The advantages of secondhand bookshops

**RimWorlder** · January 14th, 2008, 09:07 AM

I'm reading a second-hand purchase right now (Anderson's Orbits Unlimited). Its a 60s publication and has, on the very first page, legal boilerplate stating spefically that you may not re-sell this book, lend it or make it available for use to others.

At the time, there was a huge issue going on where bookstores would tear off the covers of the book and send them in as proof of a 'return' - for which they would get credit. (No one wanted to ship the whole book back). The booksellers would then stick those coverless or half-coverless copies into a used book store. So, in actuality, the publishers were getting ripped off by remitting dollars to the bookseller's account.

On the other hand, the book returned was going to get pulped anyway...

Strictly speaking (here in the states), everyone is supposed to purchase their very own new copy so that the publishers/distributors and originators get their cut. You're not supposed to lend a book to someone (lost sale), or sell it at a garage sale (lost sale), just like you're not supposed to scan it and put it up online as an unathorized e-book (lost sale).

This clashes with the theory of ownership in most people's minds (I own the book and can do with my property what I want to). In actuality, you've purchased a license to own a single copy of that work prepared in the particular format you originally purchased, and the master licensing arrangement presumes that you are an end-user.

Fortunately for most, its impossible to police these kinds of things, so they're ignored in the vast majority of cases. Yet another example of modern technology trumping old ways of doing business. It used to be that books were so precious and expensive to produce no one would even think about a 'remaindered' store for them.

**ArthurFrayn** · January 14th, 2008, 12:56 PM

Fortunately for most, its impossible to police these kinds of things, so they're ignored in the vast majority of cases.

Then why is it that used book stores and businesses are even allowed to exist?
They are actually businesses,some with a high profile, and not a single user who is not playing by the rules. Why are used book stores and related online services allowed to flourish? Why aren't they just shut down as an illegal form of business?

I'm not being snide here, I just want to know.

**cgw** · January 14th, 2008, 12:57 PM

I'm no lawyer but I don't think Rimworlder has it quite right. I am pretty sure you do own the book just like you do own a record or CD. It is copying that is illegal.

**Bluestar** · January 14th, 2008, 02:33 PM

Well there is a difference between a second hand book and a striped book. The striped book is actually fraud if sold.

**Ambidexter** · January 14th, 2008, 02:36 PM

rimworlder is a little incorrect in that you are allowed to lend books as it is the only one person at a time read or listen to it principle. You can not make copies without permission in the US.

**Libo** · January 14th, 2008, 07:33 PM

Actually can't you make a copy in the US for personal use. The fair use exception lets you make copies for non-commercial use such as research. Lots of students would be screwed without it.

I don't think it would be too hard to enforce if it were really illegal. Just set up a sting or camera outside a used bookstore. Set them up at all the used book stores at once let them run for a year, then id all customers and ... scoop. And what about Ebay sells. And Amazon.com gateway to used copies books.

**acereader** · January 25th, 2008, 03:39 PM

Originally Posted by Libo

Actually can't you make a copy in the US for personal use. The fair use exception lets you make copies for non-commercial use such as research. Lots of students would be screwed without it.

I don't think it would be too hard to enforce if it were really illegal. Just set up a sting or camera outside a used bookstore. Set them up at all the used book stores at once let them run for a year, then id all customers and ... scoop. And what about Ebay sells. And Amazon.com gateway to used copies books.

Actually the fair use for a book only allows you to copy a certain percentage of the book. Don't remember off hand how much.

**acereader** · January 25th, 2008, 03:45 PM

With extremely rare exceptions the books I buy are used.

I love used bookstores and box lots on Ebay. I am a bit of a collector. I collect Ace Doubles, certain artists (cover art), juvenile sci-fi series, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and tons of other stuff. But only reader copies. I collect them to read, not to just sit on a shelf.

It's cheap fun for the most part.

There's a couple of good used bookstores near me.

**RimWorlder** · January 26th, 2008, 11:29 AM

I didn't mean to avoid this thread, just forgot about it.

In pure definition terms, when you're buying a book, a cd, a print, etc. you're buying a single copy for your own personal use. The idea that you can hand it off to someone else defeats the entire purpose of someone paying for the rights to distribute it and re-selling.

Under this kind of doctrine, the RIAA is arguing 'format'; ownership of an LP copy of the Beatles White Album doesn't confer ownership of those songs in any other format or media, just as it doesn't give you rights to reproduce and distribute, let alone re-sell, it.

Now, with that being said: there was a famous case over here involving video tape; broacast interests tried to get video recorders banned from the marketplace because they enabled the kinds of activities we're talking about. The broadcasters even argued that copying a show for later viewing was illegal.

You can't rent a movie and then charge admission for others to watch; several cases were decided against bars for doing just that - or large screen broadcasts of sporting events. Sports bars have to pay cable providers a special rate for multiple sets - and the content providers figure they're getting they're piece that way.

If they had their way, they'd even argue that by all rights, each person should have to purchase their own private copy of a DVD if more than one person were going to watch.

And they'd be within at least one interpretation of the law that's on the books.

Now, in practice, most of the nuances of these rights laws are recognized as being either cost-prohibitive or impracticle to enforce. For example, a patent gives you the right to exclude others from making their own personal copies of their patented device. (About he only exception being cases where someone can legitimately claim research.) I know of a case where numerous individuals are making their own versions of a patented device and are sharing the information publicly, but the patent holder can't afford to prosecute thousand of individuals. The same holds true for people lending books or copying their 8-tracks onto CDs.

