Yesterday I bought an e-book published by Penguin. The copyright page includes this notice:
Quote:
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The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.
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Noteworthy, I think, is the concentration on distribution; Penguin is not saying anything about the consumer making copies for personal use.
Two other books purchased yesterday (Farrar Straus and Giroux--which is part of Macmillan--and Random House) have only the standard copyright notice, nothing specific to an e-book; same for a recent Simon & Schuster book I bought.
A HarperCollins book recently purchased has a much stricter notice:
Quote:
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By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Offhand, I can't think of a Hachette book I own to check what those notices say.
But I think it's interesting that there's no uniformity among the publishers as to what you can do with the e-book you buy, with HC apparently ready to take your firstborn for just about anything that might possibly be construed as a violation of what it's staked out as its turf, Penguin politely reminding you to be on good behavior, and the others simply silent.