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

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Mivo

That works with a Kobo e-reader and the Kobobooks store, as well. My Cybook also came "linked" to the Thalia.de e-book store (not that I ever shopped there). In either case, though, this locks the customer into the vendor's ecosystem and removes the element of freedom (of choice).

The overwhelming majority of people, in my experience, don't give a damn about being "locked in". They buy a Kindle, and buy books from Amazon. I've lost track of the number of my friends and work colleagues that I've offered to explain Calibre and Alf to - nobody's interested. We, on this forum, are not typical ebook readers.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Your mother sounds like exactly the sort of person who'd benefit from a Kindle, with its ability to buy books directly on the reader without needing to worry about a PC at all.

Except that the selection of Dutch ebooks on Amazon is rather low...

The Kindle would have been nice, if Amazon actually had the same (which is still limited but still more than the) selection which bol.com has.

[Mivo]

@HarryT: I do agree with that. People never miss freedom of choice unless they want to explore the world outside of the walled garden. But as you wrote, most folks are satisfied inside the walls and may never have any needs that that aren't met by what's offered.

For me, though, it's mostly a matter of not being able (or willing) to go back to the garden after bumping into the walls and then breathing the outside air. I had purchased quite a few e-books from Apple's iBooks store. When I switched to e-ink readers and the DRM removal tools were discontinued, I experienced first-hand what it's like to not have full control over the books I had spent money on. In the end, I re-purchased those that were important to me and cleaned them. Still a lesson that cost me several hundreds of Euro.

[Soldim]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The overwhelming majority of people, in my experience, don't give a damn about being "locked in".

That seems to depend a lot on the country where those people live. I can image that languages where people are badly educated in foreign languages, there's not big deal with being locked in.

If people want to read in more than one language, using a more open system is inevitable, there's a limited amount of time you can switch a kindle between the .com, .de and .fr sites.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Soldim

That seems to depend a lot on the country where those people live. I can image that languages where people are badly educated in foreign languages, there's not big deal with being locked in.

If people want to read in more than one language, using a more open system is inevitable, there's a limited amount of time you can switch a kindle between the .com, .de and .fr sites.

The Amazon UK store seems to have a good selection of books in other languages. I strongly suspect, though, as you suggest, that the number of Amazon UK users who want to read non-English books is extremely low.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The Amazon UK store seems to have a good selection of books in other languages. I strongly suspect, though, as you suggest, that the number of Amazon UK users who want to read non-English books is extremely low.

Probably depends on the language. Because I wouldn't call 586 books a good selection (and a decent amount of those are available for free on Gutenburg). And I can't even find one on the Amazon.com site... And I, as a Dutch person, cannot buy kindle books from the .co.uk site (even though it does have at least some Dutch books...)

So, epub books it is, and thus that horrible adobe infection. And why I'll never let my mother buy an ebook without me checking it first (and buying, cleaning and sending it to her if required).

[Yapyap]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The Amazon UK store seems to have a good selection of books in other languages.

There are quite a few languages in the world, though, so "a good selection in other languages" isn't really necessarily very useful at all. As far as I can tell, there aren't really any Kindle books in Estonian at all on Amazon (apart from some really ancient-looking bible and dozens of language learning guides and dictionaries, none of them relevant for native language speaker readers), for example.

I do the same as Sweetpea for my mother (buy the books for her, convert, send to Kindle - well, the Kindle app on the iPad she uses; I find sending it there easiest as I don't actually need to handle her iPad and the books just appear there without her having to do anything at all), except that Estonian ebooks, which are all released in epub, use social DRM / watermarking, so no DRM removal is needed or takes place, as far as I understand Alf's tools. They are freely convertible and shops tend to include instructions and a Calibre link for people who own Kindles.

In other words, with social DRM (watermarked) epubs, I do the exact same thing for my mother as Sweetpea does with Adobe DRM epubs for her mother, but I am not breaking any laws or terms & conditions simply thanks to our publishers having agreed on watermarking, not Adobe DRM.

[HarryT]

Surely you're breaking copyright law, aren't you? You bought the book, but both you and your mother have copies of it.

[Yapyap]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Surely you're breaking copyright law, aren't you? You bought the book, but both you and your mother have copies of it.

