Lending DRM'd books to a friend - Page 6

pdurrant · 10-19-2012, 06:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jusmee

I think the first part of this is important. You OWN your copy of the book and are entitled to let a friend read it. Technical problems with doing that aside - this is what I had expected/hoped to be the case.

I think it is important not to read too much into this. Amazon are not saying that you may let your friends read your DRM-free ebooks from Amazon willy-nilly. Even for DRM-free ebooks, you may only let others read them on devices authorised to your account.

jusmee · 10-19-2012, 06:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I think it is important not to read too much into this. Amazon are not saying that you may let your friends read your DRM-free ebooks from Amazon willy-nilly. Even for DRM-free ebooks, you may only let others read them on devices authorised to your account.

True, but I think some important things change, legally, with actual ownership. Warning IANAL

Woodstonian · 10-19-2012, 06:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jusmee

I think the first part of this is important. You OWN your copy of the book and are entitled to let a friend read it. Technical problems with doing that aside - this is what I had expected/hoped to be the case.

Forgive me if I missed something ... where do they agree that you OWN your copy of the book? It seems to me that you only OWN certain rights to read and somewhat share.

pdurrant · 10-19-2012, 06:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Woodstonian

Forgive me if I missed something ... where do they agree that you OWN your copy of the book? It seems to me that you only OWN certain rights to read and somewhat share.

"In terms of use, you have purchase a copy of a book with us, and it is your copy. You may authorize any one you wish to read it, but that person's device must be registered to your account to do so."

Of course, this is just a reply from customer service, and probably not binding. But it's still better than I was expecting.

grumbles · 10-19-2012, 09:20 PM

In reply to Nogle:

It would seem than you have missed my point, intentionally I suspect. The point was not whether it makes economic sense, but that a) the equipment to do it is cheap and readily available and b) it requires neither great skill or intelligence to accomplish it although it does requires moderate amount of care (something most publishers can not be bothered with if the E-Reads ebook versions of Halan Ellison's books are any example. They didn't spend 12 minutes, let alone 12 hours. The production of the books are wretched crap (the books not Ellison's writing.))

Just because a company says this is the way things are doesn't necessarily mean that it is so. For most people, once it is read, a book has no value so the natural thing is to pass it along to someone else. The idea of only licensing as opposed to selling is recent (since the '60 and started with software), there might be some surprises there yet. Most (all?) of the copyright infringement cases up to now have been in the States where the outcome depends on the amount of money you can spend on lawyers (and politicians.)

In the meantime, I will continue to share my books with my immediate family' Licences be damned!

TheJohnNewton · 10-20-2012, 04:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jusmee

Why don't they understand that we want ebooks to be the same as normal books. I can lend a book to a friend, why not an ebook?

Hand device containing ebook to friend. Done.

I, for one, don't want ebooks to be the same as paper books. If you really do want them to be the same then just use paper books. Nothing is more like a paper book than a paper book.

Mrs_Often · 10-21-2012, 02:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheJohnNewton

Hand device containing ebook to friend. Done.

I, for one, don't want ebooks to be the same as paper books. If you really do want them to be the same then just use paper books. Nothing is more like a paper book than a paper book.

Only if you hand your device to your friend, you're not lending them just the one book. You're lending them all of your books, and you have nothing left to read.

I'm going to ignore the comment about using paper books for several reasons.

maxiart · 10-21-2012, 04:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jusmee

When I first read about ebooks and DRM - ages ago - I remember talk of lending a book to a friend, with a time limit. I have borrowed books from libraries this way of course, but how do I lend a book to a friend to read?

I can't find how to do this for epubs under ADE, and haven't noticed anything under the Kobo desktop either (although that would be less useful as epub is the more universally readable format - after all, not all my friends have a Kobo

)

Well, you can lend it to a friend, but you won't be able to enforce any real time limit... So if thats too important for you, then you are out of luck. Otherwise you only have to copy the ebook to pc, remove drm, and ship it to your friend. Rather easy, really.

jusmee · 10-21-2012, 06:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maxiart

Well, you can lend it to a friend, but you won't be able to enforce any real time limit... So if thats too important for you, then you are out of luck. Otherwise you only have to copy the ebook to pc, remove drm, and ship it to your friend. Rather easy, really.

