Amazon is finalizing a new patent which will allow online consumers to sell or trade their digital items to other users. According to CNet, granted to the retail giant on January 29, the patent dubbed “Secondary market for digital objects” describes an electronic marketplace for swapping digital items.
The process, though it sounds confusing, is really quite simple:
- A user begins with their purchased videos, music, e-books and applications in their own online storage space. When that person is tired of listening of watching the same videos or reading the same books, they have the option of moving those items to another person’s storage space. As a result, the moved items are then deleted from the user’s personal space.
- Amazon’s patent would put a limit into effect on the number of times a digital item can be transferred to another person. When the limit is reached, the user’s bility to move the specific digital item is suspended or revoked permanently.
- While the seller would receive a “credit” for moving the item, the buyer would be debited a set amount. Amazon would charge for the transaction, which could be collected from the buyer, the seller, or both.
Transferring or selling digital items to someone else I currently tricky, according to CNet, many such items are saddled with digital rights management, limiting who can use them and where and when they can be used
“A secondary market which allows users to effectively and permissibly transfer ‘used’ digital objects to others while maintaining scarcity is therefore desired,” Amazon said in 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.”
In addition, CNet reported that Amazon’s patent win for this type of marketplace does open up some legal issues. ReDigi, a company that lets music owners sell used MP3s, has gotten in trouble with the recording industry over allegations of copyright infringement.
Source: CNET
