Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
I am very disappointed to read this thread. People must make these decisions for themselves, of course, but personally I would hope that anyone who wishes to make eBooks a success would indicate that fact by going out and buying them from those publishers who are producing them.
Illegally downloading them sends all the wrong signals to publishers and only confirms the frequently-encountered view that DRM is required because there are so many people who break the law.
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I buy ebooks where I can. I'm not fussed by DRM. I only read a book once or twice, and I'm not going to share it. If I can no longer access it in a year or two, I don't really care.
I would by far prefer to buy an ebook, rather than pirate one. I'm more than happy to pay for convenient access, decent format and few flaws. I don't bother pirating music or games or software, because it's easier to get the real thing just by paying for it.
But for me, the problem is the AVAILABILITY of a particular book. If a book is ONLY available on the dark net, should you simply not get it?
I recently went to Amazon for a Pbook and it was listed as out of print and unavailable. I then went to the dark net and found an ebook version. What should I do? Ignore it? Or download it?
And if I download it, doesn't that send the message to the publishers that maybe there is a market for an electronic version of a book they are currently not doing anything with?