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Why ebooks are bad for you
wraith808:
The device is still capable of tying personally identifiable information about you to the book, and remotely deleting or modifying it. There are no laws that I'm aware of that would keep Amazon, or any other company, from doing either of these things, or simply recording your behavior quietly, as the collected data awaits a sales opportunity or subpoena. Can't do this on a massive scale with physical books.
-doctorfrog (June 11, 2011, 11:29 PM)
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There are outlets other than b&n and amazon for purchasing non-drm books. And if one of them actually modified something on the device that you didn't purchase from them, that would be a very bad thing for them (and pretty stupid also, as most would have backups - or in the case of a couple of outlets you can re-download).
-wraith808 (June 12, 2011, 08:50 AM)
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Which sites do you know of? I am always looking for some good non-drm sites to buy ebooks for my kindle.
-Josh (June 12, 2011, 09:38 AM)
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http://www.fictionwise.com (a shadow of their former self since b&n bought them... but still have multiformat non-drm books)
http://www.ereader.com (basically a different view of fictionwise.com in my experience)
http://www.fsand.com (science fiction and fantasy)
http://www.angryrobotstore.com/ (science fiction and fantasy - no kindle support, but they recommend using calibre to convert)
http://www.baen.com/ (one(?) of the only publishers that I know of to get on the non-drm ebook bandwagon - sci-fi and fantasy)
http://www.webscription.net (baen uses them for distribution, though they have publishers other than baen)
http://www.smashwords.com/ (indie authors and publishers)
MobileRead Wiki also has a list, though I haven't tried any of them not listed above.
TaoPhoenix:
Ebooks are coming.
We need to be accurate whether we're compaining about ebooks or DRM.
Staight Text books are perfect. Maybe PDFs if there's crazy formatting to be preserved.
doctorfrog:
The device is still capable of tying personally identifiable information about you to the book, and remotely deleting or modifying it. There are no laws that I'm aware of that would keep Amazon, or any other company, from doing either of these things, or simply recording your behavior quietly, as the collected data awaits a sales opportunity or subpoena. Can't do this on a massive scale with physical books.
-doctorfrog (June 11, 2011, 11:29 PM)
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There are outlets other than b&n and amazon for purchasing non-drm books. And if one of them actually modified something on the device that you didn't purchase from them, that would be a very bad thing for them (and pretty stupid also, as most would have backups - or in the case of a couple of outlets you can re-download).
-wraith808 (June 12, 2011, 08:50 AM)
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Correct. However, your activity can still be monitored and stored. What if something you downloaded one day was determined to fit a sought-after terrorist profile tomorrow? It wouldn't matter if it had DRM or not, or where you got it, the device itself has an umbilical to somewhere else, and there isn't anything stopping it from quietly storing records of your activity. The policy attached to devices is cause for concern as well as the files themselves.
I'm not personally worried about this happening to me, but that doesn't mean it isn't something that isn't going to happen to anyone, ever. Libraries stood up against US government demands to turn over book borrowing records. Verizon and other telecoms didn't. Would an ebook retailer?
mfwiniberg:
Hmm,
Having been bitten twice by retrospective removal of reading permission on ebooks (MS Reader and Fictionwise), I now strip the DRM from all ebooks I purchase regardless - as Stallman says, if I buy a book, then I own it and can do more or less what I like with it...
The other, even more pernicious problem though, is the arbitrary (to the customer anyway) restriction of the availability of ebooks. I have an extensive collection of certain authors in paper form (Eg Terry Brooks) - I have been to all the major ebook publishers and attempted to purchase the ebook versions to replace the paper ones. In the last two or three years this has become almost impossible, because - living as I do in that hot-bed of communist, right-wing, islamist reactionary terrorism, the UK, I am not allowed to buy electronic copies of books that are freely available in printed form in my local bookshop (I note however, that Iran, Iraq and Korea are all allowed to purchase copies!)
So, despite my having offered to pay a second time for these books, and hence support both the publisher and author, I am unable to, so I have had to find other ways to replace copies of printed books I already own. How can this possibly benefit either the publishers or the authors? I have debated this with Barnes and Noble / Fictionwise / Mobi in the past, but they seem powerless to influence the publishers that impose these restrictions, which are in fact more onerous than those placed on DVDs and Blu-Ray!
elvisbrown:
I've had a kindle for a long while now and I have bought maybe 2 books from Amazon. I use Calibre to convert from other formats like pdf. epub, rtf, text etc etc to mobi then load them on the Kindle when I want them. If you haven't seen Calibre then you must! It is first class software and free, but welcomes contributions. It also has Plug-ins that make managing the Kindle a breeze.
I agree with everything said about DRM but it is important to distinguish between the device and the format.
I am a reader so anything that makes that easier is really welcome. I live in NZ so the range of books here is restricted and limited. Amazon removed all those limitations. Furthermore, in our recent series of earthquakes (2 major ones today!) we lost most of our good bookshops and most of our public libraries on Feb 22. The Kindle didn't stop though. I can read newspapers from pretty much anywhere in the world when I cannot even buy a newspaper from another country here.
I imagine all of that was not covered in the original article as just about all of such articles are very US-centric where as the device is global. I often imagine what Kindles are doing for other parts of the world. I've seen them being read in Mandarin.
Anyone can publish on the Kindle and there are heaps of sites that promote just that. The Kindle is doing for books what the ipod did for music.
In case anyone wonders I am not in the employ of Amazon ;D but when I come across things that can and are changing the way the world works then I applaud it.
One last thing about books. I agree with most things said previously about real, books but consider this. I can buy a book then pass it on and it gets passed on etc etc with as many as let's say 100 readers. What does the author get for that? She/he certainly doesn't get 100 payments. If there is an upside to DRM it is that authors will get better paid for their work. As a reader I say that's bloody good, it means that good authors will get rewarded more.
From the place that shakes and shakes with endless quakes...peace from Christchurch NZ
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