[Gideon]

I've seen a lot of posts regarding people who get rid of their old books, clear up shelf space, etc. I'm just wondering if someone could elaborate on that.

I mean, I get the stuff you may be able to acquire easily in the public domain... but what about other books? Things you buy from one store or another. I couldn't be happier with my eBook reader, and I may buy versions of some of the books I have for it - but I'd never get rid of the originals. The copies you buy are in a proprietary, DRM'd format... and all it takes is them to no longer support it for you to lose your library.

A few years ago, I bought a PDF book from Amazon. Then, a bit ago I tried to open the file to find out that Amazon was no longer authorizing these and upon contacting Amazon was told, more or less, that I was SOL. I bought it, paid for it.... and then couldn't use it at all, with no recourse, because Amazon decided to quit selling those types of eBooks.

So, maybe I misunderstand what people are saying. Anyone care to explain it to me?