Sideloading: Own content or "from somewhere else"

[chrisridd]

Originally Posted by Hrafn

How common is non-encryption/watermarking DRM? I've occasionally heard it mentioned, but yet to even encounter it in the wild, let alone had to make a non-hypothetical decision about it.

I've got a couple of textbooks that are watermarked with my name.

[GeoffR]

Why would sideloading be more important to pirates than to anyone else? After all, pirated books are DRM-free already, so they can be downloaded direct from the pirate site to the ereader no sideloading necessary.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

Almost all of my friends who sideload do it with illegal content. And most of them don't use Kindles because they don't have any advantages then for them.
Are the >90% of my friends (only 1 out of at least 10 using his own legally obtained content) a coincidence or is it the general trend?

maybe you need a better group of friends.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

So, from this (albeit small) test group, one could assume, sideloading to a significant extent is used for illegally obtained content.

I really don't think one could (or should) assume that at all.The test group is just too small, too localized. I know a much larger group of people who remove DRM from their purchases (to fix formatting and/or to future-proof books) and sideload everything. None of them go near pirated material/sites. I could just as well draw some sort of conclusion about users on the whole from that, but I shouldn't/wouldn't.

I don't think there's enough data available to support a "most sideloaded content is pirated" theory. I just don't see it.

[eschwartz]

Re: the whole Kobo vs Kindle for sideloading thing, I think it is fair to say just as many people sideload on Kindles. Of course there are other reasons to buy Kindles as well.
Whereas just as many people buy Kobos for sideloading, but no one buys Kobos for the store.

Kobo owners then stand out for sideloading, which makes it easy to not notice that just as many Kindle owners do too... assuming you have an agenda that is...

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

Since some state the same, I obviously didn't make it clear.
I thought the headline "your own" or "from somewhere else" and the "somewhere else" in quotation marks would be obvious.

Anway...
The only point that interested me and what I wanted to stress with the poll, without being to obvious and use words as "pirated":

Have you considered that you may be being intellectually dishonest? If you had succeeded in fooling anyone, you would just have gotten false results.
Also your biased assumptions are unkind.

Almost all of my friends who sideload do it with illegal content. And most of them don't use Kindles because they don't have any advantages then for them.
Are the >90% of my friends (only 1 out of at least 10 using his own legally obtained content) a coincidence or is it the general trend?

You need to reevaluate who your friends are, maybe. Projecting their attitudes on MR seems rather silly.

Yes, you can sideload your legal content.
Yes, you can get stuff legally for free.
But I wanted to focus on the aforementioned aspect...

And you did an excellent job of saying so, too.

[crane3]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

maybe you need a better group of friends.

Ditto. Not only that but the friends need to be asked what other apps/software did they get from "somewhere else"; and then correlate the getting ebooks from "somewhere else" with the software for their computers gotten from "somewhere else".

Probably there needed to be an item on the poll to include getting apps/software from "somewhere else" to check if any correlation exist.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I wasn't thinking of legal risk. MobileRead and its moderators strongly disapprove of ebook piracy and piracy advocacy.

Anyone advocating ebook piracy is liable to being suspended or banned from MobileRead. Admitting to habitual piracy in a poll is unlikely to be considered advocacy, but I wouldn't want anyone to assume that advocacy was allowed.

I imagine they would simply claim they meant downloading from (wait for it, drumroll...) The Patricia Clark Memorial Library!
You can't ban people for that!

And they'd be telling the truth.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

...Projecting their attitudes on MR seems rather silly....

I didn't do that. I've stated exactly the opposite. MR members being enthusiasts and most likely behaving differently. But I just don't think, MR members are the rule, probably more of the exception.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by crane3

Ditto. Not only that but the friends need to be asked what other apps/software did they get from "somewhere else"; and then correlate the getting ebooks from "somewhere else" with the software for their computers gotten from "somewhere else".

Probably there needed to be an item on the poll to include getting apps/software from "somewhere else" to check if any correlation exist.

That's definitely true.
What can be said about pirated books is true for tons of Office installations, lots of OS, so-called home-brew games on PSP and so on.
But those are harder to grasp and would be for another forum.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

maybe you need a better group of friends.

It's only a small fraction ;-)
People with reader are a small fraction anyway. Most either have tablets or fabulist. Readers became kind of "exotic" in the last 2 or 3 years.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

And you did an excellent job of saying so, too.

I still don't see, how --->your own content or "from somewhere else"<--- could be misleading.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by CRussel

I object to the notion that "for free from somewhere else" means pirated. what about books downloaded from Mobileread itself, or Project Gutenberg, or any of several other legitimate sources of free books? Given what people are equating that choice with, I didn't check it, but were the question phrased in a more neutral way, I would certainly have said yes. While I don't read too many books that are in the public domain, I certainly do read some. (Such as the entire Miss Silver series, all of Dorothy Sayers, or even Ernest Hemingway. Keep in mind that I'm in Canada, a +50 country.)

Originally Posted by rixte

I'm also uncomfortable with the 'somewhere else' being a synonym for piracy - I didn't check that because I read enough of the thread but there are several legitimately free 'somewhere else's that I use.

I applaud the bravery of the (three so far) people who stood up for PD literature by voting in the poll...

[rixte]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

Almost all of my friends who sideload do it with illegal content. And most of them don't use Kindles because they don't have any advantages then for them.
Are the >90% of my friends (only 1 out of at least 10 using his own legally obtained content) a coincidence or is it the general trend?

I'm confused by your 'don't use Kindles because they don't have any advantages' - because I have a Kobo and a Kindle and the sideloading process for them is equally easy. Format-shifting is easy enough with purchased DRM-ridden copy ... for content with no DRM, I can't see that being a concern. I would think the choice between Kobo and Kindle (regardless of where you obtain content) would still be more about form factor/UI/cost/hardware than some notion than anything else.

[rixte]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

I applaud the bravery of the (three so far) people who stood up for PD literature by voting in the poll...

Hahah, I was an English Lit major, if I don't read at least one pre-1900 book a month, I go into withdrawal ...