Allow Users to sell E-books

[FisherGee]

We should allow e-books to be sold as long as they are 100% white hat. There is no reason why. It could help both the buyer and seller make money. They should be staff approved.

edit: please do read the replies below as they have good points that could change your mind, appreciate all contributions!

 

[Ted]

The problem comes down to re-sell rights/stolen work. I don't think Mc-Market has a problem with white-hat eBooks that would benefit the consumer, but there's the problem of legitimacy.

Maybe a Digital Signature or Copyright of the book could be made. Dunno.

 

[Landon]

https://www.mc-market.org/threads/376338/

 

[FisherGee]

The problem comes down to re-sell rights/stolen work. I don't think Mc-Market has a problem with white-hat eBooks that would benefit the consumer, but there's the problem of legitimacy.

Maybe a Digital Signature or Copyright of the book could be made. Dunno.

The majority of the people should not be limited due to factors that bad people produce. And some resources may be staff approved only

 

[Ivain]

The main problem is that it's significantly more difficult to tell if an Ebook's content has been stolen than it is to verify if an account, build, or plugin is stolen. Why? Because it's all part of a relatively small community. The creative minecraft community numbers in some tens of thousands at most. Or at least those that make actual valuable content do.
Whereas an Ebook could be plagiarized from all over the internet, in theory.
If you're willing to finance/develop one of those big anti-plagiarism tools like many Universities use nowadays, feel free. That might make ebooks more attractive as a commodity on this site.

 

[FisherGee]

The main problem is that it's significantly more difficult to tell if an Ebook's content has been stolen than it is to verify if an account, build, or plugin is stolen. Why? Because it's all part of a relatively small community. The creative minecraft community numbers in some tens of thousands at most. Or at least those that make actual valuable content do.
Whereas an Ebook could be plagiarized from all over the internet, in theory.
If you're willing to finance/develop one of those big anti-plagiarism tools like many Universities use nowadays, feel free. That might make ebooks more attractive as a commodity on this site.

Maybe there should be a "Verified E-Book Seller" tag or some way to filter out sketchy vs trusted users.

They can also be staff approved and have thorough checking before being allowed to post.

Also, I don't think people who are participating in illegal activity should make everyone else pay the price of not having this section altogether. You can make the same argument for MC-Accounts ("the seller can pull the account").

Thanks for your input.

 

[Ivain]

"Also, I don't think people who are participating in illegal activity should make everyone else pay the price of not having this section altogether. You can make the same argument for MC-Accounts ("the seller can pull the account")."
Sadly, this is up to the hosting platform. You're free to sell them elsewhere but if MCM doesn't want to take the risk that's their choice. They'd be held responsible, morally if not actually legally (the ToS exists to protect from that).
Same goes for 'verified' sellers. Verifying a seller is basically endorsing them. It's not like a Twitter verification. If such a user scams, it'll throw MCM's reputation even further down the drain (The only reason MCM is near the top of the most trusted third party MC marketplace sites is because most of the other sites (Excepting spigot) are almost literal scams. It's still not exactly well-thought-of in many parts of the community, and having someone they endorsed scam is a risk they're probably not willing to take.

 

[FisherGee]

"Also, I don't think people who are participating in illegal activity should make everyone else pay the price of not having this section altogether. You can make the same argument for MC-Accounts ("the seller can pull the account")."
Sadly, this is up to the hosting platform. You're free to sell them elsewhere but if MCM doesn't want to take the risk that's their choice. They'd be held responsible, morally if not actually legally (the ToS exists to protect from that).
Same goes for 'verified' sellers. Verifying a seller is basically endorsing them. It's not like a Twitter verification. If such a user scams, it'll throw MCM's reputation even further down the drain (The only reason MCM is near the top of the most trusted third party MC marketplace sites is because most of the other sites (Excepting spigot) are almost literal scams. It's still not exactly well-thought-of in many parts of the community, and having someone they endorsed scam is a risk they're probably not willing to take.

Well e-books can still be staff approved. I was just making a suggestion about the verified seller before

 

[Ted]

Mc-Market will never add a "Verified Seller" tag, or a special tag to anyone. Nor, will it ever be created. However, I think that the best scenario to approach this suggestion is to move e-books to the Resource Section and make it just like any other product sold through Mc-Market. Just like any configuration, plugin, etc. it is verified before it is purchasable. On top of that making e-books only sell-able in the Resource Section would already cover the fact of Premium and Supreme ranks needed for putting a price tag on your product.

Also, white-hat e-books could be very beneficial to the community for teacher children how to actually make a product or service, or to learn a set of skill that could benefit them throughout their life and help them on a path of success. There are plenty of people that would also be willing to share their story with others on how they became big and how you could do it too.
Fox for example is the first person that comes to my mind.

