Do some publishers have any idea?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Timboli

Another reason I prefer ebooks, is because of the behavior of publishers.

This year for instance, I have read a few Terry Brooks novels, some of them paperbacks. Two of those have what can only be described of as microscopic print, and I bought them online unseen.

It is disgraceful really. The publisher clearly printed them on the cheap. The print is not dark either, so even a penny pinching of the ink. Both those novels are less than 400 pages, so no need for the print to be so unbelievably small.

I am one of those who is still lucky enough at my age, to not need glasses. So I can read those paperbacks unassisted, but it is more tiring when everything is so small and close together. Depending on lighting conditions, sometimes I use magnifying glasses, but because I have long arms, and they are set to work at a specific distance, my arms get tired holding the book up so close.

P.S. Because I am a big fan of Terry Brooks, and because I am mid way through reading his series within series, the publisher calls all the shots, and I am at their mercy. They have all the power.

When I used to buy lots of pBooks, I would mostly by paperback books. These would be mass market format books. They were a good size for the bookcase and a good fit for holding. Now the publishers have come out with this trade format that's awful. It's too tall, too narrow, and is not nice to hold. These were created in order to be able to raise the price of paperback books even though the publishers LIE and say it's what the public wants. That's BS. If the public wanted trade format, that would have happened a long time ago. This is just a way for the publishers to make more money and nothing to do with what the consumer wants.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm afraid I don't quite follow that. If a person has a Kindle that's registered to your account, they have access to your entire Amazon library, do they not? Or is there some way of preventing books being downloaded?

As another person mentioned, if you wanted to, you could use parental controls to limit access. I don't do that, however. The people who have Kindles on my account have access to all of the books on my account...from their Kindle only. They don't have access to my account. I register the Kindle for them--they never see my password. Yes, they can buy books from the Kindle, but it's only happened rarely, and when it does, it's usually an accident. In those cases, I just return the book, and it gets removed from the Kindle. If they do want to purchase a book, they ask me, and I buy it and send it to their Kindle, and they give me a gift card at some point.

As I said, Amazon explicitly allows this--the people who have Kindles on my account are family members. My sister, husband, daughter, and aunt. I do have a friend that I occasionally loan a Kindle to for a week or so, but that's not a permanent thing. Three of the people don't even own computers, and the other (my daughter) uses her computer for work, and to watch Netflix. They all know that I back up my books, but they all assume it's (in my daughter's words) "some complicated techy thing" and have no interest in learning how to do it.

Implying that I'm somehow pirating books by doing something that is allowed by Amazon, (and by the publishers, via their contract with Amazon) is, frankly, a little bit insulting.

Shari

[HarryT]

I'm afraid that we interpret the Kindle licence agreement differently, Shari. It says:

Use of Kindle Content. Upon your download of Kindle Content and payment of any applicable fees (including applicable taxes), the Content Provider grants you a non-exclusive right to view, use, and display such Kindle Content an unlimited number of times, solely on the Kindle or a Reading Application or as otherwise permitted as part of the Service, solely on the number of Kindles or Supported Devices specified in the Kindle Store, and solely for your personal, non-commercial use.

That seems pretty clear to me: it says, in the part I've highlighted, that it's licensed "solely for your personal use". Where does it say that it's Ok to let other people have access to it?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Timboli

In case some, perhaps most, haven't realized, I am a Goodist that believes in and promotes Goodism.

Goodism is made from healthy doses of Capitalism, Socialism, Communism and a few snippets from others, including some aspects of Benevolent Dictator/Royalty. A bit of everything that cares for others, and believes in fairness and balance to temper our freedoms.

That said, I don't believe in God or Religion.

Great topic. Who started it? ha ha ha ha ha.

Some silly bugger.

I'm angry at myself that I'm drawn into commenting on this, but really? You're a "goodist?" A self-appointed arbiter of what's GOOD? YOU get to decide what that is? What's "good" and what isn't? How the hell would YOU know what's good for anyone else? You've already amply demonstrated that your understanding of business is completely non-existent, and your concepts of what's "good" would result in innumerable people losing their jobs. How good would that be, then?

What total and utter presumptuous, twaddling bollocks. It's right up there with your pontificating about how your post is to "make people think." Really? Because nobody else can think, without YOUR prompting?

Wow, just WOW.

Hitch

[GlennD]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm afraid that we interpret the Kindle licence agreement differently, Shari. It says:



That seems pretty clear to me: it says, in the part I've highlighted, that it's licensed "solely for your personal use". Where does it say that it's Ok to let other people have access to it?

