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Old 08-02-2010, 08:29 AM   #58
wgrimm
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Posts: 230
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Join Date: Oct 2006
Device: multiple
Quote:
Originally Posted by malliemcg View Post
I'm still thinking about things like someone format shifting their paper collection and putting it onto an eReader, and I think morally this has to be fine, after all its the content is what has been paid for, not the medium, and as long as someone keeps the physical copies I can't see a moral reason for them not to grab an ecopy from elsewhere.

This discussion is not about DRM, but if a store and it's authorisation servers ever went off line, I'd believe someone was entitled to head off and replace those copies, I'm tempted to do it myself.
WeLL, I just went through a bad deal with ereader.com in this regard. Over the years I bought about 400 books from them. Back in April, when I bought my Ipad, I tried downloading a couple of books from them that I use for references. Couldn't do it. I contacted tech support, who offered inane replies and finally sent me a copy of their Terms of Service, under which, of course, I had no rights.

So much for Customer Disservice. Evidently ereader was having problems with publishers, but they told me it was a problem at their ISP. Anyways, out of the 400 books, I was unable to download about 40 of them. Ereader would not refund my money.

I grabbed copies of the books I needed from pirate sources, and felt no moral qualms about doing do. And this incident has made me truly consider any future ebook purchases. I feel fairly safe with Amazon, but do not think I will buy any DRMd stuff from smaller sellers. And, in any case, if I am buying a book I will use for years, and need access to always, it will probably be in paper format. And I think, once I have done that, that I may indeed grab a pirated copy of that book from the net, or scan it in myself.

I have said it many times- if the publishers would treat their customers with respect- and this means making buying ebooks convenient, and pricing them reasonably (way below hardcover price), then they will create a vibrant market. If they insist on clinging to hundred year old business models and pricing ebooks at almost hardcover prices, they will cause piracy to flourish.

And Smashwords is a great resource! I recently bought all of Falk's books about the Chinese internal martial arts from there- at about $5 per copy. He was paid well, and I got a fair price. We need more sellers like this.
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