Fredish Smörgåsbord

In today's Observer Business column, John Naughton discusses what a ripoff it is for ebook vendors to "sell" you books with abusive, multi-thousand word "license agreements," pretending that because you bought your book over the network, it wasn't a sale, and so you don't get to own it. These "licenses" aren't about upholding copyright (if they were, you could replace thousands of words of lawyerese with four simple words: "Don't violate copyright law"). They're about overriding copyright -- which has all kinds of guarantees for the rights of book-owners -- with a private law that gives every advantage to the publisher or retailer, converting you from a noble reader to a wormy, contemptible licensor who doesn't deserve to own books.

Anyone reads EULA today? I do. But I don't have a kindle and I don't even trust it as a model of the next-generation of "books". The debates, confrontations and conflicts of the rights among eBook writers, publishers, distributors and customers still have a long way to go.

電子書的所謂版權和所有權等等問題，到現在還是沒有公認的標準，而是先訂標準、先有產品的人就贏；這也是為什麼各家廠商搶著插頭香的原因之一。在電子書的市場性方面，我並不看好Kindle、也不認為它會是個往後必當遵循的典範。

這類權利衝突的好戲，這陣子還有得看。