Harry, that same section of license seems to apply to backing up your content as well, to any kind of storage other than a Kindle or a device utlizing the kindle app. Isn't backing up a downloaded Kindle book into Calibre "using Kindle Content" in a way not permitted by this license?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by GlennD

Harry, that same section of license seems to apply to backing up your content as well, to any kind of storage other than a Kindle or a device utlizing the kindle app. Isn't backing up a downloaded Kindle book into Calibre "using Kindle Content" in a way not permitted by this license?

I strongly suspect that we all violate the letter of the licence agreement in several different ways, Glenn. I was interested in Shari’s comment, though, that sharing content with friends and family was permitted by the licence agreement, hence my quote of how I interpreted it. I’d be interested to know where it permits such sharing.

[GlennD]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I strongly suspect that we all violate the letter of the licence agreement in several different ways, Glenn. I was interested in Shari’s comment, though, that sharing content with friends and family was permitted by the licence agreement, hence my quote of how I interpreted it. I’d be interested to know where it permits such sharing.

I agree completely. I suspect we all interpret a little differently based on our own needs and circumstances...which is why lawyers have jobs.

I can see interpreting the lending one of my registered devices to a friend to be a personal use. I've purchased the device and the content, and the number of readers of that copy is still limited by the number of registered devices I own, no matter whose hands they are in. That's not commercial use, and it isn't an organized group sharing an account and a device.

I'd guess that most people interpret (correctly or not) doing anything with a device that they would have done with a paper book as being just fine.

[Deskisamess]

I'd guess that most people interpret (correctly or not) doing anything with a device that they would have done with a paper book as being just fine.

I don't see it that way. The device itself, yes. I can give it away, or sell it, as its value allows. But not loaded with books.

But I see nothing unethical about loaning a device, with books downloaded, to a friend or family member. As it happens, I've only loaned a Kindle to a friend once, a few years ago. That friend actually used the device (before she had a smart phone) to put PDFs with travel info on them, so she had easy access to the info without getting her laptop out. I think she read a book or two as well during her vacation.

The terms Amazon has set seem to allow for several devices on one account having access to the books on that account. My elderly mother has one of my older Paperwhites. I suppose if she had an Amazon account, I could use the Family Share option. But she doesn't shop online or have a computer etc. Ethically, I see no different between her just using a device on my account and her having access via the Family Share option.

My husband and I use the same account, so no family share is needed. My DIL has an old Fire still registered to my account, but last time I looked it only had a couple of public domain books downloaded, so I don't see it as an issue at all. If pressed by Amazon, I'd just use the Family Share option, which would give her full access to all my books. Which she already has. So, I don't see the point.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by Timboli

In case some, perhaps most, haven't realized, I am a Goodist that believes in and promotes Goodism.

Goodism is made from healthy doses of Capitalism, Socialism, Communism and a few snippets from others, including some aspects of Benevolent Dictator/Royalty. A bit of everything that cares for others, and believes in fairness and balance to temper our freedoms.

Sounds like just another religion/philosophy to me. I'm always suspicious of "..ists" and "...isms". I try to do what I think is right in each situation and I respect people who do what they think is right. People who fall back on standard lists of right may be fine people but they seem, to my mind, just a little less real than people whose values are self-determined.

Sometimes we adhere to standard values as a way of doing things because we can't think of a better way. Capitalism is an example of that. Legal systems are another. They're terribly flawed but not using them is worse than using them.

There are a lot of isms that make a bit of sense here and there. I've never seen one that makes more than a little sense, though. We don't live in a consistent enough world for any standard group of values to even usually work.

Barry

[barryem]

Originally Posted by HarryT

There's certainly that, but the primary reason I consider it unethical is the fact that Kindle books are licensed for your use, not the use of your circle of friends.

So you're weighing your ethical view of this situation against your friendship. That's a fair thing to do and your conclusion that it's better not to lend the Kindle is also a fair decision. So would be a conclusion that friendship and generosity and helping to maintain generous relationships is more important. That would be my choice.

I grew up with 2 brothers and a sister and we were sometimes very sharing and sometimes very selfish, probably like most families. But the one thing I can't ever recall being an issue among us was sharing books. Someone would buy a book. All of us would read it if we were interested. All of us were free to lend it to the neighbors or to our friends. No permission was ever needed. Sharing books was just something we did without thinking about it.

If a friend or a neighbor or a family member asked to borrow my spare Kindle with a particular book on it I can't imagine saying no. I just wouldn't do it. If they made it a felony I'd still lend it, although maybe to fewer people.

