For reading free books

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by bigmoney

DRM is not the same as the ebook (or music industry). It is a practice. Some parts of the industry support it, others don't. And while it may not make sense to make all-encompassing claims about an industry, it is valid to make such statements about a certain practice.

Certainly, and I absolutely respect your point of view.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by HarryT

personally, I very rarely re-read books, and the ones that I do read tend to be out-of-copyright classics.

Same here. However, my 3 kids have read alot of the books I have bought/read that were sitting on the book shelf. I should have the same abilility to allow them to read ebooks I have bought also. Then, maybe I want my grandkids to read them too.

Heck, it wouldn't be so bad it I had to pay for these again. I would even be happy with a pay-per-read system as long as the prices reflect that this is a "rental" and not a purchase.

BOb

[amgoforth]

Originally Posted by bigriff

Which model would you advise for reading p2p obtained books...

I don't know much about the formats. I get a lot of pdf stuff and it is hard on a laptop. I don't think they have been formatted especially for any thing...

I think best feature for me would be ability to read the free books I get...

Confused

Thanks!
95969

Irex Digital Reader is the only one that really works. Send me private message for more techinal info on the Digital Reader.

[amgoforth]

Originally Posted by tompe

I am thinking about things like supporting DRM, defending companies as Amazon even if they behave badly and so on. I am not talkimng about encouraging illegal activity.

I agree 100 %

[amgoforth]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm sure you'll get over your disappointment in time.

You will be the one who is disappointed when you find out he is right.

[amgoforth]

Originally Posted by dadioflex

Sure, you or I might say it. Plenty of other people will tell you he is killing the publishing industry and by extension the ebook industry. There was some nasty SFWA in-fighting going on last year or the year before that Charles Stross, John Scalzi and Cory Doctorow all touched on. Some people in the SFWA equated giving away ebooks to stealing food from their children's mouths.

I do have sympathy for the SFWA guys. SF is by far the most popular genre on P2P of any kind. DRM is not the answer. I don't know what the answer is. I fear there might not be modern Toynbee's or Durants if a solution is not found.

[amgoforth]

Originally Posted by HarryT

But, with respect, that is not generally the case. If you buy books for a Kindle and your Kindle dies, buy another one and you can carry on reading your books. Yes, of course you're locked in to that manufacturer, but that's a deliberate ploy on the part of Amazon. Go with MobiPocket and you can choose pretty much any device on the market (except Sony) and be able to happily carry on reading your books.

I really have to disagee with the somewhat "melodramatic" assertion your signature makes that DRM is "evil". DRM is simply a marketing technique - it is neither "good" nor "evil", any more than the fact that, say, if I buy a lens for my Canon DSLR I cannot subsequently use it on a Nikon camera is "evil". Every manufacturer tries to lock you in to their products; it makes sound commercial sense to do so.

Yes at least the Kindle prices are low. I just really have a problem with DRM, but I can respect the fact that some people don"t. We would also like respect for our viewpoint. It isn't a simple cut and dried matter.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I have never claimed anything other than the fact that for me personally DRM is not an issue, Tommy. I'm not making "all-encompassing" claims about the good or evil of the industry. I leave such pronoucements to others.

Yes, but people generalize from examples and you seemed to imply that it was a common situation. And if DRM lead to less eBooks than it is an issue for you. So in principle you have made the statement that DRM will not lead to less eBooks.

[bigmoney]

Originally Posted by amgoforth

I do have sympathy for the SFWA guys. SF is by far the most popular genre on P2P of any kind. DRM is not the answer. I don't know what the answer is. I fear there might not be modern Toynbee's or Durants if a solution is not found.

As long as there are hungry minds and talented people, literature will be fine. Most writers don't have a problem with DRM or the lack of it, only publishers stuck in the 20th century do.

One of these days I read the following at Time magazine, in an article about the future of publishing:

Daniel Suarez, a software consultant in Los Angeles, sent his techno-thriller Daemon to 48 literary agents. No go. So he self-published instead. Bit by bit, bloggers got behind Daemon. Eventually Penguin noticed and bought it and a sequel for a sum in the high six figures. "I really see a future in doing that," Suarez says, "where agencies would monitor the performance of self-published books, in a sort of Darwinian selection process, and see what bubbles to the surface. I think of it as crowd-sourcing the manuscript-submission process."

I have a feeling this is how the future will look like, writers will put their work straight on the Net and let word-of-mouth do the job. The cream will rise to the top.

[bigmoney]

I'd like to put a question out there: if DRM is not evil, in what ways is DRM good?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by bigmoney

I'd like to put a question out there: if DRM is not evil, in what ways is DRM good?

I can site one way DRM is good. It's the only way (IMHO). Time limited DRM so that public libraries can lend eBooks. This way we can get free eBooks to be able to read.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by bigmoney

I'd like to put a question out there: if DRM is not evil, in what ways is DRM good?

If, by its existance, a publisher produces eBooks who would otherwise not have done so.

[bigmoney]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I can site one way DRM is good. It's the only way (IMHO). Time limited DRM so that public libraries can lend eBooks. This way we can get free eBooks to be able to read.

This is not exactly the same type of DRM that I had in mind, but still, it's a dumb thing, when you think about it:

Dishonest people, that download books from torrent sites, do not use libraries to borrow ebooks. They just go to Google and type "harry potter ebook torrent" and get the thing in under 2 minutes.

The type of people (like you and me) that actually spend the time to go to the library, fill a form with all your personal data, accept the fact that if we don't returrn the book in time will have to pay a fee etc etc would not need DRM, because by actually going to the library instead of downloading the book from torrents we have shown already that we don't have any reason or intention to break the law. So this money spent on DRM is basically wasted money, and, worst, based on a presupposition that those library users are potential criminals that have to be "protected from themselves" from committing crime.

Now, if we consider the case of public libraries, and the amount of money spent putting these DRM systems in place, handling cases where DRM goes wrong (blocking an ebook that it shouldn't and all that sort of glitches), money spent training people to deal with it, support calls, etc etc, and if we agree that spending public money for no good reason is a bad thing, I would say DRM in library ebooks is a bad idea.

[bigmoney]

Originally Posted by HarryT

If, by its existance, a publisher produces eBooks who would otherwise not have done so.

That supposition (based basically on fear by the part of publishers, not fact) might change now that we see that Nine Inch Nails' Ghosts I-IV topped Amazon's paid digital download charts in 2008, despite being offered to fans free of charge beforehand. The same happened on Cory Doctorow's latest book. Weird, eh?

By your logic I could say that carrying guns around in the street is a good thing because I wouldn't walk around otherwise. A bit of a circular logic, you are not pointing any intrinsic goodness on DRM, just saying people won't do otherwise because they won't.

[amgoforth]

Originally Posted by bigmoney

As long as there are hungry minds and talented people, literature will be fine. Most writers don't have a problem with DRM or the lack of it, only publishers stuck in the 20th century do.

One of these days I read the following at Time magazine, in an article about the future of publishing:

Daniel Suarez, a software consultant in Los Angeles, sent his techno-thriller Daemon to 48 literary agents. No go. So he self-published instead. Bit by bit, bloggers got behind Daemon. Eventually Penguin noticed and bought it and a sequel for a sum in the high six figures. "I really see a future in doing that," Suarez says, "where agencies would monitor the performance of self-published books, in a sort of Darwinian selection process, and see what bubbles to the surface. I think of it as crowd-sourcing the manuscript-submission process."

I have a feeling this is how the future will look like, writers will put their work straight on the Net and let word-of-mouth do the job. The cream will rise to the top.

I hope so, but I am worried about it.