As you know if you’ve visited Amazon.com, read a tech blog, or existed in the English-speaking world today, Jeff Bezos just announced the Kindle. It’s a $400 e-book reader that he thinks the buying public will embrace for some reason, unlike every other e-book reader ever.

Here’s part of the Kindle TOS agreement, concerning the books, magazines, and other content they want you to purchase to read on the device:

You may not sell, rent, lease, distribute, broadcast, sublicense or otherwise assign any rights to the Digital Content or any portion of it to any third party, and you may not remove any proprietary notices or labels on the Digital Content. In addition, you may not, and you will not encourage, assist or authorize any other person to, bypass, modify, defeat or circumvent security features that protect the Digital Content.

So basically, once you buy a book to read on your Kindle, nobody else can have that book. Even when you’re done with it. They have to buy their own.

But what did Bezos say in 2002 when Amazon came under fire for selling used books printed on, y’know, paper?

When someone buys a book, they are also buying the right to resell that book, to loan it out, or to even give it away if they want. Everyone understands this.

So… which is it?

That and other good reasons the Kindle is a bad idea at dive into mark.