Quote:
Originally Posted by NatCh
You raise a good and legitimate point, cmbs, so I had a look at the linked sites.
Obviously it can't be an exhaustive look, as that would take quite a lot of time, but here's what seems to be the case after a few minutes with each site. Taking them in order:
- The first link appears to be nothing more than a collection of links to technical manuals and textbook type stuff hosted by the various folks who own actually them. Obviously, those various owners have every right to give them away if they so choose, and there's certainly nothing amiss with collecting the links in one place.
- The second link seems to be an author's personal blog (Lizzy Van Lysebeth, by name) where she's giving away her own books. Again, nothing questionable about that, legally, morally nor ethically. At least not that we can tell without knowing what sort of contracts she may or may not have with unnamed and possibly non-existent third parties -- questions I don't really feel I have any right to demand that she answer.
- The third link is a blog as well, and its entries appear to be write ups of (and links to) books offered elsewhere. Those elsewheres would seem upon casual examination to be legitimate, including sites such as Harlequin, Amazon and a publisher (or possibly just a retailer) called "Pyr" which I hadn't heard of. Some of them aren't free, as Junior94 noted.
- The fourth and final link seems to be yet another author (Jennifer L. Armstrong, this time) again offering her own books as free downloads. She also seems to have a nice, surprisingly large collection of links to other authors' blogs who appear to be doing the same thing. Nothing out of line there, nearly as I can tell without making it my life's pursuit.
Frankly you can ask the same "how do you know it's legal" question of any retailer and the answer would be the same: you'll have to take a look and see -- there's not really any other way.
I'd respectfully suggest that next time links like these come up, you might have a look at what's linked before asking such a question in quite so blunt a manner. Some oversensitive folks might think you meant to accuse someone of something, which doesn'tseem to be at all warranted in this case.
As a general note to everyone: if anyone should come across a link posted here on MobileRead that goes to a ... questionable site, please use the report post function (the little  icon at the bottom left of each post) to let the Moderators know so that we can deal with it in a timely manner.
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Quite the thorough assessments you've done. I should have thought of that.
Oh right, I did, and of course, you have missed a few things that are pretty obvious in my opinion. But hey, I guess in part it depends what you're looking to find. Right?
Patricia - I confess to being puzzled as to how you can claim to hand format 10 books every day. Even the easiest books take me a day to hand format, then several days reading to check for errors. Seems we just don't understand each other very well. I suspect our definition of "hand formatting" differs.
I'm not real puzzled about why you attack just about every post I make.