[Not Here Anymore]

Article here:
http://www.zdnet.com/amazon-lands-patent-on-marketplace-for-selling-on-used-digital-content-7000010917/

Odd to think of digital goods as being "used." Not sure how I feel about this.

On one hand, it would let people "recycle" digital content, which is one of the main gripes people have about ebooks: that you can't hand them off to friends like you can physical books.

On the other hand, a physical book that is passed on has less value than the original because it is not in the original state (new). There is wear and tear, spine creases, etc. Wouldn't "used" digital content be exactly the same as "new?"

 

[Not Here Anymore]

But I do wonder how this type of marketplace would impact income for authors.

That's the big question, isn't it? Good point about the DRM, too.

Here's what the article says about limiting the transfers:
"Amazon's second-hand digital marketplace would create scarcity by limiting, via a counter it describes in the patent, the number of times a digital object may be transferred.

"These thresholds help to maintain scarcity of digital objects in the marketplace and/or to comply with licensing requirements of the digital object, by putting conditions on when and how many times used digital objects may be transferred," Amazon explains."