"Most e-books in The Netherlands are not paid for."

[Katsunami]

Exactly. I should have thought about that point as well.

[Yapyap]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Exactly. I should have thought about that point as well.

I think a lot of us here are so used to circumventing georestrictions daily with ebooks, jumping through hoops - and violating all sorts of rules and agreements and potentially risking our accounts and entire ebook libraries - just to give money to the creators (who aren't necessarily keen on selling to us) that lack of availability has become less of an issue than it used to be.

One cannot really expect potential customers / interested people everywhere to do that, though, especially as it's even less convenient than piracy.

I really do hope that this won't be as big a problem in another five or ten years, though.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Yapyap

I think a lot of us here are so used to circumventing georestrictions daily with ebooks, jumping through hoops - and violating all sorts of rules and agreements and potentially risking our accounts and entire ebook libraries - just to give money to the creators (who aren't necessarily keen on selling to us) that lack of availability has become less of an issue than it used to be.

One cannot really expect potential customers / interested people everywhere to do that, though, especially as it's even less convenient than piracy.

I really do hope that this won't be as big a problem in another five or ten years, though.

How true. Sometimes it's more work to legally acquire a book than to just type "Book Title EPUB download Torrent" into Google and hit the first link.

That's just sad.

Fortunately, I believe in paying for stuff that I want, and weird enough, I even feel a bit guilty if I *do* pirate the occasional book, just because there's no way to otherwise get it.

While replacing the last of my paper books with ebooks, I was looking for an ebook I *knew* that existed because I had seen it at Kobo a year ago (*), but was unable to find it anywhere... until I found it through a file sharing forum.

An ebook that's taken out of "print", while the paper version was still readily available. Can you believe that?

(* It had a ridiculous price; something like €20 for a 200 page book, while the paper version I already owned cost around €6.95, so I passed it up back then.)

[Tizzalicious]

I just read the whole legal-issues debate, and I don't think there's much I can add. I agree that I think readung habits in the Netherlands have changed because of ebooks. Before, if I wanted to read and English book, I would have to 1. pay twice as much as for the Dutch translation, 2. hope the library has the English version or 3. order it from Play.com.

Personally I hate reading translations, so I would do those things, but I can imagine that people who didn't care all that much about the language, but would just prefer the original, would not wanna go through all the trouble and/or extra costs to get the English version.

Oh, and I think that a lot of people who read ebooks are the people who read a lot, which are usually the "smarter" people, and thus also the ones who are usually better at speaking English.

As for the libraries offering to be able to read 18 books for €20...What is up with that?? Why is there a limit? If I borrow hard copies from the library there is no limit either (apar from the this many at a time), so why is there for ebooks?

If I'm gonna have to pay €1,20 a book to only just read them once, I'd rather just buy them (hello lovely Kobo discount codes).

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Tizzalicious

As for the libraries offering to be able to read 18 books for €20...What is up with that?? Why is there a limit? If I borrow hard copies from the library there is no limit either (apar from the this many at a time), so why is there for ebooks?

If I'm gonna have to pay €1,20 a book to only just read them once, I'd rather just buy them (hello lovely Kobo discount codes).

You can borrow all ebooks for free, for about two months. After that, you'll have to pay €20. Then you are allowed to read 18 ebooks that are not yet three years old.

As far as I understand, if you want to read ebook versions of books that were published longer than three years ago, you can read them using your normal library card.

€20/18 books = €1.11/book. Using Kobo codes, I can often buy books under €2. (Especially if I pay in dollars.) If the price difference between buying and borrowing is less than €1, I'd rather buy them.

[Tizzalicious]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

You can borrow all ebooks for free, for about two months. After that, you'll have to pay €20. Then you are allowed to read 18 ebooks that are not yet three years old.

As far as I understand, if you want to read ebook versions of books that were published longer than three years ago, you can read them using your normal library card.

€20/18 books = €1.11/book. Using Kobo codes, I can often buy books under €2. (Especially if I pay in dollars.) If the price difference between buying and borrowing is less than €1, I'd rather buy them.

Hehe, I was lazy with my calculating, but that's exactly what I meant.

Ah okay, borrowing older books with your normal card makes the situation a little better, but I still think the €20 for 18 new books is ridiculous.

[Tizzalicious]

But then again, I am Dutch, so I'm supposed to be cheap, right?

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Tizzalicious

But then again, I am Dutch, so I'm supposed to be cheap, right?

Well, I'm willing to pay for things, but only when the price is right... So, I'd rather use the word frugal..

And I think 1 euro for a book that has been published over 2 years ago, that I can only read once, isn't a right price. If I were to go to a library and loan that paper book that was published yesterday, I wouldn't have to pay anything....

