[sirmaru]

Thanks for that clarification on the Netherlands law. By the way, have you read anything in the Netherlands newspapers about any disposition of the eBook question to the European Court of Justice?

Here is an email I received from Sony today:

"Although we're sorry to say goodbye to the Reader Store, we're also glad to share with you the new, exciting future for our readers: Reader Store will transfer customers to Toronto-based eReading company, Kobo—an admired eBook seller with a passionate reading community. We strongly believe that this transition will allow you to enjoy a continued high-quality e-reading experience. As a result of this change, we will close Reader Store in the U.S. and Canada on March 20, 2014 at 6 p.m. (EST). "

I am sure losses on free sharing of copy protected eBooks had some share of the blame for this outcome.

Another thread active now on this Forum has more information on the Sony situation.

I am also sure this is just the first casualty. There will be more to follow. Depriving retailers, publishers and authors of their rightful fees does have an effect on the industry.

I had done a poll on this site some time ago with 173 respondents showing overwhelming use of Alf to strip DRM. That does reflect this forum and it may reflect the tendency of eBook users who are active in the hobby.

Finally, many of those "file sharing" sites REQUIRE uploading of files to be shared in order to qualify for downloading other free files. Thus, the "collectors" of those thousands of files may be on both ends of the sharing: uploading AND downloading.

For me I don't mind PAYING a fair fee for an eBook. The standard Amazon price of $ 10.00 per eBook is still a lot less than the old prices of $ 40.00 for a print book 30 years ago. I also do NOT need backups of any eBooks I buy. I buy them to READ ONCE and then discard them as I did with print books years ago from the Book of the Month Club. I only need Amazon to keep getting new eBooks for me to keep reading.