Wednesday, April 18, 2012

another reason why I hesitate to buy an e-reader

From here:

Now, most ebook customers are not tech-savvy. It is possible to unlock the DRM on a Kindle ebook and transcode it to epub format for use on other readers[,] but it's non-trivial. (Not to mention being a breach of the Kindle terms and conditions of use. Because you don't own an ebook[:] in their short-sighted eagerness to close loopholes the publishers tried to make ebooks more like software, where you merely buy a limited license to use the product, rather than actual ownership of an object.) So, because Amazon had shoved a subsidized Kindle reader or a free Kindle iPhone app into their hands, and they'd bought a handful of books using it, the majority of customers found themselves locked in to the platform they'd started out on. Want to move to another platform? That's hard; you lose all the books you've already bought, because you can't take them with you.

So... no one toting a Kindle actually owns the books he/she has "bought"?


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2 comments:

John from Daejeon said...

No problems downloading them to my computer and then e-mailing them to my tablets. Also, it's easy to go from one book format to another thanks to the ease of Android.

A year ago, I would have said that I would never, ever, give up reading books in their paper form. Then, due to an absence of those, now, wastes of paper/dead trees in my South Korean abode, I find myself ereading at twice, and sometimes thrice, the clip I could in that, now, dead format. It's just so much easier/lighter/hipper.

Kelly said...

Yes. It's why I borrow ebooks from the library and read them on my netbook, and why I've stopped buying them.