When it comes to books, the technology has been around for so long, and the practices that skirt the gray areas of rights have become so ingrained that, for the most part, they are now an assumed cost of doing business. (for example - for purposes of accounting, magazines in the US are allowed to claim 'readership' I believe up to 3.5 times the actual number of copies printed. This number, even though its a fiction, is used when quoting advertising rates. Would they prefer to be selling 3.5 times as many magazines? of course. if it were possible to enforce and reasonably economical to do so, would they prefer to make everyone buy their own copy of People? of course they would. instead, they're getting their "losses" covered by the right to charge more for their advertising space.)

if the existing laws were stringently enforced under the most draconian interpretation possible, everyone would have to purchase their own individual copy of everything.

**LessThanLuke** · January 29th, 2008, 04:36 AM

Hey I'm new here but I work in a second hand bookshop and its great.

. I'm basically in charge of the fantasy/sci fi section because the manager dosen't have a clue about it and I have picked up some great bargains there.

**JunkMonkey** · August 2nd, 2011, 09:01 AM

I was going to start a new thread but let's revive this one instead.

Second hand bookshops are my favourite places and there are few of them these days. I think we should spread the word amongst ourselves, and elsewhere, about ones we find. Here's a couple I came across on a recent trip to Sheffield:

Hillsborough Books

Good general second hand bookshop with lots of stock in a small space.

A pile SF and fantasy two deep on the shelves and wonderfully unsorted. Reasonably priced too. I bough a copy of John M Harrison's The Pastel City for £2.

Tomes of Buxton

We stopped at a garden centre for a cup of coffee because the first place we went too was crowded and we were desperate.

With my unerring ability to find second-hand books everywhere I go, we ended up at probably the only garden centre in Britain with a well-established, second-hand bookshop in the middle of it:

I didn't spend a lot of time inside the main shop but I filled up an armful from their overspill shop next door - where every book was 50p.

**Sonja Ravenscroft** · August 2nd, 2011, 09:33 AM

Like photos above, Junkmonkey, I love the second (third? 4th?) handbook stores where the books are PILED high, and create their own sort of maze/universe of twists and turns, something akin to the Unseen University Library (which describes libraries as their own twist in the space/time continnum)-I love book stores like that-they're so easy to get lost in

**Hobbit** · August 2nd, 2011, 10:37 AM

Yes: now if that second picture was all genre books.... *drool*

Mark

**SaltatrixTonsa** · August 2nd, 2011, 03:29 PM

Originally Posted by Ouroboros

Yesterday I was passing what is probably the largest secondhand bookstore in Dublin. They've got as much space devoted to SF and Fantasy as any other genre barring general fiction, and if you were looking for any of the major series then chances are you could pick them up in their entirety at this place for a fraction of their cost brand new. Equally, it's the place to go for imports and rarities that people have brought in to sell or trade, and because it's a fair size the turnover of books is better than in most stores- Usually a good amount of new stuff every week.

At the moment my backlist is pretty full up, although I'm making headway thanks to a decision to work through the stand-alones first and put some of the heavier series on the backburner. I wasn't particularly looking to buy anything new (hard to justify, especially with a huge credit card bill on the way after Christmas).

Still, I ended up going in. Because when it comes to second-hand bookshops you simply never know what you will find inside.

Sure, a lot of it will be crap that has been sitting on the shelves for literally years- The kind of thing that didn't sell when it was new, let alone a couple of decades on. And they're probably guaranteed to have seven copies of each of the major beststelling works you've owned for years.

But there's just a chance you'll find something totally out of the blue, and this has happened to me quite a few times. I'd have been planning to order a few books from Baen or someone else whose catalogue only sporadically gets onto shelves in the UK and Ireland. And then, lo and behold, I will look down a secondhand bookshelf and find exactly the book I was thinking of ordering, and sometimes for sale at a pauper's price.

Yesterday, for example, I found Timothy Zahn's 'Blackcollar' and 'The Backlash Mission' available in very good condition and costing only three euros each. Both of these have recently been repackaged as an omnibus costing four times that much and only available to me online. Nice score!

There was also a full set of his 'Cobra' novels, the omnibus of which I'd only recently received before Christmas.

I think there will always be a place for secondhand bookstores like this. Yes, while you might find the same volumes online more consistently, it's not quite as satisfying as coming across a bargain through pure good luck.

Oh man! can you pass me the address?

**DDCOrange** · August 5th, 2011, 08:40 AM

Interesting thread. One thing I've noticed about used book stores in my area is that many of them have gone out of business. A lot of this may be due to the lack of business in an area where one-eighth of the working population is unemployed but I also think that with the rise of e-books, Kindles and Nooks it will be a trend that will continue (even the regular bookstores are hurting). We still have two local used book stores in operation. One is a highbrow operation that makes it's money selling rare, first edition types of well-preserved tomes to collectors and hosting lots of author book-signing events. Not much Sci-fi there, they tend to specialize in mystery-detective types of novels.
The other store is more in line with what most of you have been discussing above. They have a pretty decent-sized Science Fiction section and I've taken a list of books recommended here hoping to find a bargain but no luck so far. The stuff they have is either books I have already read or books that I'm not very interested in. Still I keep going back and once in a great while discover a rare gem (usually a recent trade-in).
I tend to have slightly better luck at the local library which has a used book store of it's own with ridiculously low prices even by used book standards!