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Making us all law-breakers[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#6)
by Anonymous User on Fri Nov 14, 2003 at 01:13:16 PM PDT

Around 1990 I had a big argument with a friend about e-books.  I thought they would become seriously available in about 15 years, he thought 50 years.  He thought that they would only be of interest to the small fraction of the population that read many books, I argued you'd end up with multi-purpose devices where reading was just one function so you weren't just paying for the book reading function.  It may not be as good for just READING as a regular book, but you could back up the e-books easily, electronically search your library, read them on any computer you wanted, have them reformatted, resized, or even read out loud to you. In other words:  Great flexibility.  And I couldn't wait.

When I saw good PDAs and started hearing about the real commercial e-books, I knew I had been proved right, and was ready to jump in.

Then I found out that most publishers INSISTED the contents be encrypted, in a proprietary file format, that could only be seen on specific (usually only one or two) computers.  You couldn't do anything unless they specifically allowed you, and had thought of it.  And there were numerous comments from publishers and others stating that nobody would want or need to do more, unless they intended to steal the e-books.  

I was stunned.  They had made these e-books USELESS.  I knew this version of the product was doomed.  

There are a few publishers who aren't doing this, and there are some programs that can break some of the idiotic DRM and convert format.  The same is and will continue to happen with audio and video formats.  Ultimately, if you can see it or hear it, they can't stop you from copying it.  But they can make it illegal, or at least difficult.  It is sad that to do the things you expect you should be able to, you have to WORK AROUND the rules, and more and more, break laws.  It is sad the people at the companies don't realize that they are probably hurting their own sales more than helping, making a lot of people mad, and forcing them to find ways to break the gimmicks just to use their products.  And consumers then get in the habit of breaking the rules, and come to feel justified doing it, which never would have happened if the companies just played fair.

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Books on CD ROM[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#7)
by tscoff on Fri Nov 14, 2003 at 04:11:57 PM PDT

I buy Science Fiction books and I have one book which came with a CD ROM in the back cover with the entire series in PDF files on the CD.  Plus there was another entire series by the same author on the CD as an added bonus.

I bought every single book that was on the CD because I liked the author's work enough to want to read the books.  I read some of them on my computer first, but I can't take my computer everywhere that I want to go.

Some authors and/or publishing companies are doing things the right way, and they're going to be getting my money for years to come as a result.

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Which author/publisher is this?[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#10)
by Ed Foster on Sat Nov 15, 2003 at 03:55:34 PM PDT

We don't just have to identify the bad guys here. Who is it that's providing CDs with their books?

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Which author/publisher is this?[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#12)
by Anonymous User on Sat Nov 15, 2003 at 09:10:34 PM PDT

Baen. I got the whole "Honor Harrington" series of books on CD included with the hardcover edition of #10.

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Baen & Honor Harrington[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#13)
by tscoff on Sun Nov 16, 2003 at 05:25:58 AM PDT

Yes, that's correct. The Honor Harrington book 10 from Baen is the series that had the CD. It also had another complete series by David Weber on the CD that I enjoyed reading on the CD so much I bought the entire series.

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baen.com[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#16)
by Shari on Fri Nov 21, 2003 at 07:05:18 AM PDT

Baen also has complete books available for reading or downloading on their website--it's an experiment started by author Eric Flint, and it's caused me, at least to buy books by many new authors that I never would have even looked at.

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Books on CD[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#17)
by QuickSHADOWMAN on Tue Dec 02, 2003 at 04:14:21 AM PDT

Well, I will have to check out Bean once again. I just love the Honor Harrington series. I have read the whole series, and am in the last chapeters of "Crown of Slaves" where David Weber and Eric Flint collaborated in the Honor Universe. Good book, too. Now while I waited till the Library got in the Hard Cover editions, I do want to have the whole collection for myself. By having it on CD, makes it more practicle to me, to have the whole collection, a lot less shelf space, and as I get older, just zoom in to have bigger print as the eyes go with age. Can't do that with the print of old.
Sincerely, Rich Aka: QuickSHADOWMAN 100% Windows Free, and loving it. M$, RIAA, MPAA, the leaders of all that is wrong with the Electronic Age. Lin
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Baen leads the way[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#21)
by drcmg on Tue Dec 02, 2003 at 03:39:01 PM PDT

