Quote:
Originally Posted by kennyc
My belief is that there is a "happy medium" somewhere in the middle that allows consumers to purchase products at a fair price and to own and use them in the way they see fit. The idea of the corporations controlling what I can and cannot do with a product I purchase is way past time for it to be history, like old fish, it's beginning to stink.
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I suppose this is one reason why I will always prefer to own or even borrow the printed stuff much of the time. Nobody is tracking where the book is headed after it hits my knapsack. My money, my stuff. Interesting concept.
A dead tree book is technically a "file". When I was about 14-15 my friend and I used to browse used book stores, and actually go halvers on books that were sold for a buck or two (that was ~30 years ago). We'd actuallly co-own the books and just pass it on to each other when we were done.
99% of my e-reading is the free news/web "magazines" I make up from recipes via calibre and/or the public domain materials, occasionally smashwords (although I download a greater percentage of their free offerings than I actually wind up reading).
I actually am one of those people who really DOES like receiving a coffee-stained, well loved, used book for a gift. A book is a book, and the story within isn't changing just because there are dog-ears on pages and stuff. It actually has more meaning. The first book my husband ever bought me is a copy of Pride and Prejudice that cost $3 from a used book store, in 1998. It was well worn even before it hit my hands.