E-books: Developments and Policy Considerations

The essential distinction between permanent and effective ownership of a physical book, and conditional rights of access to the e-book, has, so far, been somewhat obscured by marketing strategies and use of visual images, which tend to present e-books as a superior, but also substitutable, version of the print book product.

Given the virtual reality of “traditional books” presented by e-Book platforms, buyers of e-books are likely to confuse their rights (i.e. after purchase) with the property rights model for print books. Users may be surprised to find that they are prevented from doing certain things with their e-book, within their private/ personal sphere. It has been suggested that, with digital rights management (DRM), the consumer’s relationship with their selected e-books, even those stored on their own devices8, may be better described as a “rental”, or a “license to access”, rather than a “purchase”. It would also be in the consumer interest to ensure that information explaining what the DRM is, what it restricts, and why, be highlighted for the buyer, prior to his/her purchase of the e-book. The policy concern worthy of greatest consideration is arguably consumer protection: transparency, product information, and the risk of misleading consumers. Any material limitations of use rights must be clearly and conspicuously disclosed before the sale of the content.

Users who buy e-books are often locking the purchase into a platform or hardware system and this could lead to interoperability issues across platforms and problems with consumer lock-in. The choice of reading device will, to varying degrees, affect the range of e-books available to the reader. The degree of vertical integration which has developed across the supply chain for e-books has created commercial incentives to tie the customer’s long term investment in the reading hardware to the content of a particular e-book seller. The risks of customer lock-in and market fragmentation should be considered in this context.