legally copy an ebook.
All that we can do is read it. So what happens to it after we die? Does our beloved Harry Potter digital content disappear into the many tubes of the internet? Where do they go?
Keep in mind that we can never actually own a book, only a copy of it. The characters, plot, setting and all of the other elements that make up a story belong strictly to the copyright holder who is generally the author. So even if we have a bookcase overflowing with dead tree books in every room of our house, we never did own any of the stories.
But we did own the copies, though, and they could be bequeathed, loaned, destroyed or defaced. Ebooks are different.
I asked Amazon directly who would inherit my library, and while they haven't responded yet, I expect I will be referred to the Terms of Service that I agreed to when I opened my Kindle account:
1. Kindle Content
Use of Kindle Content. Upon your download of Kindle Content and payment of any applicable fees (including applicable taxes), the Content Provider grants you a non-exclusive right to view, use, and display such Kindle Content an unlimited number of times, solely on the Kindle or a Reading Application or as otherwise permitted as part of the Service, solely on the number of Kindles or Supported Devices specified in the Kindle Store, and solely for your personal, non-commercial use. Kindle Content is licensed, not sold, to you by the Content Provider. The Content Provider may include additional terms for use within its Kindle Content. Those terms will also apply, but this Agreement will govern in the event of a conflict. Some Kindle Content, such as Periodicals, may not be available to you through Reading Applications.
Limitations. Unless specifically indicated otherwise, you may not sell, rent, lease, distribute, broadcast, sublicense, or otherwise assign any rights to the Kindle Content or any portion of it to any third party, and you may not remove or modify any proprietary notices or labels on the Kindle Content. In addition, you may not bypass, modify, defeat, or circumvent security features that protect the Kindle Content.
(Emphasis mine)
In order to play fair, I also checked the Barnes & Noble
Terms of Service for Nook Content:
XII. DIGITAL CONTENT
Barnes & Noble.com offers Users the ability to purchase or download digital content, such as eBooks, digital magazines, digital newspapers, digital journals and other periodicals, blogs, applications (including applications developed by Barnes & Noble or third parties), and other digital content as determined by Barnes & Noble.com from time to time from and through the Barnes & Noble.com Site (individually and collectively, "Digital Content"). Barnes & Noble.com grants you a limited, nonexclusive, revocable license to access and make personal, non-commercial use of the Digital Content in accordance with these Terms of Use.
(Emphasis mine)
Kobo's terms are more difficult to find, but I doubt that they are very different since the terms are probably industry-wide and set by the publishers. (BTW, this discussion has nothing to do with Digital Rights Management-DRM-which is the tool publishers use to prevent pirating and a totally different conversation.)
And these terms have been enforced. In a delicious bit of literary irony, Amazon withdrew George Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984 from Kindles when they learned that the publisher who was selling them through the internet giant did not hold the rights to the books. The same link that allows Amazon to conveniently synch all your devices also allows them to delete books from your devices. A high school student who had made copious notes on the novel 1984 for a school assignment brought suit against Amazon in July of 2009. Amazon settled the suit, offering each user a legal copy of the work or a $30 gift certificate. In addition to paying the legal costs, Amazon changed its deletion policy:
But that's not the most interesting aspect of the settlement. In it, Amazon's attorneys agreed to legally binding terms that describe its content deletion policy. When it comes to blog and periodical content, as well as software, Amazon retains the right to perform a remote delete. But when it comes to books, deletions will only occur under a limited number of circumstances: failed credit card transactions, judicial orders, malware, or the permission of the user.
Apparently blocking an account is not the same as deleting books from it. A woman in Norway had her account
suspended last fall:
A woman from Norway recently found her Amazon account was suspended, and her Kindle had been wiped of all the eBooks she'd bought. Amazon then refused to explain why, only saying her account was "directly related to another which has been previously closed for abuse of our policies."
But the woman insisted she'd never had another Amazon account. She continued to press the customer service rep she had been emailing with, only to get the following brush-off:
"We wish you luck in locating a retailer better able to meet your needs and will not be able to offer any additional insight or action on these matters."
Amazon did reverse itself and restore the woman's account, but no explanation was ever given for the original suspension or for the re-instatement.
At one point I considered "buying" an ebook somewhat like renting a car for 90% of its purchase price. You can no more lend a rental car than you can an ebook. But then I started thinking about it and realized that if you could rent a car for a lifetime's use, then 90% might not be such a bad price. You don't have to turn in your ebook at the end of the weekend with a full tank of gas. Nor do you have to worry about building a garage, or bookcase in which to store it. And you don't have to worry about losing an ebook, or damaging the spine or cover, since you can download it as many times as you want.
Over the years we have purchased a half-dozen different Kindles, passing them around to family members who are all on our Amazon account. We share the books and I pay for all of them. For those who don't have kindles, they can read the library on their smartphones or computers.
But I still worried about what would happen to the books after I am gone. Asking the question on the Kindle forums brought the advice that my heir should have my account name and password so that he/she can take over my account should something happen to me.
And then I received the following response from Amazon to my query:
Hello,
Thank you for writing to us, and I understand your concern regarding your purchased Kindle books stored on your Kindle library.
Please know that we store all your purchases from the Kindle Store on Amazon.com so you can access your books and other content from multiple Kindle devices and Kindle reading apps, as long as the Kindle devices and Kindle reading apps are registered to the same account. God forbid, if you passed away, your heir can access your Kindle library by contacting us via phone using your email address.
You can manage your existing Kindle library and download anytime through Manage Your Kindle (www.amazon.com/manageyourkindle). The options for transferring content, and instructions for each option, are available in our Help pages here:
http://www.amazon.com/...
So it looks like Amazon feels that my digital content belongs to me. Today.
But as Joel Johnson discusses in his Technology Article for NBC.com, "You don't own your Kindle books, Amazon reminds customer," the ownership issue is not one that has been completely settled.
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