Not only does Baen put CDs with whole series of books on them and offer free ebooks on their Baen Free Library site (http://www.baen.com/library/), but they also offer all of the books they publish early as ebooks on their Webscriptions site (http://www.webscription.net/) These are released about three weeks before the books show up on the bookstore shelves. Baen offers all of their ebooks in multiple formats: HTML Zip, icrosoft Reader Zip, Palm/Win CE/Psion Zip (Mobipocket), Rich Text Format Zip, and Rocket/RCA REB1100 Zip. These are not encrypted nor crippled in any way. In the time since I bumped into the Baen Free Library I have spent hundreds on Baen books both in ebook and hardback format. I have also bought used books as well. One of the things I have found myself doing is buying a used book by an author I don't know just because it was published by Baen. Very often this gets me started on a new author and I end up buying new books by that author. Baen is doing what the record companies used to do when they sent records to radio stations to get them played. If a person heard the record and liked it they would buy it. No one ever used the excuse: If they can hear it on the radio free there's no incentive to buy it. Baen's actions prove that exposure results in sales. Eric Flint on the free site gives documentation of increased royalties on books that are given away on the free site. How does one explain this? Like me, after reading the ebook many want to have the physical book to put in their library. The Honor Harrington series has been mentioned. I have all of the in hardbacks of this series, I have the first of the series that I got free, I have the last 5 that I purchased on the webscriptions site, and I have the CD with all of them. Of these I bought all the hardbacks and the last 5 as ebooks. I bought the ebooks first and then bought the hardbacks when they came out. As far as I know I also have every other book written by David Weber, most in both ebook and hardback format. Although I do have a few in paperback that were purchased used simply because that is the only way they are available. I also have all the David Drake, Eric Flint, Elizabeth Moon, John Dalmas, John Ringo, and K. D. Wentworth that I can find. Most of these in two formats. Prior to find the free site I had not one book by any of these authors. Exposure brings sales. Now if we could just get the rest of the publishing industry and the music, movie, and software industries to understand this Ed could take about half of the gripes he gets and throw them out.

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Amen to that![ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#18)
by Anonymous User on Tue Dec 02, 2003 at 11:19:24 AM PDT

I'm in the same boat. Thought the e-book was a great idea, but didn't like the reader. When I bought my Visor Edge and realized that I had all that space to play with (hey, 8 MB is still a chunk when you're dealing with text) I thought "wonder what reading a book will be like on this...". Bought a reader and started looking for books. Couldn't find much worth buying, so I turned to the wonderful Pirate world of Usenet and Project Gutenberg.

Usenet is iffy...it's either Science Fiction, bad scans of Harry Potter, or 85 volumes of military protocol. Gutenberg is great for classic lit, but that's it.

Do I feel I'm stealing other author's works? No. Why? Because the stuff I'm reading I either own already (Harry Potter and a lot of the sci fi) or would check out from the library. It's just way more convenient to whip out the Visor on the bus than lug around a hard back book.

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Crippled e-books[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#19)
by baldguy on Tue Dec 02, 2003 at 11:34:28 AM PDT

While I agree that e-books have not made the inroads that could be have been made, I think it is more of a problem with the delivery method rather than the encryption.

Who wants to read a book off a computer? Your eyes will be strained. The retention rate is about 35% less than reading off paper. Older people are less comfortable with it. The people that would jump on adoption, mainly 13-30 year olds, do not want to spent hundreds of dollars on a "reader" that may be dropped or abused by the kids.

You have to give the device the "day at the beach" test. If you can read it at the beach and it can survive the sand and sun, you've got a winner.

Although nobody has stumbled upon the perfect combination of copyright restrictions and encryption, there must be some limit on how you distribute the information. While there are legal limits on what you can do with a book, it is still possible to steal the content. You just need to put it on a copy machine with reasonable paper, then cut down the pages, then bind the book. It makes duplication difficult. No such barriers are in place with digital data. If there were no restrictions on copying these books, each publisher would sell at least 90% less, as everybody would freely distribute the content. Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?

-baldguy

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l;kl;k;l[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#44)
by Anonymous User on Mon Nov 13, 2006 at 07:40:35 AM PDT

kl;kl;k

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Making us all law-breakers[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#20)
by The Bassman on Tue Dec 02, 2003 at 01:00:23 PM PDT

I was reading a digital copy of PC Magazine until a problem with printing arose. At first, I "resolved" the problem reinstalling my printer and the reader software. After about three or four reinstallations, the fix no longer worked. The software distributor/manufacturer was unable to resolve the problem. They could only recommend to reinstall the printer and the reader software or tell me that the magazine publisher may not allow printing. My solution is simple, forget the digital copies that require special readers or restrict use and stick to the traditional, printed copy. The result is that I have no use for a digital magazine. By trying to control the creation of hard copies, the publisher is raising the cost of production (if only paper and postage) and is discouraging me from renewing my subscription. This seems like an excellent model for going out of business.

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