Want to own a book? Buy a hard copy. Amazon, Apple, B&N eBooks are only licensed
docs.google.com
docs.google.com
This is disingenuous, and getting a little tiring honestly now. The Amazon Kindle can read ebooks in the .mobi format fine, which is based on the Open eBook standard [1] just as the EPUB format. (EPUBs may be technically superior to MOBIs, but that's a different issue altogether)
EPUBs can be converted to the MOBI format fairly easily. Inconvenient? Yes. Evil, locked in system? No.
I hope this does in fact mean ePub support is coming in a Kindle update.
People who know their rep have not been taken in.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_technews/20101206/tc_yblog_tec...
Buy an eBook "from Google's eBookstore, you'll be able to read it on your desktop PC, your iPhone, the Nook, the Kobo eReader, the Sony Reader, or a garden-variety flip phone — just not your Kindle."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_technews/20101206/tc_yblog_tec...
We can't read Amazon eBooks on other devices, or in applications not authorized by Amazon, which locks users in. Evil.
In either case it's a license. The difference is what the license is bound to.
Amazon kindle ebooks are bound to my Amazon account (I can read same book on my Android or Amazon Kindle device as long as I sign in with same account).
With a physical book, the material is literally bound to the pages of the book.
In neither case do I own the copyright. It's the same as owning a film on DVD or VHS.
You cannot make copies of the content of the book to sell it, you cannot take large excerpts of the book and sell those either. In short, you do not have full intellectual property rights to the book.
You have licensed a single copy for the purpose of reading the book.
On the other side, I would expect that many countries have laws that would prohibit a bookseller from selling you a hard-copy but writing in the terms of service that they're free to enter your home to retrieve it for reasons they decide on, since it'd be a very surprising clause.
Edit: s/reading/leading/
Why? If you make it legal to buy pirated works, and allow the purchaser to keep the purchased copy, you remove all burden from the consumer to validate the authenticity of the goods they are purchasing.
A consumer should not be so vulnerable as to be terrified of purchasing any book, but they should not be immune, especially if they purchased the illegitimate copy knowing it was illegitimate.
To circle back to the original point, wouldn't it be kind of outrageous if a police team were allowed to storm your home and violate your right to privacy in search for an illegal copy of 1984?
That is, of course, just my opinion. I do not claim that reflects local laws.
No more outrageous than if they were taking a copy of a DVD that you'd acquired that was produced by copyright infringement.
I think the police (in my country) do have power to retrieve goods on order of the court because you've committed a tort, contributory copyright infringement. If you were aware that you were supporting an act of infringement by paying for the goods produced by that act then I'd expect you could also be sued successfully.
The economics don't work well for the company suing though so this is an unlikely reality.
We just get the feeling that we own both the object and the information because it is so much more difficult to separate the two than with digital media.
Courts in the US would not recognize attempts at such revocations or demands to do this as reasonable or sane. Promise.
Not necessarily O'Reilly, but many popular publishers -- Apress, Cengage, Cambridge University, Wrox Press, etc.
http://e23.sjgames.com/faq.html#protected
> Q. Are the files in e23 copy protected?
> A. No. That would interfere with your use of them.
This creates an absurdity.
You can purchase the book and scan it, create your own EPUB and own that copy (but only use one copy at a time!) or you can purchase the EPUB (or whatever format) and have a much more limited license.
Of course scanning a book is hard work. You'll want to outsource that. So you buy a book of the shelf, the company scan it for you - your book, your format shift, hired help - and forward your copy of the book (now in EPUB format) and kindly dispose of the book for you.
You're now using paper as a digital transmission medium, wasting a whole lot of energy, producing a lot of waste and the result to the customer is the same as if the publisher just sold you the book in EPUB format at the regular books store price¹.
Of course I'm sure common sense will win out in the courts ...
--
1 - I'm assuming a book shop could scan the books and cover their costs in the usual retail margin by not needing a high street location and by selling the books on for pulping.
Aside I - In the UK there is no "fair use" but instead a far more restrictive idea of "fair dealing", see www.ipo.gov.uk/ipreview-doc-j.pdf for a recent comparison.
Aside II - Australia (http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ca1968133/...) have a similar format shifting provision but it specifically applies to "videotape embodying a cinematograph film in analog form" which is messed up in more ways than one.
Granted, most of my books will probably just bore my kids by the time I die, but still, it bothers me a little that I might not even be able to pass on my library.
Current kick: early PG Wodehouse.
eBooks are licensed. You cannot sell them, or lend them unless the right to lend is granted in the licensing agreement. I like the eBook format, but ownership is superior to licensing. Far superior.
This sort of thing is why I'm still not so comfortable with cloud media services in general. If you want a good example, look at the tracks that randomly get disabled on Spotify (sometimes when bands reform, sometimes, like Hotel California, apparently randomly).
You have no ownership rights when licensing, renting, etc.
Yes, because it doesn't even make sense. This is why I simply don't understand this conversation. There's nothing for me to resell, because we're discussing a virtual good. Implicit in the resale of an item is that I can no longer possess that item.
Talking about reselling eBooks makes almost as much sense as talking about reselling the sandwich I just ate for dinner. The only mechanism for creating personal value has been irrevocably consumed.
The points of ownership, right to resale, and lending are important ones. They represent a fundamental divide between two entirely different technologies used for the same purpose. At a very basic level comparing eBooks to print books makes almost no sense. As soon as we can dispense with the comparison we can start thinking about each system according to the value it creates.
From what I gather, the point is exactly that: That one should be aware that there are more differences than eBooks being electronic versions of books.
I think the controversial points come from people having different use-cases. I wouldn't want to not have control over my books about Hebrew numerology that took me a while to track down. I wouldn't worry nearly as much about a book about a programming language. For some books, real possession is part of the value. For others, everywhere-accessibility is worth more.
Edit: Fixed "about" -> "over";
They like the fact that someone else cuts the lawn, someone else fixes the major appliances, etc. They like that they can call someone and give them shit when their roof leaks and someone else will deal with the repair.
I like to own things, and I'm not sure why. However, when it comes to digital data I accept that I'm paying for convenience over ownership. MP3's even if I only license them, sure kick the ass of having to rummage through a pile of CD's just to listen to one song.
it makes all the difference.
I actually do have a handful of dead tree books that I own for emotional reasons, so I can appreciate that aspect of ownership. But I love my Kindle. I do far more reading now that my books are electronic. It's no exaggeration to say that switching to the Kindle has improved the quality of my life.