Quote:
Originally Posted by GlennD
I actually did restart my collection a few years ago...bittorrent was my old source of ebooks. I felt justified when it was mostly user-scanned books being shared, but when ebooks became widely available and the actual published versions started being pirated I saw the light, purged my collection, and went legit.
Nowadays Amazon is my first stop (same reason as everyone else: ease of Alf. Also, I'm most confident they'll be around for my lifetime.) Baen, Humble (and other) Bundles, Phoenix picks. eReaderIQ is my new best friend. And for public domain works, Mobileread is my first stop of course.
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Quite a few of my original ebooks were user-scanned, most of them by myself and a few from friends. I still have flashbacks of tweaking OCR programs to try to improve the results and reading the shredded books while checking the OCR results. Some of the best results were from using a Xerox MFP and their Docushare program. I've replaced most of those with purchased copies over the years but still have a few of my originals left where the ebook has never been released. I never felt this was piracy as none of those books had any prohibitions about not scanning, storing, etc. It was a book that I had purchased and so could do what I liked with it.
Unlike one recent ebook purchase where the opinion I received from a lawyer was that by downloading the ebook to my computer and then copying it to my ereader without first obtaining the required permission in writing, I had violated the terms embedded in the ebook. Admittedly I was working on the law firms network at the time and I wasn't charged for the opinion so it may be worth every penny I didn't pay for it. She also suggested that I email the publisher just to see what their response would be.
I had to admire the answer I got from my email to the publisher. Basically, I was told that while downloading the ebook and then copying the ebook to my ereader did, technically, violate that boilerplate text, they would not take action against any person who downloaded a copy to which they were entitled and I could consider this email as permission to make one copy of the book for my use.
You've likely seen that boilerplate or it's cousins quite often. The one that reads:
No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system - except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper - without express written permission from the publisher.