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Reader's Corner - The Library of Utopia + resource links
joiwind:
In the same vein (and in case you don't know it - but maybe it was mentioned here before ?) book lovers should visit The Open Library : you'll spend many happy hours browsing and reading.
40hz:
re: Open Library - it is an excellent resource. But new users need to be aware that (unlike Project Gutenberg) many titles that are listed on their website are not available for electronic or online reading. Additionally, many titles (mostly modern) that are listed and available electronically are also read-protected and only available to NLS/DAISY key holders.
As the FAQ explains:
If this is a library, why can I only read some of the books?
Unfortunately, most books remain unavailable in electronic form. For those books, we have only a record. Open Library is a long-term project to provide a complete catalog of all books and, incrementally, as many of those books as possible in freely available electronic form.
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Nothing wrong with that IMO. But it's something you need to understand or risk being disappointed when you visit OL.
IainB:
Looks like there's some money due back some to Amazon Kindle accounts.
(ArsTechnica post copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)
Amazon to customers: three publishers settled antitrust suit, expect refund
After Apple and five publishers were sued for price-fixing, three have settled.
by Megan Geuss - Oct 13, 2012 9:00 pm UTC
On Saturday, Amazon started e-mailing its Kindle customers, alerting them to a possible credit coming their way courtesy of Hachette, Harper Collins, and Simon & Schuster. The three publishers were pulled into an antitrust suit in April by the Department of Justice, along with two other e-book publishers (Penguin and Macmillan) and Apple, as part of a massive antitrust case that started after the EU began investigating e-book prices. 16 states filed their own antitrust suits against the publishers and Apple as well.
"Hachette, Harper Collins, and Simon & Schuster have settled an antitrust lawsuit about e-book prices," Amazon’s notification reads, "Under the proposed settlements, the publishers will provide funds for a credit that will be applied directly to your Amazon.com account. If the Court approves the settlements, the account credit will appear automatically and can be used to purchase Kindle books or print books."
While the settlement still needs to be approved by the court at a hearing on February 8, 2013, Hachette, Harper Collins, and Simon & Schuster have already set up a $69 million fund to pay back customers. According to Amazon, customers can expect a credit in the range of $0.30 to $1.32 for each eligible e-book the customer bought between April 2012 and May 2012 on a Kindle. Customers can also request the credit in the form of a check.
The news of the settlement is in keeping with rumors earlier this year that three publishers were in talks to settle the lawsuits, although it was unclear which of the five were discussing the matter. Apple, Penguin, and Macmillan have not settled with the DoJ and will likely go to trial in 2013.
Amazon is clearly happy with the decsion, as it notes at the end of its e-mail, "In addition to the account credit, the settlements impose limitations on the publishers’ ability to set e-book prices. We think these settlements are a big win for customers and look forward to lowering prices on more Kindle books in the future."
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IainB:
Selection of FREE Microsoft eBooks: E-Book Gallery for Microsoft Technologies
Summarised:
Large collection of Free Microsoft eBooks for you, including: SharePoint, Visual Studio, Windows Phone, Windows 8, Office 365, Office 2010, SQL Server 2012, Azure, and more.
IainB:
In 2009 there was the Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle incident.
In 2012 there is the Why Did Amazon Close a Woman’s Account and Delete All Her Kindle Books? incident.
For those with long memories, these two separate and unconnected incidents might be a sharp reminder that what media/ebooks we buy on our Amazon Kindle account is not actually "ours" per se. That's because of DRM (Digital Rights Management). Essentially, it seems that you arguably do not really own anything that you have bought with DRM, and the apparent de facto proof to that argument lies in the above two incidents (QED).
Caveat emptor - "Let the buyer beware".
There have now been two salutary lessons from Amazon: (and they needn't necessarily have both come from Amazon to be lessons - it's just that Amazon obligingly provided those lessons by its actions; they are demonstrations of its real and potential power/reach)
1. The 1984 incident in 2009.
2. The Norwegian account wipe in 2012.
It is generally good advice that, after being tricked once, one should be wary, so that the person cannot trick you again.
"Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me"
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If you waited around twiddling your thumbs (i.e., doing nothing about it) for a third lesson before doing something to independently protect your property from what appears to be ad hoc and legalised theft, then you really would have only yourself to blame if/when it happens to you. That would seem to be self-negligent.
Question: What to do?
Answer: Avoid the risk by taking regular and incremental backups of all the accumulating media on your Kindle starting now:
* Just take a separate, regular, incremental backup copy of all the media on the device, via USB connection to your Kindle.
* Or make a regular, incremental backup copy of the contents of the Kindle PC application (if you have it installed) library - typically on C:\Users\UserName\Documents\My Kindle.
Thus you will have avoided the risk and got your property backed up and under your control.
You could then always restore the content (copy it back) to the device, if needed.
Question: But what if it then promptly gets deleted, or if Amazon (say) take exception to your taking this precaution and (say) threaten legal action or account deletion?
Answer: Well, I haven't tried it, but you could presumably avoid that risk by taking a further step, based on the advice in this informative and helpful Lifehacker post: How Do I Get Rid of the DRM on My Ebooks and Video?
It gives step-by-step directions for using Calibre and its de-DRMing plugins to sanitize your DRMed eBooks, so that they can be read on most other eBook readers - e.g., (say) the excellent Calibre PC application, or the Kobo and Nook devices, etc.
..."It seems like I could lose it at any time, or lose the ability to view something just because I switched devices. How can I get rid of the DRM so I can keep my own backups?"
...
..."[Since the '1984' incident in 2009 showed] that Amazon could wipe content they didn't have the license for, DRM is increasingly an issue with further reaching implications than simply keeping you from pirating content. Wiping content is one issue—but DRM also usually locks the media to your device or service—which means you often can't transfer your library between different devices."
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Well, you can transfer it now, if you take the risk-averse approach outlined above.
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