Amazon Patents Method For Users to Sell Digital Items
Amazon has been granted a patent that would allow members of the world's largest online retailer to sell or trade their digital items to other users.
On January 29, the patent, entitled "Secondary Market for Digital Objects," was granted to Amazon. It refers to an electronic marketplace that would allow users to sell or swap digital items.
Users can see their purchased digital goods such as music, videos, apps and e-books being stored in their own online storage space. You can then move such items to another user's storage space, with the moved items subsequently being deleted from a user's own space.
The patent said that Amazon would apply a limit to the number of times a digital item could be transferred to another user. When the limit is reached, the retail giant will suspend or permanently stop the ability to move a given item.
The seller would receive an unspecified type of credit in return for moving the item. The buyer, meanwhile, will have to pay a certain amount, while Amazon would charge a fee for the transaction. The latter can be collected from the buyer, the seller or both.
"A secondary market, which allows users to effectively and permissibly transfer 'used' digital objects to others while maintaining scarcity, is therefore desired," reads the patent. "A 'used' digital object is one to which a user has legitimately obtained access or ownership rights (hereinafter 'access rights'), and to which the user may permissibly transfer to another user."
I wonder why the US has so much lawyers per capita income...
When is this race (we, humans) going to learn that digital stuff, bits and bytes are NOT things to be sold or bought, as they don't contain any physical resources?
Not to mention the concept of money itself which is archaic, and needs to go away as soon as possible, as it's currently holding us back badly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilY4hRgfC2Q
You want a scary thought?
There are more soon to be lawyers in law schools than there are lawyers who are currently practicing.
Growth rates like that are almost viral ...
Sounds Marxist to me....
By the same token of the youtube video, there was a two-part episode called Time's Arrow where Twain was explaining to Troi about the acquisition of wealth and the proletariat vs. the bourgeoisie. Where iirc Troi ended the scene with a smile and a nod "that's right"...
Well, first of all they do take up server space, a physical resource, and bandwidth, a limited supply. Second of all, while it does not contain a physical product, it is a labor of an individual who took their time and effort to create that material and needs money to live, eat, and provide shelter for themselves.. Food and shelter do require physical efforts so those resources are not free to creative individuals. Therefore artists need compensation for their art.
How about you? You want to abolish the concept of currency? You can be the first. Sleep in the woods, eat trash you find, and put in physical efforts towards things with no compensation whatsoever. That is not how humanity works. People are only driven to take action when there is personal gain, even volunteers gain a feeling of satisfaction from their charity. Financial gain is the wheel that keeps society rolling forward. The idealistic dream of a currency free society is just an illusion created by people who are cared for by others and have no concept of working to survive.
It's still fun to see how you guys get angry every time someone posts about a post-scarcity society.
No worries, some day you'll understand. Every child needs to grow up eventually...
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But getting back to the subject in hand, Amazon will probably enjoy their patent, for a while, until the system totally crashes (won't take that long, the collapse is already underway, and it's been so for many years already)
That's exactly what I was thinking.
I'm sure you will at some point.