I'm not quite sure why but ever since this topic began in this thread I keep thinking about Miss Gulch wanting to do away with Toto. Her reasons were very good ones but still, somehow I can't quite find it in myself to agree with putting Toto to sleep. It's a good thing that tornado came along when it did.

Barry

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Hitch

I'm angry at myself that I'm drawn into commenting on this, but really? You're a "goodist?" A self-appointed arbiter of what's GOOD? [...]

goodist aka good-for-me-ist

I think we can all be guilty of it at times. We have little choice but to look at things from our own perspective - even when we try to look at it from another perspective it is still that other perspective through our own - and so stuff we don't immediately understand seems silly, unfair, pointless or whatever. Usually, but apparently not always, by the time we put on a few years we begin to grasp that things are not always exactly as they first seem.

(Of course, some things truly are silly, unfair, pointless or whatever, which makes it so tempting to jump to the chase early, without bothering about that annoying learning phase.)

[darryl]

Originally Posted by HarryT

There's certainly that, but the primary reason I consider it unethical is the fact that Kindle books are licensed for your use, not the use of your circle of friends. What can or can't be done with a paper book doesn't really enter into it. Do you regard it as ok to share your ebook library with your friends?

As I understand it, you are equating breaching a term of the license to being ethically wrong. Yet it seems that you regard removing DRM, a very clear breach of the license agreement, as being ethically sound. Forgive me if I am putting words into your mouth and you actually regard removing DRM as being eithically wrong but are doing it anyway. Otherwise it seems your argument is a case of having your cake and eating it to. There seems to be no rationale advanced for regarding this term of a licence agreement as morally wrong but breaches of other terms as okay.

And yes. I agree with you that physical books are not relevant to a discussion of the legality of a breach of license, which is a matter of law rather than ethics. However, a consideration of physical books is quite relevant to a discussion of ethics. If you are basically emulating with digital books an act which is quite ethically sound with physical books you need to be able to point to some relevant difference to justify one being ethical and the other not. Your argument as it stands would seem to be valid only if you regard any breach of a license agreement as unethical or at least have some reasonable basis why breaching one term should be considered ethical and the other not.

On another basis, you interpret the word "you" and the phrase "personal use" in the terms very narrowly. It is certainly very possible that a Court would agree with you, but by no means is it inevitable. In my view both the word and the phrase are quite capable of being interpreted so as to encompass lending a physical device with a single book on it to a friend. Especially if the court considers other extraneous material to aid its interpretation.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by darryl

As I understand it, you are equating breaching a term of the license to being ethically wrong. Yet it seems that you regard removing DRM, a very clear breach of the license agreement, as being ethically sound.

No, not exactly. I've no particular issue with violating licence agreements where such violations cause no harm or loss to anyone. Removing DRM from books you've legitimately bought seems to me to fit into this category: nobody's lost anything if I buy a Kindle book, remove DRM from it, and then read that book on my Kindle.

What I specifically regard as unethical is the unauthorised sharing of copyrighted material (ie piracy). That's why I'm interested in knowing whether or not Amazon's licence agreement allows you to share content with your friends. Clearly it's authorised if you do it via the "Family Sharing" route or using the official mechanism for lending a book, but it's unclear to me that giving your friend a Kindle registered to your account falls into this category of permitted content sharing.

[darryl]

Thanks Harry. I understand your position. Ethically I see little problem if you lend a kindle with restrictions enabled with only a single book loaded. As I understand it, parental access controls allow you to prevent downloading books from the cloud. I have not used it, so I will add the caveat that I am happy to be corrected if I'm wrong on this. There is certainly an option in parental restrictions to restrict cloud access. This would seem to be analogous with lending a physical book, with the exception that you could still read your own copy. If doing this violates your principles you would presumably refrain from doing so.

There may be a good case ethically for lending more than a single book, but the more books you lend the more the analogy is stretched, and personally I don't think it would take too many for it to become ethically problematic. Personally I don't think lending a 50,000 ebook library will usually be ethical, though it will of course become so if it is in accordance with Amazon's terms and conditions.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I strongly suspect that we all violate the letter of the licence agreement in several different ways, Glenn. I was interested in Shari’s comment, though, that sharing content with friends and family was permitted by the licence agreement, hence my quote of how I interpreted it. I’d be interested to know where it permits such sharing.

Personal use.

I asked about this exact point, and received the answer that it was permissible under the licence to share with friends as family, so long as that was by a device registered to my Amazon account.