Quote:
Originally Posted by TheJohnNewton
Why ignore paper books? They are still a viable alternative and some seem to prefer them as the comments in this thread and elsewhere would seem to attest. I use both depending on the situation.
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I have an ereader (just the one) because I love the ease of reading on it. No extra weight, no turning to my other side every time I hit the next page when reading in bed, easy page turning, always got a million books with me... And ever since I've had an ereader I dislike reading paper books. They're heavy and clumsy and it's a hassle to turn pages... plus, a they're a waste of paper and space in my over-full book case.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheJohnNewton
My main point is don't think of ebooks and paper books as the same thing because they are not the same thing. Rather take advantage of what each has to offer and chose the right one for you based on your needs. We don't need to limit the possibilities of ebooks with the burden of imitating paper books. Haven't we witnessed the folly of that type of limited thinking enough times already?
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I understand that. The only issue here is that (and this point has been made before in this thread), if paper and e-books are not the same thing and they're not to be treated the same way, they should be priced differently. If ebooks were always half of the price of a paper book (for instance), there wouldn't be much of a problem with not being able to lend out books. A friend who wanted to borrow wouldn't have to spend as much just to buy the book themselves.
The main points if this thread are:
- fine, ebooks are protected with DRM. Understandable. It would be nice if DRM enabled lending out of books. For the DRM to stay in tact, perhaps put a time limit on lending out. Lending out of DRM'd books would mean lending out the license to read that particular book. Once you've lent your DRM'd book out, you can't read it (because you're license is temporarily void) until your friend has returned the license to you or the time limit expires. Having this option for DRM'd ebooks would make the ebook price more acceptable, and pirating MUCH less likely.
- if lending out of DRM'd ebooks is not acceptable for publishers, they should absolutely lower the price of ebooks drastically. Only then would it be okay that we can't use ebooks like we use paper books in the sense of lending out.