Touch Kobo books are they truly mine?

[book64]

Have been reading that kindle books are not actually bought( even though some of them cost nearly as much as the actual book !!!! )
It says they still belong to kindle. How can that be?
I have lots of them!
Makes me want start buying paperbacks again !

What is the situation regarding all my Kobo books?
Google doesn't tell me.

[GeoffR]

No you don't truly own the ebooks you buy from Kobo or most other vendors. If you truly owned the book you would be allowed to resell it as you could any other property.

[murg]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

No you don't truly own the ebooks you buy from Kobo or most other vendors. If you truly owned the book you would be allowed to resell it as you could any other property.

And read them in any reader, not just Kobo's or Adobe's.

Actually, that raises a good question...Is Kobo still advertising that you own the ebooks you but from them?

[murg]

Originally Posted by murg

Actually, that raises a good question...Is Kobo still advertising that you own the ebooks you but from them?

I guess so:

Own your books for life! Read your Kobo books on any open standard device.

[BWinmill]

Regardless of what a company claims about ownership, it is possible for you to lose access to any book that is protected by DRM (at least with Kindle and Kobo, which authorize against a server). This is troublesome if the vendor goes out of business, drops out of the ebook market, drops support for a particular version or type of DRM, or simply changes company policies. Given the current state of copyright law in some jurisdictions, such as Canada and the United States, it is also illegal for you to remove the DRM in order to protect your investment.

That being said, both Kobo and Kindle support ebooks that are not protected by DRM. The readers will certainly give you access to such ebooks from third parties, and I believe that both vendors provide books without DRM at the author's request (i.e. look before you buy).

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

Regardless of what a company claims about ownership, it is possible for you to lose access to any book that is protected by DRM (at least with Kindle and Kobo, which authorize against a server).

...which is why many people download the DRM epub version of the Kobo books they buy and remove the DRM with Apprentice Alf tools to have their own backup copy.

[jbcohen]

What you buy when you get a book is the right to read it on a device, you do not have as much rights to the materiel as you do in printed books. My personal favorite publisher does not use any manner of DRM, however states that you are buying the right to read it.

[book64]

Sad to hear that
Was hoping Kobo was different to Kindle as couldnt find anything about it on google But plenty on kindle

Some of the ebooks are nearly as expensive as the actual book!
Am fuming
May have to look for more seconhand paperbooks when I have read the many ebooks I have

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by book64

Sad to hear that
Was hoping Kobo was different to Kindle as couldnt find anything about it on google But plenty on kindle

Some of the ebooks are nearly as expensive as the actual book!
Am fuming
May have to look for more seconhand paperbooks when I have read the many ebooks I have

It is ridiculous indeed. And understandable that you are fuming. It's a long term discussion though. The DRM is to try and prevent piracy... of course it's much easier to share a digital book with many people (over the internet for example). And when you do share, you don't give up your copy like you would do with a paper book: you keep your copy, and another copy is made for the person who'll be 'borrowing' the book from you. DRM is meant to prevent this sort of viral sharing.

But DRM isn't sophisticated enough. I think it should have a built in "lending out" option, where you temporarily give up your reading rights and transfer them to a friend, like the library does when you borrow a digital book from them. But alas, the DRM is locked. Which in my eyes only invites piracy instead of preventing it.

And yes, I agree with you, if you don't get full rights, the ebook should be cheaper than the paper book. That would diminish piracy, as it'll be easier to just buy a book to read instead of downloading it illegally from somewhere as it's cheap anyway

[GeoffR]

Living in a country where paper books have always been very expensive and postage costs to buy them from US or UK also very high, I have found buying ebooks to be a big saving. That combined with the convenience of being able to carry hundreds of books around with me is more important to me than owning the book.

Most of the books I buy from Kobo work out to be about $5-$6 after discount codes, compared to the retail paperback price in the local bookshop of about $16-$30 (if they are available at all, which they usually are not), or the cost of postage alone from Amazon of $12. (All NZ dollars).


