Books On Board Ceased Operations

[Rev. Bob]

I bought quite a few Big Six books on sale there; they generally had lower prices than the Kobo store. Plus, I didn't mind the name...

[Catlady]

I liked buying audiobooks from them--with the discounts, the prices could be very good.

[jersysman]

I bought quite a few from them. I was starting to buy more because of other bookstore closures, but it didn't last long!

[apesmom]

I just checked today to see if there were any new updates on their site and found the following message AND downloads are no longer working. Very sad.

** Please immediately download any eBooks or audio books you have not yet downloaded **
BooksOnBoard is ceasing all retail operations. Downloads will no longer be available after July 2, 2013. Please immediately download any eBooks or audio books you have not yet downloaded.
Please sign in on the login page to download books you have purchased. Our distributors will no longer support downloads of prior purchases from our site after that date.
Many of our customers are using Calibre or other tools to strip DRM from their downloaded eBooks in order to have them available indefinitely should they change reading devices. This is apparently being done for their personal use and convenience, not for piracy. We are told this is in the spirit of the eBook license and that it is common practice.
We continue to attempt to re-structure to compete more effectively against Goliaths who have entered our marketplace since we first launched in 2006, i.e., Amazon, Apple, Google, Sony and Barnes & Noble.
Thank you for your support of our store over the last seven years during which we have pioneered many innovations with our customers, including the first eBooks for sale on the iPhone. We look forward to serving you again with an exciting new approach soon.

The BooksOnBoard team

[hwlester]

Sad, but the comment about stripping DRM is interesting... "in the spirit of the eBook license".

[meeera]

Originally Posted by hwlester

Sad, but the comment about stripping DRM is interesting... "in the spirit of the eBook license".

Calibre isn't a DRM-stripping tool, however. It would have been nice if they'd gotten that bit right. In some oppressive legal climates, their statement could be read as pretty much an accusation of criminal activity by the Calibre developers, no?

[hwlester]

Originally Posted by meeera

Calibre isn't a DRM-stripping tool, however. It would have been nice if they'd gotten that bit right. In some oppressive legal climates, their statement could be read as pretty much an accusation of criminal activity by the Calibre developers, no?

Yes, I know and I did think about that aspect. Calibre itself doesn't provide or condone the use of such tools.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by hwlester

Yes, I know and I did think about that aspect. Calibre itself doesn't provide or condone the use of such tools.

Nonetheless, the closure of this store is a prime example why one *should* download any digital purchase and strip DRM ASAP.

Outright refusing to buy any stuff that has DRM on it would be even better, but in my case at least, that is not possible, or I would need to forego a lot of books that I really do want to read.

If I couldn't strip DRM within 2 seconds (or in this case, while importing into Calibre), then I'd definitely not buy such books. In that case I'd rather buy them on paper, or not at all, however much I want to read them.

I wonder what "exciting new approach" they'll be thinking of. What other approach besides "We offer this, you pay, you get it" works? Streaming ebooks, to be used on always-on devices only? No way. Not for me.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

If I couldn't strip DRM within 2 seconds (or in this case, while importing into Calibre), then I'd definitely not buy such books. In that case I'd rather buy them on paper, or not at all, however much I want to read them.

Same. If it hadn't been for ConvertLit I would have never been able to go all digital (except for certain non-fiction stuff) back in 2007. In fact I'd probably have stuck with paper books completely except for the stuff I got free, like the Baen CD's in some of my old hardcovers.

[Kumabjorn]

Confession time.
When I first joined and started to read about DRM, something I'd never encountered before, my initial thought was, "a bunch of whiners who wants everything for free". Now I know better. Can't believe how ignorant I was.

[Katsunami]

You're not the first... and you won't be the last.

In my case, I was lucky.

I got internet in 1998. That year, Internet by modem became feasible in the Netherlands with regard to pricing. (One could get internet since 1994 or so, but it was very expensive; like $40 for a monthly subscription, plus phone bills.)

It was too slow and expensive to download stuff that was bigger than a few megabytes. One (1) MB took about 4 minutes, so even a low-quality MP3 took 15 minutes to download. Not worth it. Get a second-hand CD, and make the MP3's yourself. It was cheaper.

Downloading bigger things only got feasable after I got cable in 2001 (again, I was one of the first to get this when it became available in my region). And at that point (2001), the iPod got introduced, and iTunes and many other stores started offering WMA, AAC and/or MP3's for sale, loaded with all kinds of different DRM (And 128 kBit quality to boot...).

Often, it wasn't even possible to play songs outside the player the seller offered, or they only worked on select devices. (So, they were comparable to non-stripped eBooks.) Many, maybe most of the non-iTunes stores died within 1-3 years, and it was "big news" that many people lost the content they paid for.

Therefore, I already am in the know from the very beginning, before I started to buy digital-only content. I started to buy digital-only content in 2009 or so, when GOG.com launched, and later, eBooks in 2011, after making sure I could get the DRM off of them. For music, I still go the second-hand CD-route to create my own digital music; FLAC files, this time around.

Many people, especially younger and older persons and not too tech-savvy people, are not that lucky. They sometimes get very nasty surprises with regard to content not being readable or available.

[hwlester]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Confession time.
When I first joined and started to read about DRM, something I'd never encountered before, my initial thought was, "a bunch of whiners who wants everything for free". Now I know better. Can't believe how ignorant I was.

That's ok. Most people aren't even aware of DRM until it bites them. It's definitely not that we want things for free... we just want to be able to keep what we paid for. Imagine if you owned an Oldsmobile or Saturn and when GM dropped those brands, you could no longer drive your car or you could only drive it until it had an issue and then you could no longer find parts for it (which may not be far from reality).

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Often, it wasn't even possible to play songs outside the player the seller offered, or they only worked on select devices. (So, they were comparable to non-stripped eBooks.) Many, maybe most of the non-iTunes stores died within 1-3 years, and it was "big news" that many people lost the content they paid for.

Therefore, I already am in the know from the very beginning, before I started to buy digital-only content. I started to buy digital-only content in 2009 or so, when GOG.com launched, and later, eBooks in 2011, after making sure I could get the DRM off of them. For music, I still go the second-hand CD-route to create my own digital music; FLAC files, this time around.

Many people, especially younger and older persons and not too tech-savvy people, are not that lucky. They sometimes get very nasty surprises with regard to content not being readable or available.

Even with DRM-free content, it's always wise to download and store it locally just in case. Baen's deal with Amazon could have been exclusive and we could have lost all of the books we'd bought from them. Fortunately, that wasn't the case. Hopefully the ebook industry will catch on soon. Baen and Tor are leading the way.

[Catlady]

I'm confused about why BoB even mentioned DRM stripping in the notice.

[jersysman]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I'm confused about why BoB even mentioned DRM stripping in the notice.

^This

I'm also asking the same question. It makes no sense to me.

[Katsunami]

It does to me.

By mentioning DRM and Calibre, they may be suggesting a course of action to unknowing people, so they start doing research so they can unlock the books they paid for. Sort of a last heroic, humanity-saving act while dying...