However, we need more voices and open minds on this suggestion. Anyone who has an idea on weather they agree or disagree, please voice your opinion.

 

[Justis]

I have been wanting to re-introduce ebooks again as well; however, only so long as every ebook on here comes with a no questions asked, 100% money back guarantee upon request by any dissatisfied customer.

I'd like to open up ebook sales with this condition paving the way for that.

Note, I do not support the sale of methods, which has an implication that the knowledge is owned, rather than the writing of that knowledge.

 

[Landon]

I have been wanting to re-introduce ebooks again as well; however, only so long as every ebook on here comes with a no questions asked, 100% money back guarantee upon request by any dissatisfied customer.

I'd like to open up ebook sales with this condition paving the way for that.

Note, I do not support the sale of methods, which has an implication that the knowledge is owned, rather than the writing of that knowledge.

Yeah no. You must realize this MC-Market, home to broke users. Talk about users buying and then being "dissatisified" (even if it literally is what they dreamed of) just in order to get a free ebook and $2 refund lol.

 

[FisherGee]

I have been wanting to re-introduce ebooks again as well; however, only so long as every ebook on here comes with a no questions asked, 100% money back guarantee upon request by any dissatisfied customer.

I'd like to open up ebook sales with this condition paving the way for that.

Note, I do not support the sale of methods, which has an implication that the knowledge is owned, rather than the writing of that knowledge.

Why does it have to be that? The customer has already received full knowledge and content of the Ebook.

Why not just make a section...
1. Verfied Ebooks (staff approved)
2. Unverified ebooks (buy at your own risk)

 

[Justis]

Yeah no. You must realize this MC-Market, home to broke users. Talk about users buying and then being "dissatisified" (even if it literally is what they dreamed of) just in order to get a free ebook and $2 refund lol.

If you think you're Shakespear and can't stand the thought of refunding someone who makes the impossible claim that your writing wasn't worth the money you charged them: Then don't sell ebooks here.

You must realize this is MC-Market, home to broke users.
Any 13 year old will spend 10 minutes writing a couple dozen pages of triple spaced garble, charge $50 for it, and refuse to refund.

 

[FisherGee]

If you think you're Shakespear and can't stand the thought of refunding someone who makes the impossible claim that your writing wasn't worth the money you charged them: Then don't sell ebooks here.

You must realize this is MC-Market, home to broke users.
Any 13 year old will spend 10 minutes writing a couple dozen pages of triple spaced garble, charge $50 for it, and refuse to refund.

I see your point but Religion is partially right. We could either do the 2 verified sections or have a proper list of regulations/factors needed to request a refund which can be advised by staff.

 

[Justis]

Having "MC-Market approved" ebooks places too much liability on our site since it would imply that we've verified that it's worth the money the author is charging.
MC-Market should never restrict or imply a product's price/value.
Not to mention the amount of time it'd take from our staff team.

Considering our niche and knowing that there is almost nobody here qualified to be selling literature in a professional context, and knowing that anyone who is would know that they'd be better off selling on a platform dedicated to ebooks and similar content; I must insist that if ebooks are added to our specific platform, that they be sold with a 100% money back guarantee.
I cannot budge on this point.

 

[Zeiyon]

Any 13 year old will spend 10 minutes writing a couple dozen pages of triple spaced garble, charge $50 for it, and refuse to refund.

Hmm, I wonder who would do that?

 

[Justis]

Just say that if you buy it you agree to the risk that it may not work for you. Unless they don’t list something you would need or totally just misadvertise and lie and put total shit in the book you shouldn’t have to refund

Anyone who was around during the incident which resulted in Ebooks being banned will be able to tell you why this is not a good idea.
You're placing far more subjectivity into that policy than you realize you are. It's worthless.

 

[FisherGee]

Having "MC-Market approved" ebooks places too much liability on our site since it would imply that we've verified that it's worth he money the author is charging.
MC-Market should never restrict or imply a product's price/value.
Not to mention the amount of time it'd take from our staff team.

Considering our niche and knowing that there is almost nobody here qualified to be selling literature in a professional context, and knowing that anyone who is would know that they'd be better off selling on a platform dedicated to ebooks and similar content; I must insist that if ebooks are added to our specific platform, that they be sold with a 100% money back guarantee.
I cannot budge on this point.

Well then we need at least valid regulations and terms that apply when requesting a refund, it cant just be accepted because they are semi-entitled to get a refund. It needs to go through a process that determines if they are allowed to receive a refund.

For example
-------------------------
Reasons why it could be refunded?
-Faulty
-Not as described
-Not descriptive/Low amount of content
-E-Book or method becomes saturated, meaning it no longer works

Other than those reasons, the customer seller should not be obligated to give a refund.
It's with anything, let's say I bought a bike. There are no problems with it, should I be entitled a refund because I don't want it anymore, or it's not useful to me? No...