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calvin-c · 07-08-2009, 07:06 PM

but I've been reading eBooks for about 5 years. Mostly on PDA/cell phones.

I checked out various readers & settled on Mobipocket, but recently decided to give eReader another try. So far I haven't found any other reading software that's sufficiently popular to make it worth using. And I detest formats that are tied to specific hardware.

IANAL so I take the common-sense approach to legality & ethics. IMHO the essence of both, for eBooks, is to treat the eBook as much as possible like a hard-copy book. When possible I'll make copies for backup (one difference is how easily an eBook can be lost-either deleted or corrupted) but if I give a copy to somebody else then I ensure that I give them *all* my copies. Or delete them. (Unless it's available for free, like from Project Gutenberg.)

FWIW I'm a professional programmer. Most reader software is more complex than I'm willing to tackle on my own time, but I have a pretty good idea of the potential problems & capabilities-which makes me very disappointed whenever I look at what's available. Hopefully forums like Mobileread, where we can discuss issues like these as well as solve each others problems, will help.

07-08-2009, 07:06 PM	#1
calvin-c Guru Posts: 787 Karma: 1575310 Join Date: Jul 2009 Device: Moon+ Pro	New to Mobileread but I've been reading eBooks for about 5 years. Mostly on PDA/cell phones. I checked out various readers & settled on Mobipocket, but recently decided to give eReader another try. So far I haven't found any other reading software that's sufficiently popular to make it worth using. And I detest formats that are tied to specific hardware. IANAL so I take the common-sense approach to legality & ethics. IMHO the essence of both, for eBooks, is to treat the eBook as much as possible like a hard-copy book. When possible I'll make copies for backup (one difference is how easily an eBook can be lost-either deleted or corrupted) but if I give a copy to somebody else then I ensure that I give them all my copies. Or delete them. (Unless it's available for free, like from Project Gutenberg.) FWIW I'm a professional programmer. Most reader software is more complex than I'm willing to tackle on my own time, but I have a pretty good idea of the potential problems & capabilities-which makes me very disappointed whenever I look at what's available. Hopefully forums like Mobileread, where we can discuss issues like these as well as solve each others problems, will help.