Didn't get to read all of your responses, yet. But, I will.
From the beginning, the question that I raised in the O.P. of this thread was at least equally as much about the wider issue of how ebookstores can get by with taking away your libraries that you have with them, which libraries consist of ebooks (licenses) which you have either purchased (the most likely scenario) or received from some promo or such like. It has not been so much about WTS Books, specifically.
I happen to have three first cousins who are attorneys (in Alaska, Tennessee, and Alabama) and, I feel sure that with our precious familial bonds (and with me coughing up several hundred dollars per hour) any one of them would be glad to research the legal issues involved and address them for me.
But whether or not it is legal is almost beside the point: libraries of your ebooks
are disappearing and companies
are disallowing downloads of your ebooks now which companies used to allow (I'm thinking of B&N), among possibly other egregious violations of decorum (IMHO) related to the retail ebook trade.
This problem has certainly alerted me to the danger of not backing up my ebooks. I've already started making changes. So this travesty of justice (IMHO) has resulted in something positive (I've gotten so paranoid . . . er . . . cautious now that I actually make .txt file backups of my longer posts, like these!)
Some of you may be interested in the outcome of my effort to unzip the zip file that the representative at WTS sent me. You remember that I was having all kinds of trouble getting it done. A kind MobileReader, who has been following this thread, suggested that I try the 7-Zip program. I happened to have it already installed, although it isn't my default unzip program. It didn't take but a few keystrokes, and bada-bing, bada-boom! all, apparently, of my ebook files from WTS Books appeared. I successfully opened one, just to make sure that this was all really real.
I had forgotten this, but WTS Books apparently only sold/sells ebooks in mobi. When I tested one ebook file, the ebook automatically opened up in my Kindle desktop reader. It appears in my Kindle library. Does this mean that I just traded one library (at WTS Books) for another one (at Amazon) and that, ultimately, I've got the same problem as I had at the beginning? Or are all of my ebooks from WTS Books now securely on
my hard drive? I think that it is extremely unlikely that Amazon would make my library disappear, though, where I didn't (well, I don't now) with WTS Books.
It was serendipitous (providential?) that I happened to go to WTS Books' website when I did. I used to go over there only about once every couple of months. I shudder to think of what might have happened had I not gone there when I did! I feel sorry for the poor saps who will be going to the WTS Books website, don't find their libraries, and learn the cold, hard truth that their ebooks have gone bye-bye. Forever.
Now I've got to get busy (belatedly) learning Calibre and using its capabilities. I think that I will try moving my Kobo library first.
Thanks for all of your help!