The End of Ownership, Aaron Perzanowski
The End of Ownership, Aaron Perzanowski
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The End of Ownership
Personal Property in the Digital Economy

Author: Aaron Perzanowski, Jason Schultz

Narrator: Richard Powers

Unabridged: 10 hr 2 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/11/2016

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

If you buy a book at the bookstore, you own it. You can take it home, scribble in the margins, put in on the shelf, lend it to a friend, or sell it at a garage sale. But is the same thing true for the e-books or other digital goods you buy? Retailers and copyright holders argue that you don’t own those purchases, you merely license them. That means your e-book vendor can delete the book from your device without warning or explanation—as Amazon deleted Orwell’s 1984 from the Kindles of surprised readers several years ago. These readers thought they owned their copies of 1984—until, it turned out, they didn’t. In The End of Ownership, Aaron Perzanowski and Jason Schultz explore how notions of ownership have shifted in the digital marketplace, and make an argument for the benefits of personal property.Of course, e-books, cloud storage, streaming, and other digital goods offer users convenience and flexibility. But, as Perzanowski and Schultz warn, consumers should be aware of the trade-offs involving user constraints, permanence, and privacy. The rights of private property are clear, but few people manage to read their end user agreements. Perzanowski and Schultz argue that introducing aspects of private property and ownership into the digital marketplace would offer both legal and economic benefits. But more importantly, it would affirm our sense of self-direction and autonomy. If we own our purchases, we are free to make whatever lawful use of them we please. Technology need not constrain our freedom; it can also empower us.

About Aaron Perzanowski

Aaron Perzanowski is professor of law at Case Western Reserve University.Jason Schultz is professor of clinical law at New York University School of Law and director of NYU’s Technology Law and Policy Clinic.

About Jason Schultz

Jason Schultz is professor of clinical law at New York University School of Law and director of NYU’s Technology Law and Policy Clinic.

About Richard Powers

Richard Powers has published thirteen novels. He is a MacArthur Fellow and received the National Book Award. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Overstory, and Bewilderment was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Sean on August 31, 2018

A lot more legalese and legal cases cited than I signed up for, but it makes salient points about the importance of meaningful choice, rather than customers being shoehorned into a dominant licensing model with no options to actually own copyrighted work. ___ Property rights reduce transaction costs.......more

Goodreads review by Charlie on January 15, 2017

Most of the book is about how hard it has been and continues to be to apply old law in the context of digital property. Many law cases with Keurig, Sony, John Deer etc. are brought up to explain how corporations are shifting how they see sales. It is always presumed that this will be bad for the con......more

Goodreads review by Robert on April 04, 2025

Though this book was published a few years ago, it has become increasingly relevant as our economy shifts, much to my own great displeasure, toward digital only media and away from physical property. If I can be forgiven for attempting to summarize an entire book in so short a phrase, the basic thes......more

Goodreads review by Vidu on January 07, 2022

Fairly dry writing, but ultimately contained a lot of valuable knowledge about the current state of digital ownership and licensing rights management. I enjoyed reading about the various case studies sprinkled in as well.......more

Goodreads review by Brian on April 27, 2024

Excellent telling of how we got into the current mess with loss of ownership rights to purchased items and providing ideas to be used as a starting point for discussions on how to fix it to a more equitable balance between consumers and producers.......more


Quotes

“An excellent, enraging, eye-opening, essential overview of the way that ‘intellectual property’ has become a twenty-first-century virus that lets the biggest corporations in the world strip you of your actual property rights.” Cory Doctorow, New York Times bestselling author

“Not only is this an exceptionally clear explanation of the current digital ownership landscape, it is a call to action to all who can change it.” Mary Lee Kennedy, former chief library officer, New York Public Library

“The gradual erosion of ownership is a long-term threat to human freedom…This book makes clear the stakes and sounds an important warning.” Tim Wu, author of The Master Switch