MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Why would I want to "own" my e-books?

kilohertz53 · 09-20-2007, 12:07 PM

It's good to have choices. Borders+Sony, Amazon+Kindle, B&N+SomeOtherDevice -- maybe e-books really are poised to go mainstream. I hope the partnerships succeed and sell millions of e-books. They just won't be selling them to me.

The sort of books that I BUY are the kind that don't lend themselves well to e-reading, especially on small screens. I mostly buy reference books: dictionaries, atlases, art and photography books, gardening, DIY projects, and so on. Popular fiction and narrative non-fiction books work best on e-reading devices, but most of them are only worth reading once. They're entertainment. I don't want to own them, I just want to rent them.

A workable subscription model already exists for e-audiobooks. NetLibrary and OverDrive are services that many people can access through their public library systems. They provide instant access to thousands of popular audiobook titles. Download the windows media file and the license and the audiobook is yours for a few weeks until the license expires. Your tax dollars subsidize the system. It's not perfect. The protected .wma files are not compatible with Macs, iPods, or linux. Your audio player has to be able to handle subcription service content (a.k.a, "Plays for Sure"). C'est la vie. If I was offered a similar e-book service, either through my library or as a reasonably-priced individual subscription service, I'd sign up in a heartbeat and buy a portable e-reading device to suit the format of the offered e-books. Until then, I'll read today's best sellers on paper from the public library and public domain and CC on my Sony Reader.

09-20-2007, 12:07 PM	#1
kilohertz53 Zealot Posts: 141 Karma: 671 Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Harwichport, MA Device: Sony PRS-500, Sony PRS-350, Augen "The Book"	Why would I want to "own" my e-books? It's good to have choices. Borders+Sony, Amazon+Kindle, B&N+SomeOtherDevice -- maybe e-books really are poised to go mainstream. I hope the partnerships succeed and sell millions of e-books. They just won't be selling them to me. The sort of books that I BUY are the kind that don't lend themselves well to e-reading, especially on small screens. I mostly buy reference books: dictionaries, atlases, art and photography books, gardening, DIY projects, and so on. Popular fiction and narrative non-fiction books work best on e-reading devices, but most of them are only worth reading once. They're entertainment. I don't want to own them, I just want to rent them. A workable subscription model already exists for e-audiobooks. NetLibrary and OverDrive are services that many people can access through their public library systems. They provide instant access to thousands of popular audiobook titles. Download the windows media file and the license and the audiobook is yours for a few weeks until the license expires. Your tax dollars subsidize the system. It's not perfect. The protected .wma files are not compatible with Macs, iPods, or linux. Your audio player has to be able to handle subcription service content (a.k.a, "Plays for Sure"). C'est la vie. If I was offered a similar e-book service, either through my library or as a reasonably-priced individual subscription service, I'd sign up in a heartbeat and buy a portable e-reading device to suit the format of the offered e-books. Until then, I'll read today's best sellers on paper from the public library and public domain and CC on my Sony Reader.