Quote:
Originally Posted by ATimson
True, but even without DRM - which is the sole cause of Stallman's "lost rights" - you'd still have to deal with that.  |
This is one of our digital age's unfortunate glitches. We need something like an "eternal digital storage locker" for books and music purchased. A service that is always online, that you can always download purchases from. Not just archiving- I can do that- but a service that can guarantee access to products in current formats, always.
For example, say you purchase a copy of Herbert 's Dune in .pdb format. The company you bought from goes out of business, and you are stuck with a DRMed pretty useless file, and can't read what you purchased. The service would update the file, perhaps strip the protection, and you could download and read what you BOUGHT, any time.
Actually, twice in my consulting work, companies I have worked for were considering custom software purchases that were a little pricey. The vendor would not provide source, and there were worries that if the vendor went out of business we would be stuck with obsolete software that had cost a bundle, and that we could not use. We worked out deals in both cases- the vendor deposited the source code (there was a code review conducted by another 3rd party to ensure the correct source was indeed deposited) with a 3rd party and signed an agreement. If the vendor went out of business, we were to be given the source code.
Now, books are not that expensive, but why should anyone get ripped off? If you buy a hardcover book, and want to read it 5 years later, you can do so. The same should be true of an ebook.
The sellers and publishers really need to do something here. IMHO, this sort of thing promotes piracy and will kill ebook sales. Why would anyone pay good money for something that they can't access a few months later? But I think this sort of thing will continue to happen until it hits the sellers and publishers in their pocketbook. There is so munch greed out there; costs are lower for ebooks, but many publishers are trying to chagre full hard cover price.
Amazon has made a good start, but 9.99 is still too high. Books need to come down to the $5 range. If they do, the market will have a lot of buyers. A month ago, I bought several iPhone sdk books, for about $40 each. They were available in ebook format, but prices were almost as much as for the paper. Why would I spend that. These books are of course available in pirated .PDF form, for free. Tech books seem to get pirated a lot. Just noticed the other day that a couple of those books are now available for $17 in ebook format.
Maybe publishers are starting to wake up. Apress, for example, prices it's ebooks too high, but run a daily deal where a selected title is $10. I have never bought one of their ebooks at standard price, but several at the special price. Reader need to pressure the sellers and publishers and let them know how stupid a lot of pricing is. And vote with their wallets.....