Amazon Upgrades


Amazon's recent announcement has the potential to change the landscape of book sales, as described by Randy Picker at the UC Faculty Law School Blog (excerpt):

[...] Amazon Upgrade is something else entirely: digital access to books purchased through Amazon. This is a really clever move by Amazon. They are changing the basic scope of the book business and this will put even more pressure on independent book sellers and even large operators like Barnes & Noble and Borders. And they have come up with a structure that should put meaningful limits on the sharing of digital texts.

Many readers—including me—want it both ways: the joy of reading books on paper and the search capability of books online. If I am actually going to take the time to read the whole book, I want to be able to maximize my use of it. A paper copy and a searchable digital copy will do just that.

Amazon Upgrade does just that. The details are a little murky, but the core idea is buy the book, get the search service. Buy a book from Amazon—one click shipped to you—and Amazon will sell you the right to search that book online at Amazon.

Sell when? Just when I buy the book, as a bundle? Can I buy online access later? At the same price I could have paid at the time of purchase? Pay an annual fee and get access for all of my purchases through Amazon? Amazon hasn’t said yet.

But now we get to copyright and digital copies. Amazon doesn’t seem to be selling digital offline copies with the paper copies. Instead, Amazon is selling a search service. Everything suggests that Amazon intends to do this with the consent of copyright holders, presumably for a split of the revenues. [...]


Posted: Sat - November 5, 2005 at 03:55 PM          

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