Quote:
Originally Posted by eschwartz
In all seriousness  :
Hmm, I own all my Amazon-purchased ebooks... practically speaking. They are on multiple backups on my hard drive, flashdrive, Dropbox, etc. Because even if I did "own" my books, that still doesn't protect me if they go out of business. People have already gotten nailed like that from Fictionwise, BooksOnBoard, Sony, etc.
Keep in mind that you don't "own" your Nook or Kobo or iBooks or Google Play books either, and for the same reason.
And all those services take a cut for "hosting a .mobi file" -- as well as providing an aggregation service so consumers can shop at one point of sale. As well as providing -- in Amazon's case certainly -- a lot of targeted advertising. Like the "customers who bought this also bought ____".
But sure, it would be great if publishers could sell directly. (Note that they would still undoubtedly use the same licensing-not-selling.) Sadly, that is up to them, not Amazon, and most of them don't seem to really get the idea of direct selling. Baen of course notwithstanding.
How will you both: - Shop for book online using my ereader
- authors/publishers could just host/sell their own books through search engines like Calibre
At the end of the day, wherever you get your ebooks from, they will know what you get and I guess that is "spying" on you. (We miss the ability to buy ebooks anonymously with cash like we could with pbooks, eh?  ) Using WiFi on your ereader is not going to make a difference. So why not use the integrated store directly from the ereader? 
Question:
Can you shop directly from this device? If so, which ebookstores can you access? |
You make many good points. I agree that if publishers tried to sell their own books, they would probably try to use the same tactic as Amazon and "licence" the books instead selling the actual files. I remember in fact buying the publisher's digital version of my textbook back in college that I could only access through some god awful adobe lock down program that seemed designed to provide as many disincentives to using as possible...
I think there will be lots of changes in the years to come with how people use books. Acutally, even on the mobileread.com front page right now, there is this article:
http://authorearnings.com/report/jul...-barnes-noble/ showing how so many authors are simply self publishing best sellers on these sites.
Regarding how I can shop directly for ebooks from this device: I don't yet have the device, so I'm not sure about the details. The Boyue T61 that is on it's way is basically a rebranded Icarus Illumina that is sold by the original manufacturer in China. Looking at online video reviews of these devices, one of them said that it's Android OS comes loaded with a project gutenberg search/download app that lets you download any hosted book. Likewise, the device will be able to run any company's android app that offers similar functionality or access any web page that allows direct downloads. Not bad for a device with the same screen as the kindle paperwhite. but only $99 shipped. At least not bad on paper, I'm eager to see what it's like in hand....
Finally, regarding spying, it's not just knowing what books you bought, it's also knowing how long you took on each page, what words you highlighted, the notes you made. And this is actually already shared with the publishers, who ostensibly use it to coach the authors into making more compelling ebooks. Many people will probably say "meh, whatever, i have nothing to hide", and that's great - I don't think spying on those people is what bothers me. In reality, most customers probably can't even understand/imagine the scope of this technology. Those who do likely won't read the fine print. They just sort of sneak it through in the terms of service and it just seems like a wrong, but technically legal, invasion of privacy.