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OK, OK, I give in. Thanks for all the replies, though I think that many of you have a very different attitude to the buying and owning of books. My idea of the bare essentials would be the complete contents of the Bodleian Library (for starters).
I think I’m going to have to fall into the arms of Bezos, because it seems to me inevitable that he is going to win and, as a result, that is the only place where I’m going to be able to get anything close to all the books I want, when I want them. I say that with a certain heaviness of heart because I do mistrust Amazon’s motives in the long term.
It’s for that very reason that I won’t be buying any protected work in other formats, including Mobi. I can’t see that Amazon will allow loopholes in uploading to continue once the Kindle is established as market leader. Given that the Millennium Act provides for fines of $500,000 and five years in prison for circumventing DRM, I am amazed at the optimism of people who are cheerfully doing just that and then putting the files onto a device that is in constant radio contact with a company which relies on DRM to protect its bottom line. Good luck with that.
In any case, in stark financial terms, from the titles I’ve been looking at, the difference in price between Kindle editions and others is significant, and not just for best-sellers. I will even save money over my current paper-based buying.
And so, with grim resignation I have to say ‘Give me the contract Mr Bezos, I’m ready to sign over my soul. What’s that? I can’t buy the Kindle in the UK and you can’t tell me if and when I might be able to?’
Now I'm really depressed.
FX: Sound of sobbing fades into the distance....
Argel
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