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Mivo

That is of little practical relevance with books. With Steam, however, it is, because they can and will lock you out your purchases. You see, if I ever have a payment dispute with Kobo, the worst they can do is prevent me from buying new books. They can't stop me from reading the books I already paid for. If you charge back a payment made to Steam, you will not be playing any of your games, including the ones you paid for. You are, in essence, a hostage of their DRM scheme.

Actually it is the same with books. You can read this: http://www.zdnet.com/why-amazon-is-w...ks-7000006385/.

The actual case of this happening had to do with Amazon, but you can read Kobo's Terms of Use:

If you do not comply with this Agreement at any time, Kobo reserves the right to immediately cancel or terminate your access to the Service (or any part thereof) and/or your user account, if any. In Kobo's sole discretion and without prior notice or liability, Kobo may discontinue, modify or alter any aspect of the Service including, but not limited to: (i) restricting the time the Service is available; (ii) restricting the amount of use permitted; and (iii) restricting or terminating any user's right to use the Service. You agree that any termination or cancellation of your access to, or use of, the Service may be effected without prior notice. If you do not abide by the terms of this Agreement, you agree that we may immediately deactivate or delete your user account, if any, and all related information and/or files in your user account and/or bar any further access to such information and/or files and/or the Service (or part thereof). Further, you agree that Kobo shall not be liable to you or any third-party for any termination or cancellation of your access to, or use of, the Service. You acknowledge that your only right with respect to any dissatisfaction with any modification or discontinuation of or to the Service, or any policies or practices by Kobo in providing the Service, including without limitation any change in content, is to cease using the Service and cancel or terminate your subscription or Registered User account, as applicable.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Tizzalicious

Ah okay, borrowing older books with your normal card makes the situation a little better, but I still think the €20 for 18 new books is ridiculous.

Many people never re-read books, so it's not at all "ridiculous" for them.

[Katsunami]

And that is exactly why I de-DRM stuff, or buy DRM-free, and never trust the cloud.

The worst that could happen is me losing an account, and not all my books.

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Many people never re-read books, so it's not at all "ridiculous" for them.

I have never re-read a single book since 1930 other than the Bible and lately I'm not even reading that one.

I used to throw out read books from the Book of the Month Club from 1955 to 1990.

I have also never borrowed a book from a library.

Thus, I do NOT need any backups for my books at all and I really don't need any Collections Management software.

In contrast I always play over my songs since 1930 and do need Collection Management software for them.

[Ricky D'Angelo]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

I have never re-read a single book since 1930 other than the Bible and lately I'm not even reading that one.
. . .

Wow, that must make you one of the most senior members of this forum.

My own two-cents concerning this topic, as someone who has downloaded *ahem* free e-books is the following. If you downloaded an ebook from questionable sources try to make amends to the author of that book and download whichever book from that author from an "offical" site. For example I once downloaded a "free" book by Stephen King and later bought another book from Stephen King from amazon.com. It really doesn't matter if the book you purchase from the "official site" is something you're interested in reading but that the author of the book recieves some payment from you.

Ok, now I can get off my soapbox.

[Iskariot]

Originally Posted by Tizzalicious

Before, if I wanted to read and English book, I would have to 1. pay twice as much as for the Dutch translation.

This is a true surprise to me.
Many, many years ago I switched to reading most of my books in english for 2 reasons:

a. Dutch publishers were(are?) incredibly unreliable in publishing translated series. It would happen frequently that a series of for example eight books would only get published up to the fourth or fifth book of the series.

and

b. I quickly discovered that the original english (and german) versions of books were a lot cheaper than the dutch translations. And I mean a lot! I would pay 50 Gulden (old currency) for a translated version of Wingrove's Chung Kuo books, but when I ordered it abroad it would cost me no more than 17, perhaps 20 Gulden, including shipping and handling.
I always supposed that this huge difference in price could be explained by the fact that there are many more english language speakers than there are dutch language speakers.

Being a devourer of books this was a huge boon. It felt like I was earning heaps of money with every book I read .

[sirmaru]

The EU Court of Justice has just ruled on this issue per this other thread here:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=233365

It appears DRM removal is fine as long as it does not result in sharing a file with anyone else.

If you do it for backup, that is alright. If you loan the stripped file to your brother, you have violated the law. Of course, this just applies to Europe, not the US, Asia or any other location.

I am going by the interpretation in that thread. It will take an attorney here to read the link from there and render an opinion here to really understand what just happened. I am NOT an attorney.

The link to the actual decision in English is here:

http://curia.europa.eu/juris/documen...rt=1&cid=39073

By the way, that appears to be a PRELIMINARY ruling. A final ruling will probably be released in a few months.

If my interpretation is correct, it appears the Amazon way of securing song files is the best so far and should be applied to books. They issue unprotected song files with a 9 digit serial number in the metadata.

If authorities inspected someone's PC for totally unrelated reasons and found recently dated files without the proper serial numbers, than an example could be made of that person if he could not explain the reasons for it. If serially numbered files were found in sharing sites in case of a raid, they could be traced back to the uploader.