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Originally Posted by crane3
Interesting. Now I have to ask what is a book "update"? I buy just fiction books but have gotten several non-fiction books as in 'Python 3', 'imap', 'mythology', 'nexus 7' & a 'howto nikon p510'; no idea if there are 'updates'.
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In this case, an update is whenever the file changes. Updates actually happen quite often at both Amazon and B&N. With mainstream publishers, most of them are just formatting changes and maybe fixed typos, often without any visible changes. I've seen a number of updates from independents that are clearly the author learning more about ebook formatting or being able to afford a professional (I've seen more than one update from an obvious Calibre conversion to something hand-edited).
One of the more noticeable changes that I can think of was to
The Da Vinci Code. I bought the book at B&N shortly after getting an ereader in 2012. In early 2013, promotional material for
Inferno was added to the book that included a "coming soon" graphic just behind the cover image and an excerpt in the back. The download that I get right now still has the excerpt, but not the "coming soon". I kept copies of all three versions just because I thought they were neat.
Quote:
Originally Posted by crane3
Would a new edition also be considered an 'update'? I cannot see getting a free update to a new edition even if there were only minimal changes. As someone pointed out, when one loses a printed book, it is not expected that the seller provide another copy; should it be different when getting an ebook?
Then, are printed books also 'updated' or is the update considered a new edition or is it under a new printing.
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I have no
a priori opinion about whether an ebookstore should give me future copies of books that I buy. If they say they will, though, I think it's reasonable (in the legal sense) to expect that they will.
In fact, most of the ebookstores that I deal with allow me to retrieve all of my past purchases as a side effect of their device ecosystems, but each works slightly differently. Kobo's books are all a snapshot of the file at the time I bought the book. If I download a book today that I bought a year ago, I get the same file even if Kobo's selling a different file now. Ebooks.com is the other extreme. Whatever edition and even format is available right now is what I get when I download. I bought several books at ebooks.com that were PDF and pre-Kindle MobiPocket that are no longer available as such, but I can download them today as epub.
I have purchased books from some vendors that have allowed limited ADE downloads or even just emailed me copies of books, but they told me up front that I was getting a one-time (or at least limited) download and I'm OK with that.