What "freedoms" do you value in relation to your ebooks?

[darryl]

What "freedoms" do you value in relation to your ebooks?

Despite what licence agreements say, I suspect that many if not most of us believe that, at least morally, ebooks which we purchased should be regarded as our own property analogous to physical books. This does not mean that we should own the intellectual property. We do not in the case of printed books. Nor does it mean, at least in my case, that I pretend that ebooks are the same as physical books and should therefore provide all the utility of physical books, or vice versa. For example, I don't believe it is reasonable to expect to be able to re-sell ebooks. However, I do believe that I should be able to:

1. Backup my ebooks in a form that enables me to restore and read them in the future, irrespective of whether the Vendor continues in business.

2. Read my ebooks on any device of my choosing.

3. Read my ebooks on any application of my choosing.

4. Easily convert my ebooks between formats, so as to facilitate the two preceding actions.

5. Purchase ebooks at a reasonable price being significantly lower than the cost of purchasing the same title in a paper version.

6. Have the option to enjoy privacy by opting-out of the monitoring of my reading habits.

7. Purchase ebooks without regard to geographical or other unreasonable restrictions, an example of the latter being expiry dates, read only on a Sunday after Noon or on days of the week not ening in “y”, etc.

8. Borrow ebooks from libraries.

9. Enjoy the courtesy of not having it be assumed that I am dishonest.

I would also like to be able to lend my ebooks to friends or family, but like re-selling ebooks I don't think this is a particularly reasonable requirement.

Many of these freedoms, most notably 1 to 4, are currently provided to us by way of Apprentice Alf should we choose to take advantage of them. Freedom 5 is provided to us, at least in the case of non-BWM publishers, largely by Amazon and to a lesser extent by other Indie publishers/distributors, who are also responsible for lower prices even for many BWM books. Freedom 6 is a mixed bag, as information on our reading habits, purchases etc is valuable and is factored into the current business models. In fact, some Amazon authors rely for payment on readers completing at least 10% of their books. It may be that opting-out would prove to be inpractical or come at some additional cost. Freedom 7 can be attained with some effort from ourselves via VPN”s, proxies and other services in most but not all cases. Freedom 8 is given to us courtesy of Overdrive. It is not in my view reasonable to expect to be able to enjoy all of the other freedoms in relation to borrowed library books, though it would be nice to be able to read on more platforms and in more applications that Adobe Digital Editions (or apparently Overdrive media console).

Freedom 9 is slowly gaining ground. More and more ebooks are being sold without DRM, as companies come to realise that people continue to purchase ebooks, despite their ability to obtain the same titles for free easily. To the real surprise of some, including myself, apparently most people would much rather purchase legitimate content when it is made convenient for them to do so and available at a reasonable price. I doubt that piracy will ever be entirely eliminated, but I do think that it will reach still lower levels as BWM ebook prices fall further.

[GeoffR]

Others:
- To have a choice of retailers when buying. (I think retailer-exclusive content is as bad as georestrictions.)
- To be able to correct errors in the book myself, and make changes to the formatting to suit my reading preferences.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

Others:
- To have a choice of retailers when buying. (I think retailer-exclusive content is as bad as georestrictions.)
- To be able to correct errors in the book myself, and make changes to the formatting to suit my reading preferences.

Good suggestions.

[crich70]

They are all good ideas of rights to want though I am more concerned with those regarding format and being able to afford ebooks.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by crich70

They are all good ideas of rights to want though I am more concerned with those regarding format and being able to afford ebooks.

I tried to include the major rights I could think of plus a facility to at least mention those I missed. GeoffR already pointed out two other "rights" that could have been included.

I do agree that some rights are far more important than others, and that people have different priorities. I agree with you that access and affordability are of primary importance. I am not surprised that at the time of posting every single respondent has regarded backups in accessible format as important. On the other hand, it is not surprising to me in these days of social media that privacy does not seem to be a major concern, at least on current results.

[meeera]

To be able to bequeath my digital content in my will.

I also believe that where a publisher has declined to allow library lending of their ebooks (which I find a bit dodgy to start with), there should be a system of exceptions for borrowers with print disabilities.

[darryl]

Excellent points. I wish I had thought to include testamentary rights. And yes, there should be proper provision made not only for those with with sight problems but also for the blind. Last I looked blind people were catered for via the antiquated Daisy system which requires the purchase of expensive hardware. With the vastly improved tts applications now available as well as the increasing availability of Audiobooks both EBooks and Audiobooks should indeed be made available for borrowing by those who need them.

[mr ploppy]

Change the layout to my own preferences, and fix all the mistakes for the next time I want to read it.

Most of your "freedoms" (and both of mine) are about DRM, since that is what stops you from doing them. But there are a couple, borrow and sell ebooks, that wouldn't be possible without DRM.

[Apache]

If people always obeyed the law, the US might still be part of the British Empire.
Apache

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Apache

If people always obeyed the law, the US might still be part of the British Empire.
Apache

...or the British Isles part of the US.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Change the layout to my own preferences, and fix all the mistakes for the next time I want to read it.

Most of your "freedoms" (and both of mine) are about DRM, since that is what stops you from doing them. But there are a couple, borrow and sell ebooks, that wouldn't be possible without DRM.

Agreed. DRM is the key to many of the freedoms. It is probably true to say at the moment that those who embrace Apprentice Alf and are prepared to circumvent geographical restrictions enjoy these freedoms in any event, in fact but not by law. If Apprentice Alf ever fails it will be interesting to see the extent of the backlash. Having said this, DRM does not exactly have a sterling track record, as some very talented hackers always seem to take a new or changed DRM system as a challenge. Also, the current situation where there is still a flourishing trade in selling ebooks despite the ease of obtaining pirated copies makes it far more likely that DRM will increasingly cease to be utilised.

Borrowing and re-selling ebooks is possible without DRM, but it is probably not reasonable to expect these freedoms to be extended to us in its absence. Though, of course, borrowing does seem to work currently.

[DiapDealer]

I value buying* them for a reasonable price, reading them, and enjoying them (or not). Lather, rinse, repeat. The rest is for thinking about when I'm NOT reading--which I try to make as never as possible.


* or forever licensing them yada, yada, yada.

[Froide]

Originally Posted by Apache

If people always obeyed the law, the US might still be part of the British Empire.
Apache

Reminds me of this quotation:

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

[Hampshire Nanny]

I hesitated on: "To be able to purchase ebooks without geographical restrictions." I live in the US. I have both an Amazon US and an Amazon UK account. I can order print books from Amazon UK and they will ship to my US address. So why can't I buy eBooks from Amazon UK even though my Kindle is registered to my US account? It seems like a similar analogy. I'm not asking that Amazon US carry books from European publishers -- I just want to be able to purchase from a European distributor without having to re-register my Kindle.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Hampshire Nanny

I hesitated on: "To be able to purchase ebooks without geographical restrictions."

I did also because, really, if the author chooses to sell books through one publisher in the U.S. (for example) and another publisher in England (for example) there's not really much the eBook vendor can do about that.