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

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Do you think that buying a paper book gives you the right to have a free ebook?

No. That's why I have rebought those books I wanted in electronic form when I could (and can).

But I do think (and you probably will think differently), that I do have the right to reproduce a book in electronic form if the publisher/owner/whoever isn't interested in my money anymore (aka, if they won't republish it in electronic form).

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

But I do think (and you probably will think differently), that I do have the right to reproduce a book in electronic form if the publisher/owner/whoever isn't interested in my money anymore (aka, if they won't republish it in electronic form).

I certainly see nothing morally wrong with that, as long as you buy the ebook if it subsequently does become commercially available. I've done the same myself.

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

No. That's why I have rebought those books I wanted in electronic form when I could (and can).

So have I. Just last week I saw that (most of) the works of Hubert Lampo (my favorite Dutch-language author) had become available as (social DRMed, no less!) EPUBs.

I bought the lot (20 of them), although I already owned all of them in pbook.

[QuantumIguana]

People who pirate large numbers of books skew numbers considerably. Let's use the hypothetical person with 40,000 books. If the average Dutch person has 117 books on their reader, that pirate with 40,000 books has 341 times the books of the average person. Let's stipulate that the statistic is correct that 90% of books are not paid for. If you have one person with 40,000 pirated books and 38 people with 117 books - all paid for - that would come out to 90% of books not being paid for. But it would be misleading to say that on the average reader, only 10% of the books were not paid for, in this scenario, 97.4% of readers would have paid for books. I am not saying this is actually the case, but the number of books pirates download do tend to skew numbers.

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

People who pirate large numbers of books skew numbers considerably. Let's use the hypothetical person with 40,000 books. If the average Dutch person has 117 books on their reader, that pirate with 40,000 books has 341 times the books of the average person. Let's stipulate that the statistic is correct that 90% of books are not paid for. If you have one person with 40,000 pirated books and 38 people with 117 books - all paid for - that would come out to 90% of books not being paid for. But it would be misleading to say that on the average reader, only 10% of the books were not paid for, in this scenario, 97.4% of readers would have paid for books. I am not saying this is actually the case, but the number of books pirates download do tend to skew numbers.

I agree on that. The numbers of real eBook pirates is probably very LOW. However, the number of eBooks they pirate is probably very high. But those pirates are WASTING their time.

For most removal of DRM is just for backup. However, in my opinion, that is a waste of time.

MS eBooks for Window 98 cannot be read anymore in Windows 8.1 or on any eReaders. Their structure was different than the eBooks of today. Whether they had DRM or not is irrelevant to the fact that, even if backed up with DRM removed (if they even had any DRM) would still not make them readable today.

There were even eBooks available for my old TRS 80 from 1978. There is no way they could be read today with or without DRM removal.

In the future it is highly LIKELY that eBook STRUCTURES will change and neither Calibre nor Apprentice Alf will make the old eBooks legible on the new operating systems and the new eReaders.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

MS eBooks for Window 98 cannot be read anymore in Windows 8.1 or on any eReaders. Their structure was different than the eBooks of today. Whether they had DRM or not is irrelevant to the fact that, even if backed up with DRM removed (if they even had any DRM) would still not make them readable today.

Please don't talk about things that you obviously have no understand of.

Microsoft Reader ("LIT") format ebooks can be converted to ePub or Mobi very satisfactorily. Like these formats, they are internally based on HTML.

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Please don't talk about things that you obviously have no understand of.

Microsoft Reader ("LIT") format ebooks can be converted to ePub or Mobi very satisfactorily. Like these formats, they are internally based on HTML.

I used to buy Tandy eBooks from Radio Shack for my TRS 80 in 1978. Can they also be converted to mobi? I don't believe HTML existed in 1978. There was no internet back then.

Those eBooks were issued on tape cassettes.

[HarryT]

I know nothing about them, and hence can't comment on them.

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I know nothing about them, and hence can't comment on them.

I now still have on my PC the following types of files:

1. epub
2. pdb
3. lrx
4. pdf
5. fdf

I believe they are all Sony and Adobe with protection. Could I actually be able to use Calibre and Alf to resurrect those files to be able to read them on my Kindle?

I paid for all those eBooks but no longer have the eReader software on my PC. They were from years ago. They were never read on my current PC but on much older PC's with different operating systems.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

I now still have on my PC the following types of files:

1. epub
2. pdb
3. lrx
4. pdf
5. fdf

I believe they are all Sony and Adobe with protection. Could I actually be able to use Calibre and Alf to resurrect those files to be able to read them on my Kindle?

I paid for all those eBooks but no longer have the eReader software on my PC. They were from years ago. They were never read on my current PC but on much older PC's with different operating systems.

I don't know what "fdf" files are. All the others, with the exception of "LRX", yes, you can remove DRM from. The LRX format was never "cracked", to the best of my knowledge - probably because not many people ever bought books in LRX format.

[Rbneader]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

I now still have on my PC the following types of files:

1. epub
2. pdb
3. lrx
4. pdf
5. fdf

I believe they are all Sony and Adobe with protection. Could I actually be able to use Calibre and Alf to resurrect those files to be able to read them on my Kindle?

I paid for all those eBooks but no longer have the eReader software on my PC. They were from years ago. They were never read on my current PC but on much older PC's with different operating systems.

It's possible. Helping people keep their books when they need to upgrade was one of the things the Alf plugins were made for.

If you don't have the current ereader software it might not work, or you might need to try a few different things. I will PM you with suggestions for how to start.

[Mivo]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

I used to buy Tandy eBooks from Radio Shack for my TRS 80 in 1978. Can they also be converted to mobi? I don't believe HTML existed in 1978. There was no internet back then. Those eBooks were issued on tape cassettes.

Probably, at least in theory, if you had copied the books to the respectively next generation of storage media so that it's accessible still. The format is probably not hard to convert, but DRM and copy protection schemes may have prevented the copying of the data.

I still have a couple Amstrad CPCs, one with a datasette player and one with a 3" disk drive. This was later than 1978, though. Around '84-85.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I don't know what "fdf" files are.

Apparently:

In Editorial Manager, the '.FDF' file extension is used for all manuscripts to ensure that the files doesn't open in a browser window. This file extension is fully supported by Adobe Acrobat & Adobe Reader. If you are unable to open the submission file, it is likely because your browser isn't properly configured to open files with the .FDF extension.

[HarryT]

Thanks. So it's just a renamed PDF?

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

I used to buy Tandy eBooks from Radio Shack for my TRS 80 in 1978. Can they also be converted to mobi? I don't believe HTML existed in 1978. There was no internet back then.

Those eBooks were issued on tape cassettes.

Yes, and I say that with the same degree of certainty that I would say "2+2=4". That it is on cassette doesn't matter; it's not difficult to copy a file from a TRS-80 cassette to a hard drive. An e-book is a glorified text file, it can be converted just like document files from obsolete word processing programs.