WOWIO Free Books - Free Minds

[Ordinaryuser]

I was interested in the site and started to sign up but felt that they wanted to much personal information for their advertisers. Was also a little put off they they needed my e-mail address in other than Yahoo.com or hotmail.com form. Must be to stop users outside the United States.

I stopped the signup but they have sent me three e-mails to continue the signup. Since I initially used my personal comcast e-mail address that I use only for family and friends (to reduce spam), I am hoping that I will not start receiving spam from their advertisers now. If the advertisements were limited to inside the books only, there wouldn't be a problem but if they send other items to the e-mail address from their sponsers it would be a problem for me. I already get around 100s of spams a week on my yahoo e-mail site although they go to bulk mail most of the time.

[Azayzel]

I haven't seen any increase in spam since signing up for an account when this thread was first initiated and the ads placed in the books I d/l'd were simple single-page items easily skipped.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Anthuzad

Nice post,

I happen to live in Germany and I would like to have a look at what Wowio has to offer, but I can't seem to find an email-address with .com which it accepts. I wonder if you could help me out there, I certainly would appreciate it.

Regards Anthu

You could try to get a gmail account.

Also, when did Sony add eReader support to the 505? I would suggest fixing your profile to remove eReader from the device name. eReader has a specific meaning (eReader the program and eReader format eBooks) and used the way you've used it, it could lead to confusion of people thinking the 505 supports eReader format which it doesn't. Thanks.

[Anthuzad]

Alright, I changed my profile to Sony Reader PRS 505 to avoid further confusion

I've tried to get past the country restriction with a GMail address but it was rejected by the system because it allowed anonymous accounts. Thanks for your help, though

Any further input for email addresses would be very much appreciated.

[brecklundin]

while they might offer few books it would be nice to have free. Sorry but I find their wording of "identify yourself" very off-putting. And for a credit card to be one of the methods makes me kinda queasy. Given this site is in bed with those marketing sorts who WILL use any data they can get on people for who knows what purpose, I for one, decided to not use the site. Something about it just sets off my "crap detector". I have learned to listen to that built-in device.

Maybe it's those space rays from that MLB spy satellite keeping tabs on us all that has me downloading Catcher in the Rye 15-20x/week...

Plus I too am not PDF friendly for my eBooks and would rather pay for them in the format I want. Heatbeats wasted fiddling to get a book in a format I can use are heartbeats I could use for something much more interesting...

[mitsukai]

Originally Posted by realityloop

Goto https://www.evaded.net/circumvent/000010A/x-proxy/start

paste the follwing into the box:
https://www.wowio.com/users/useradd_start.asp?dest=1

and untick "show url entry form", click browse and follow prompts.. you'll likely need an email address that is .com .edu etc not .com.au etc..

Once your account has been created you can do everything without using cgi proxy.

I tried using this proxy but it wants me to sign up for a $5/month subscription?! Can anyone suggest alternative proxies that work? I tried loads that didn't work. Then Blogfries got me past the "non-us" crap ok, but then couldn't actually get me into a working signup page. kept refreshing to the choose authentication method page...

please help, any suggestions appreciated!

[Rick C]

10 minute email works-(you still need to be visiting from a US based ip-or proxy)
http://10minutemail.com/10MinuteMail/index.html
No spam or intrusion, but don't forget to do your part by clicking on the advertisers buttons to support the website when you visit.

[HarryT]

If Wowio specify that their books are only to be obtained by people in the US, then to attempt to obtain them if you live elsewhere is nothing other than piracy. Copyright law gives them an absolute right to restrict distribution in any manner that they see fit.

Please stop trying to "cheat the system"!

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by HarryT

If Wowio specify that their books are only to be obtained by people in the US, then to attempt to obtain them if you live elsewhere is nothing other than piracy. Copyright law gives them an absolute right to restrict distribution in any manner that they see fit.

No, it doesn't.

Copyright law gives the copyright holder only the right to control of making copies of the work. The copyright owner has no say where a copy gets sold once that copy is authorized.

While doing what Rick C suggests may be a violation of Wowio (and potentially local laws of false identification), it's not a copyright violation and certainly not piracy.

[mitsukai]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

No, it doesn't.

Copyright law gives the copyright holder only the right to control of making copies of the work. The copyright owner has no say where a copy gets sold once that copy is authorized.

While doing what Rick C suggests may be a violation of Wowio (and potentially local laws of false identification), it's not a copyright violation and certainly not piracy.

Thanks rlauzon for pointing that out to HarryT. I would also like to mention that if I am a US citizen who just happens to be outside the country at the moment, I still want to use this service and see no problem trying to achieve that. I will still be subject to the same ads that pay for this service whether I download the book inside or outside the US, and as a citizen still subject to the laws regarding my identification etc.

So my original question still remains... does anyone have a recommendation for a proxy that doesn't require me to give them $5/month, or can someone please confirm that the proxy recommended by realityloop is legit and that paying them the $5 just to use them long enough to register on wowio is safe?

Thanks!

[HarryT]

Actually the FAQ on the WOWIO site suggests that the geographical restriction is due to differences in copyright laws in different countries:

Q: Do I have to be a United States resident to sign up to WOWIO?

A:For now, WOWIO is only available to people living in the United States. Copyright laws vary by country and currently our licensing restrictions limit distribution to U.S. residents.

ie, they don't care about your citizenship; only about where you're currently living. They've probably only purchased the right to distribute their material within the US, hence the restriction on having to be resident in the US.

If you are only temporarily non-resident, could you not wait until you're back in the US, and sign up then? Or get a family member in the US to sign up on your behalf, and then send you the material by e-mail, or whatever?