Books in the cloud will be here on the 4th of April - 1984 made manifest

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by karunaji

Amazon can change the books stored on their servers too. When you download your previously bought book to a new device it might be an update. I don't know if they do it but how can you know?

They don't. You have to specifically ask Amazon customer service for an updated version of a book. The reason for this is that notes and annotations are tied to a particular location in a book and, of course, if the book changes, these locations become invalid. Hence, if you do ask for the updated version, they explicitly warn you that you'll lose your annotations.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by karunaji

It is a classic example of marketing speech when using many buzzwords sounds like it is a new thing.

Supplying books from the cloud to reading app is the same as downloading them from the server. It may be more restrictive DRM that requires permanent internet connection and downloading page by page so that it is harder to make a copy. Probably, these are rare technical books with small target audience that can bear with these little inconveniences.

Amazon can change the books stored on their servers too. When you download your previously bought book to a new device it might be an update. I don't know if they do it but how can you know?

Which is why I keep a local copy. Always.

I had recently downloaded a Kindle freebie, The Immigrants, by Howard Fast. Just yesterday Amazon sent me an e-mail advising me that an updated version was available, with typos corrected. If I wanted it, I had to respond to the e-mail, then the new file would be sent to my Kindle for PC next time I opened the program.

[Penforhire]

This sort of cloud-basis is coming on strong. I've been Chicken-Little'ing about it for a while now.

Microsoft, as an example, would love to host your MS Office suite on-line. Piracy? Only if you can spoof a valid ID not in use at another workstation. Oh sure there are some advantages. Software revisions get rolled out by changing a single master file. You're always automatically running the lastest. But the downsides cluster around the same e-book DRM complaint -- we're leasing, not owning. It is unlikely our purchase price will guarantee us access indefinitely.

[silasgreenback]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That is a good thing. It's a very, VERY good thing. How often have you bought ebooks full of subversive information? This way, correct one central copy, and everyone gets the corrections automatically. That's wonderful!

[rogue_librarian]

So who doesn't think that somebody with the necessary skills will create a "one-click book ripper" that will allow downloading of these books with ease?

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

So who doesn't think that somebody with the necessary skills will create a "one-click book ripper" that will allow downloading of these books with ease?

They could provide 100% free access to the ebooks without so much as a registration, and someone will still try to pirate it.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

This is really not quite as revolutionary as you might think, though not in common use. Google Books, for example, intends to keep the content on their servers, and let you access it in your web browser. Similarly, subscription music services like Rhapsody work on the same principle.

In all of those situations the content is also available through 'normal' means.
In this example, the content owner will restrict access so that this is the only means of access, that is distinctly different.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Unfortunately that's not the case. Ever tried to get a corrected version of a book from a retail ebook store?

It is very easy with Amazon. It doesn't happen often because the publishers don't update the books to fix errors. No reason to think that this would change with a different delivery method.

Originally Posted by queentess

It's a Good Thing to be able to correct all the hundreds (thousands?) of mistakes that show up in ebooks... but I definitely see this entire scenario as a Bad Thing.

Yes, "Let a thousand versions bloom." Apologies Mao.

There is a correct version, the original authors! Now the idea of correcting errors is great, but to just throw it open to any person to make any edits?

What is needed is one responsible gatekeeper. This could be a volunteer or a paid editor. But is not the lack of that what let the errors get through to begin with?

[tilia]

You don’t have to be on-line to read the books. The idea is that you buy your books in the bookstore of choice, but they are all stored and downloaded from the same site. If you are going to read on an ereader, you download your books from the site Bokskya (The Book Cloud) to your computer with ADE. There is an app with the same name for use on tablets and smartphones (html5).

It doesn’t seem like most of the smaller publishers are going to be part of it, at least not from the start. They think it’s too expensive. I don’t know if they are going to be able to sell their eBooks in the big bookstores or not.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

And that too is why I've spent thousands of hours painstakingly proof-reading the books that I've uploaded here to MR. But my point is that if, by proof-reading an correcting one copy of a book, all the readers can automatically get that corrected version, that has to be a good thing.

You have a lot more faith in our masters than I do if you think they would only fix mistakes.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by tilia

You don’t have to be on-line to read the books. The idea is that you buy your books in the bookstore of choice, but they are all stored and downloaded from the same site. If you are going to read on an ereader, you download your books from the site Bokskya (The Book Cloud) to your computer with ADE. There is an app with the same name for use on tablets and smartphones (html5).

How is that any different to how ADE works everywhere else?

[tilia]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

How is that any different to how ADE works everywhere else?

It's not any differnt as far as I know. The bookstores(and eventually the libraries) are all going to use the same site for downloading books. It's just that since the app for ipad is called the same as the site, some people think it's all going to be in the cloud.

[OtterBooks]

Oh, I'm sure all the edits will be legitimate corrections. No worries.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the STEVE KRABOWSKY RULES, it was the epoch of belief...

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

You have a lot more faith in our masters than I do if you think they would only fix mistakes.

Our "masters"? We're talking about publishers here, aren't we?