Edit: Just checked prices on my latest purchase, The Knight by Gene Wolfe: Kobo ebook $5.59 ($7.99 - 30% discount code), Amazon ebook $9.42, paperback from local bookshop $16.95, paperback from Amazon US $22.61 ($10.05 + $12.59 postage). (All NZ dollars)

[Tony1988]

Originally Posted by book64

Sad to hear that
Was hoping Kobo was different to Kindle as couldnt find anything about it on google But plenty on kindle

Some of the ebooks are nearly as expensive as the actual book!
Am fuming
May have to look for more seconhand paperbooks when I have read the many ebooks I have

I wouldn't lose too much sleep over this or let it scare you away from ebooks. You have to tell yourself will you really read most of the books that you have on your device again in your lifetime? Probably not. I have books in paper form that I read once and never touched again. This is probably true for 90% of my books. Unless you had some sort of dream that you were going to give your reader away to a relative when you die, I see no worries.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Tony1988

I wouldn't lose too much sleep over this or let it scare you away from ebooks. You have to tell yourself will you really read most of the books that you have on your device again in your lifetime? Probably not. I have books in paper form that I read once and never touched again. This is probably true for 90% of my books. Unless you had some sort of dream that you were going to give your reader away to a relative when you die, I see no worries.

I tend to re-read older books and what I worry more about is waking up one day to find that the DRM servers have been shut down. While so far that issue hasn't bothered me, one co-worker was hit by both the Microsoft PlaysForSure and Yahoo DRM server shutdowns which rendered 90% of the music he had downloaded from them useless. He finally got most of his promised DRM free versions from Yahoo but for the majority of his music which had been downloaded from Microsoft, by the time he heard about the shutdown he couldn't even download the license keys for most of the songs on his existing authorized computer.

For me, that hardest item about his issues was keeping a straight face. He was very proud of having left Apple and iTunes in favour of Microsoft and Yahoo. He often and loudly expressed his opinion that Microsoft and Zune were the wave of the future with Apple being relegated to a small niche within a few years.

Regards,
David

[BWinmill]

Originally Posted by Tony1988

You have to tell yourself will you really read most of the books that you have on your device again in your lifetime?

True in many respects, but I'd add two caveats. Some people do reread books, particularly people who read non-fiction books or are selective about the fiction that they read. The other thing is that some people have huge TBR piles. They may only read the books once, but may not get to a book immediately.

My solution is to read library books or books devoid of DRM. Libraries make more sense for those single read titles because reading a book once and tossing it into the dustbin is an extravagant waste of money (at least to some of us). DRM free books come in the public domain variety, CC variety, and enlightened publisher variety -- so there is a lot of choice.

[BWinmill]

Originally Posted by DNSB

For me, that hardest item about his issues was keeping a straight face. He was very proud of having left Apple and iTunes in favour of Microsoft and Yahoo. He often and loudly expressed his opinion that Microsoft and Zune were the wave of the future with Apple being relegated to a small niche within a few years.

That depends. Was this before or after Apple removed DRM from their music? The way things stand today, Apple could go under tomorrow and people would still have their music collections. The way things were several years ago, Apple could have gone under, and consumers would be in the same position that they were in with Yahoo and Microsoft.

[Uschiekid]

Originally Posted by Tony1988

I wouldn't lose too much sleep over this or let it scare you away from ebooks. You have to tell yourself will you really read most of the books that you have on your device again in your lifetime? Probably not. I have books in paper form that I read once and never touched again. This is probably true for 90% of my books. Unless you had some sort of dream that you were going to give your reader away to a relative when you die, I see no worries.

you should have my memory...i can pretty much read anything again and it's almost like a new book

But seriously (to the OP)
I agree about a lot of what you said. Which is why I refused to buy an ereader for so long, despite my habit of moving countries every few years. But fortunately for me, I *love* classics. So I decided it was worth the money to buy the ereader and not buy ebooks (generally...not that I am saying I will never ever buy an ebook)....just get the classics for free... There are so many thousands of books available which are now public domain....that's what made having an ereader worthwhile in my case....

But since you've already bought lots of kindle books, you have to make a choice to follow the law, or to get the rights you think are fair by de-DRMing them. Personally, I would have made that decision before investing the money, but that's just cause i'm cheap...cheepcheepcheep. Which is maybe why I love birds [OT].