Thread: Project Gutenberg going Mobi?
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Old 03-29-2009, 01:57 PM   #56
wallcraft
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kris777 View Post
It is interesting what is the % of non DRMed books available in ePUB and Mobi format now? and what will be this % in 1-2 years?
For ebooks you buy, there are still many more MOBIs. This is because long standing DRM-free sources, such as Baen and FictionWise, don't provide DRM-free ePub. Don't forget that there is currently no device that is ePub only, and several that are essentially MOBI-only.

However, for DRM-free ebooks in the US this is almost a non-issue because format shifting for personal use is almost universally thought to be a fair use under copyright law. MOBI to ePub, or better yet LIT to ePub, works very well. The reverse, ePub to MOBI is good enough for many uses but can hit the limits of the MOBI format.

For technical ebooks, the only reason there are any MOBIs is the Kindle. Without it, these would be exclusively PDF and ePub. This is because MOBI isn't up to displaying complex tables and code fragments. What O'Reilly and other publishers are going it converting all their "advanced" formatting into images optimized for the Kindle screen. A terrible approach, but they can't ignore the Kindle market.
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