Nowadays, pretty much the only way for a bookstore to stay afloat is to be creative and adapt to the ever-evolving digital world. Amazon has proven itself to be one of the most resourceful, with its always expanding digital book library and top of line Kindle variations. (Not to mention its large selection of music, video, and household products.)
The latest innovation? The company recently scored a patent for technology that, once implemented, will allow its users to sell their “used” digital files on its marketplace. How does it work? According to the patent information, which was filed back in 2009, as one user transfers a file to a new device via a digital market that Amazon will host, that file will simultaneously be erased from the original source.
The technology won’t just be limited to the transfer of digital books, but will also work for music, video files, and even apps. The benefit of purchasing used files is that, theoretically, similar to doing the same for tangible products, they will be made available at a discounted rate.
Amazon also plans to put a limit on the number of times any given file can pass from one owner to the next. Once the file reaches its capacity, a hold or permanent freeze will be put on the file and it will no longer be allowed to move.
While this is bound to be a profitable move for the online giant – Amazon plans to charge a nominal fee for each file transfer, of course – it doesn’t bode well for other third party companies that already exist and provide this service. By and large, people are much more comfortable going with the brand they know. So companies like ReDigi, which have based their entire business strategy on Amazon’s traditional lack of this service, have some serious scrambling to do.
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