Does anyone else have concerns about DRM in the future?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Rootman

I've been reading on a Kindle, and now an Amazon tablet for like 5 years now, and before you know it a decade or more will pass. Do these "old" ebooks just go the way of the dodo?

You need to read Apprentice Alf's blog. Otherwise it is entirely possible that you'll lose access to your DRMed ebooks.

I've bought 2,381 ebooks over the years, and they are all (now) DRM-free.

[DrNefario]

I did want to ensure that the DRM was cracked before I bought my very first kindle, but I'm kind of coming around to the view that you get what you pay for. I'm agreeing for my ebooks to be transient in exchange for lower prices. It seems a little dishonest to say "I agree to rent this ebook" and then "muhahaha, now it's mine" when you get it.

I'm not going to complain that the ability to crack the DRM is there, though. I did strip my ADE books when Adobe were careless with my account details because I no longer trusted them to take care of things, but I don't do it as a matter of course.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

I did want to ensure that the DRM was cracked before I bought my very first kindle, but I'm kind of coming around to the view that you get what you pay for. I'm agreeing for my ebooks to be transient in exchange for lower prices. It seems a little dishonest to say "I agree to rent this ebook" and then "muhahaha, now it's mine" when you get it.

I disagree. I haven't agreed to rent any of my ebooks, I've bought my ebooks. They are mine.

The RRP of the ebook edition is a bit lower than the RRP of the paper edition, but that just reflects a reduction in book production costs.

If I was truly renting ebooks for my own personal consumption and expecting to lose access after (say) five years, I'd expect to be paying $1 per book or less, not $3 or so.

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I disagree. I haven't agreed to rent any of my ebooks, I've bought my ebooks. They are mine.

Amen, Brother... If the publishers want to rent me books, they're going to need to charge considerably less money.

[Katsunami]

I still think "alfing an e-book" should become the new expression of 2014.

"Yesteday I've googled a howto on alfing my e-books."

(People who are going to discover our old webservers in another 1000 years will think we were crazy.)

[pdurrant]

I wonder how Alf would feel about becoming a verb?

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I wonder how Alf would feel about becoming a verb?

Normally it means that you did something right for a lot of people, so it can't be all bad. Without Alf, I'd be reading a lot less of the mainstream stuff.

[DiapDealer]

"When a problem comes along ... you must alf it."

[VictoriaP]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I disagree. I haven't agreed to rent any of my ebooks, I've bought my ebooks. They are mine.

The RRP of the ebook edition is a bit lower than the RRP of the paper edition, but that just reflects a reduction in book production costs.

If I was truly renting ebooks for my own personal consumption and expecting to lose access after (say) five years, I'd expect to be paying $1 per book or less, not $3 or so.

Agree ten times over.

Take movie rentals as an example. One new release I'm watching the price on is currently $15 to purchase, whether downloaded or DVD. The typical price to rent the same movie is $3. When an ebook similarly costs me one fifth to "rent" versus purchase and comes in a time limited format, then I'll concede that the publisher still "owns" the file. But the current marginal discount to purchase an ebook instead of a paper version really only covers the material production costs of printing.

Here's to Alfing!

[NickyWithNook]

With DRM they do seem temporary. Without DRM, they are safer than other books, if you have safe back-ups. Safer than the books destroyed in my basement when a pipe broke and it flooded. I've never really saved a lot of books anyway because I hate having them clutter up my living space after I've read them, and I rarely re-read books. But now I have kids and there are so many favorites I'd like to share with them as they grow up.

DRM doesn't affect me generally as I have a Nook and a Kindle and I'm happy using their clouds and just reading Nook books on the Nook and Kindle books on the Kindle. Very easy and no time spent dealing with computer programs to take off DRM. My guess is that most readers don't do anything about DRM and appreciate the convenience of the clouds like I do. OTOH, I do worry about what happens if B&N goes out of business. I've bought a LOT of ebooks from them.

I had an experience with B&N that makes me worry about this as well. I accidentally clicked a "buy" button twice and got charged twice for an ebook. I emailed them and they deleted one of the charges, but then later deleted my book as they said I'd gotten a refund and shouldn't have it. I corrected them and showed them the emails where I'd dealt with it, and they resent my book, but then quite a while later they deleted it again, and once again said that I'd had a refund and shouldn't have it. I can deal with a mistake once, but to have them apparently go through and examine in some way people's accounts and delete books every so often worries me. B&N doesn't have the best customer service, and that's why they'll eventually go out of business. I'd never have had that experience with Amazon. They've made mistakes, and they've always corrected them with no problems at all, without it ever coming up again in the future.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by piperclassique

Not quite as bad as that, Eschwartz, they stay in Amazon's cloud until you reregister.
And in my case in Calibre, on Dropbox, and a USB drive in the fire safe. All minus DRM, thanks to Alf.

Agreed, I do too. But I thought we were discussing what happens if Amazon goes out of business. (yes i know, not likely, but hey, I didn't suggest it...) In which case, they are not in Amazon's cloud, for the simple reason that nonexistent companies only have RAIN clouds.

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Still if you have an large investment in ebooks, maybe you could get insurance.

Is that even possible?

It would be a weird situation if you could get insurance on ebooks, since the insurer would be insuring against the vendor rather than the property.

Originally Posted by DrNefario

I'm kind of coming around to the view that you get what you pay for. I'm agreeing for my ebooks to be transient in exchange for lower prices.

Except you are not agreeing upon the ebook being transient, or "rented", in most cases. You are agreeing to purchase a perpetual license for the ebook. While cracking the DRM is in violation of that license, it is also necessary in order to create backups. Backups are wise since you basically have no recourse if the company goes under, and likely have no recourse if the company unilaterally changes the terms of the license.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

Is that even possible?

It would be a weird situation if you could get insurance on ebooks, since the insurer would be insuring against the vendor rather than the property.

Twas merely a jest But http://money.ca.msn.com/insurance/od...rance-policies
alien abduction or werewolf bites by Lloyds of London?

Helen

[Ripplinger]

A Alfing we will go, a Alfing we will go
Hi-ho the Dairy, Oh, a Alfing we will go!

Dealing with ebooks would be a much less pleasant experience without Alf.