Quote:
Originally Posted by Skip_intro
Probably just throwing petrol on the flames, but...
Here's the scenario; I have several dozen metres of books in my study, Hardback editions of authors I particularly like, Paperbacks of many, many, others. In some cases I have multiple versions of the same book, different covers, earlier editions, etc.
However, I have the opportunity to download the collected works of these two of my favourite authors to fill my new eReader, in non-DRM'd ePub format. These authors are Stephen King and Iain Banks, for example.
The Stephen King collection contains all of the Dark Tower series, which I don't like and have no physical copies of. It does have all of the books I own as well.
The Iain Banks collection has all of this SF and non-SF books, all of which I own, multiple times.
Now, it seems I have no legal right to download any of this, even though I would not be depriving anyone of revenue as I would not have bought the Dark Tower books and have paid for original copies of all of the others.
Would I be on stronger ground if I exclude the books I don't like/own from the download? Legally, of course, it makes no difference what-so ever as it seems that I am depriving someone, somewhere of profit. This is, in fact, not the case.
|
Mr. King's works are all available as legal eBooks; I would strongly urge you to buy them, if you want to have them in eBook form. The fact that you own a paper book does NOT entitle you to a "free" eBook, any more than the fact that you've bought a hardback version of a book entitles you to a free paperback.
I am doing exactly this at present: replacing my extensive mystery collection with (legal) eBooks, and selling the paper books on Amazon or eBay.