I would have thought the time limit was important to the people controlling the DRM. The point was to work within the rules and still be able to lend it to a friend.

TheJohnNewton · 10-21-2012, 07:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

Only if you hand your device to your friend, you're not lending them just the one book. You're lending them all of your books, and you have nothing left to read.

I'm going to ignore the comment about using paper books for several reasons.

If that is your only device that can access ebooks then obviously you would not be able to access your ebooks until you got the device back. Ebooks can usually be used on multiple devices simultaneously though. If your goal is to spread the cost of books between several people another alternative would be to share an account.

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.

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?

spindlegirl · 10-21-2012, 07:48 PM

I agree. Back when i was younger I used to browse books with a few friends and we'd even go splits on used book stores. We'd "co-own" copies of books that cost us a total of $2! We'd swap dozens of books among ourselves. For co-ownership, lending, re-selling, you cannot beat physical books.

Mrs_Often · 10-22-2012, 05:43 AM

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.

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?

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.

jusmee · 10-22-2012, 07:56 AM

Good summary.

TheJohnNewton · 10-22-2012, 11:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

- 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.

This makes the most sense to me. Creating and supporting the infrastructure required to offer lending for something that is not resource limited seems like an odd idea to me. When anyone can have their own copy in seconds straight from the source the simplest solution seems to be just get your own copy. The simplest solution is usually the best. Plus why make a person who is not lending books subsidize those who are?

ottdmk · 10-22-2012, 12:06 PM

The ability to lend is *not* part of the price calculation of books. It may be part of your perceived value, but when publishers decide how much to charge, it's not part of the formula. There's only one place where it *is* part of the formula... library sales. Where they do indeed charge more then to consumers because the libraries lend the books.

So how can you suggest that the inability to lend an ebook should lead to drastically lower ebook prices? Since it's not part of the pricing formula to begin with, where is this cost saving going to come from?

10-19-2012, 09:20 PM	#80
grumbles Zealot Posts: 111 Karma: 1122860 Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Toronto Device: prs-650, prs-505, prs-350, Pandigital Novel (Black),ASUS Transformer	In reply to Nogle: It would seem than you have missed my point, intentionally I suspect. The point was not whether it makes economic sense, but that a) the equipment to do it is cheap and readily available and b) it requires neither great skill or intelligence to accomplish it although it does requires moderate amount of care (something most publishers can not be bothered with if the E-Reads ebook versions of Halan Ellison's books are any example. They didn't spend 12 minutes, let alone 12 hours. The production of the books are wretched crap (the books not Ellison's writing.)) Just because a company says this is the way things are doesn't necessarily mean that it is so. For most people, once it is read, a book has no value so the natural thing is to pass it along to someone else. The idea of only licensing as opposed to selling is recent (since the '60 and started with software), there might be some surprises there yet. Most (all?) of the copyright infringement cases up to now have been in the States where the outcome depends on the amount of money you can spend on lawyers (and politicians.) In the meantime, I will continue to share my books with my immediate family' Licences be damned! __________________ A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it. --Rabindranath Tagore

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10-21-2012, 07:48 PM	#86
spindlegirl Grand Scheme of Things Posts: 1,222 Karma: 9840441 Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: Near a Tim Hortons, most likely. Device: Sony PRS-T2 (Black), K4	I agree. Back when i was younger I used to browse books with a few friends and we'd even go splits on used book stores. We'd "co-own" copies of books that cost us a total of $2! We'd swap dozens of books among ourselves. For co-ownership, lending, re-selling, you cannot beat physical books.

10-22-2012, 07:56 AM	#88
jusmee Guru Posts: 957 Karma: 203682 Join Date: Oct 2009 Device: Kobo Touch / Astak Pocket Pro	Good summary.

10-22-2012, 12:06 PM	#90
ottdmk Addict Posts: 227 Karma: 1100464 Join Date: Feb 2012 Device: Kobo Touch eReader	The ability to lend is not part of the price calculation of books. It may be part of your perceived value, but when publishers decide how much to charge, it's not part of the formula. There's only one place where it is part of the formula... library sales. Where they do indeed charge more then to consumers because the libraries lend the books. So how can you suggest that the inability to lend an ebook should lead to drastically lower ebook prices? Since it's not part of the pricing formula to begin with, where is this cost saving going to come from?


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