The copyright information inside the books specifically allows making copies for personal use by the person who purchased the book.

I suppose there may be an issue about me being the purchaser and my mother being the reader, but there's the question of what "intended for personal use only" means - the copyright information inside the book does not specifically say "allowed to be read only by the purchaser, whose name is on the watermark".

For all I know, "personal use" under these conditions may, in fact, extend to people in the purchaser's household, since otherwise children's ebooks would be an impossible concept - the purchaser and the reader will be different people in the same household.

Also, all the copies made are made by me (the purchaser) and all copies made reside on devices technically belonging to me (my mother's iPad is technically mine) and physically situated in my home. I have a very hard time seeing how I'm breaking any law here, including copyright law, under the "allowed to make copies for personal use" conditions inside the books.

[HarryT]

That's why I was asking. I'm pretty sure that it would be a violation of British copyright law: you can't buy an ebook under UK law and give a copy to someone else.

[Yapyap]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's why I was asking. I'm pretty sure that it would be a violation of British copyright law: you can't buy an ebook under UK law and give a copy to someone else.

So every single British person buying and then downloading an ebook for their kids (keeping it on the computer and putting it on an ereader) is breaking the law? Ouchie.

[HarryT]

Unless they were doing so with the permission of the copyright holder (eg the T&Cs of the Kindle bookstore allow you to read books on any Kindle registered to the same Amazon account), I believe that would indeed be the case, yes. Having your child's Kindle registered to your account and sharing books between the two devices is fine, but buying a book on your device, stripping the DRM, and transferring it to a different device not associated with your account, is not.

Don't get me wrong - I don't think that what you're doing is wrong or unethical; I'm just not sure whether or not it's legal.

[Yapyap]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Unless they were doing so with the permission of the copyright holder (eg the T&Cs of the Kindle bookstore allow you to read books on any Kindle registered to the same Amazon account), I believe that would indeed be the case, yes. Having your child's Kindle registered to your account and sharing books between the two devices is fine, but buying a book on your device, stripping the DRM, and transferring it to a different device not associated with your account, is not.

Don't get me wrong - I don't think that what you're doing is wrong or unethical; I'm just not sure whether or not it's legal.

As I said, I am not doing any DRM-stripping - there is no need for that with watermarking. The files are free to be converted (and indeed, shops post instructions on how to do so) and it's perfectly allowed "for personal use".

DRM stripping may not be an issue for Adobe DRM protected books either - leaving Kindles aside, as they operate under their own T&C, for epub books, unless bought straight from the device, a parent generally would have to download a copy and then transfer/copy it to the child's (third person's) device.

I assume the issue is how "for personal use" is interpreted - if making a copy and putting it on another device (technically owned by the purchaser of the book) is okay, which it generally is for ebooks since otherwise it would be rather difficult to read ebooks on e-readers (without Internet/store connection) at all, is it also okay to hand over the device with the copy of the book to another person (in your household) to read?

And if it's okay to put a copy on a device technically owned by you and hand it over to another household member to read, is it also okay to put a copy on a device technically owned by that other household member? (Let's not even get into DRM removal here - it's perfectly possible for several household members' devices all to be authorised on the same Adobe account regardless of who is doing the book purchasing, in which case there is no DRM stripping necessary for several people to have copies of the same book and read it.)

It's actually an interesting issue - taken to the extreme (such as a parent not being allowed to share a kids' book with the kids) it rather shows the law as it currently appears to be is quite ridiculous, surely?

Obviously I cannot imagine anyone actually being found guilty for such a horrible violation, but even so, any shop that sells books under terms that allow "no sharing with anyone else" and yet sell books aimed at minors, who are not actually allowed or able to buy the books themselves is making it quite difficult for even the most law-abiding people to do so?

[Katsunami]

What?! You are buying ebooks, and then you give them to your 107 year old mom?

That's not allowed. She should learn to use a computer and then buy the books herself.

Criminal I say! To jail!

Don't courts take circumstances like these into account, in case trouble arise? I think it's perfectly clear you're not trying to break the law, but to assist your mom.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

Its just too dangerous to crack DRM even though it appears harmless.

No-one has ever been prosecuted for using DRM removal software on music or ebooks.

One person has been prosecuted for creating DRM removal software for DVDs (and acquitted).