I have found numerous pirated ebooks for free online. Please tell me the benefits of

[spindlegirl]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I never trust any bookstore to store my books for me. My books are only "safe" if they're under my control. That means in my Calibre library and backed up to multiple physical locations.

That is too true. Last year I had put a few books on my Kindle wish list that I wasn't ready to buy just yet. Every once in a while i scroll through my wish list for books I might be interested in buying, when I have the money. Sometimes I've seen books on my wish list disappear. ("This book is unavailable"). Imagine if I had bought it and only kept it on the cloud. I always download and backup what I buy for that reason.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by Pizza_Cant_Read

A question I have and I know it must have been discussed on MR before: If a publisher such as TOR releases a book without DRM, am I still forbidden by Amazon from moving it to another format? What about reading it on multiple (non Amazon) devices?

The Kindle Store Terms of Use on amazon.com states the following (underlining mine):

...
Use of Kindle Content. Upon your download or access 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 (for Subscription Content, only as long as you remain an active member of the underlying membership or subscription program), solely through a Kindle Application or as otherwise permitted as part of the Service, solely on the number of Supported Devices specified in the Kindle Store, and solely for your personal, non-commercial use. Kindle Content is licensed, not sold, to you by the Content Provider. The Content Provider may include additional terms for use within its Kindle Content. Those terms will also apply, but this Agreement will govern in the event of a conflict. Some Kindle Content, such as interactive or highly formatted content, may not be available to you on all Kindle Applications.

According to Amazon you are supposed to read your Kindle books only on a Kindle app or device regardless of whether or not DRM has been applied. The meaning of "or as otherwise permitted as part of the Service" is a little unclear to me, but I don't think that it is intended to be a loophole.

This usage restriction is often ignored by customers along with the limitation that "you may not attempt to bypass, modify, defeat, or otherwise circumvent any digital rights management system or other content protection or features used as part of the Service."

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by spindlegirl

That is too true. Last year I had put a few books on my Kindle wish list that I wasn't ready to buy just yet. Every once in a while i scroll through my wish list for books I might be interested in buying, when I have the money. Sometimes I've seen books on my wish list disappear. ("This book is unavailable"). Imagine if I had bought it and only kept it on the cloud. I always download and backup what I buy for that reason.

Just as an FYI, and not to advocate any strategy or policy, I got a freebie from amazon in 2011 that shortly after became unavailable. Shortly after that, it would not show up in searches, but the product page still existed. Now, the product page no longer exists, but the download and transfer via USB link still works. (Presumably wifi and cellular transfers still work.) Of course, this could go away at any time, and people have lost books when stores closed, even when provisions had been made to transfer them to kobo.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

I'm pretty sure you can't sell a digital book you didn't write yourself, regardless of how you acquired it.

I sell some digital books that I didn't write myself. They are versions of public domain titles.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Anyone can do anything they want with a book that's in the public domain, including charging for it. I buy a lot of commercial editions of public domain books. Worth paying money for a nice layout, and material extra to the original text, such as a good introduction and explanatory footnotes.

And sometimes a publisher will put new material in i.e. new illustrations or it will be a new translation say from French to English which means that version is under copyright rather than being P.D. even though the author has been dead for a century. I mean the works of Jules Verne are likely out of copyright (aside perhaps from one about Paris in the 20th century) but that one was just recently re-discovered I think. So the original books are P.D. but a new translation from French to English or any other language wouldn't be.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I sell some digital books that I didn't write myself. They are versions of public domain titles.

I thought Creative commons and out of copyright books were understood to be outside the scope of piracy debates.
My bad.

I'll edit my comment to clarify.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Pizza_Cant_Read

A question I have and I know it must have been discussed on MR before: If a publisher such as TOR releases a book without DRM, am I still forbidden by Amazon from moving it to another format? What about reading it on multiple (non Amazon) devices?

That specific question was answered above but it closely relates to a broader, more common question:

"What can you do with a legally free, but copyrighted book?"
The answer, as pointed out above, is "only what the terms of service explicitly allow".

I've seen folks who assume that because they got the book for free (either as Creative Commons, on a sale/promo, or for being permafree) they can make and distribute copies freely. Dangerous assumption.

Most of those free books come with strings--free when you sign up for a newsletter--or were only free for a short time, like on KDP where an author-publisher can offer a book for free for a maximum of 5 days a month. As the open source guys say there is a difference between being free (priced at zero) and being free of copyright/restrictions. Even open source products have copyright.

Fair use offers a lot of protection for personal use (so transcoding for your own use *might* be okay, TOS or not--that kind of clause hasn't been tested in the US--but it might not). And once other people are involved it gets very murky real fast. A few universities have discovered that what is fair use for one isn't fair use for many. Or even a few.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I sell some digital books that I didn't write myself. They are versions of public domain titles.

And I've paid for some version of PD titles when I consider the formatting and extra value (properly formatted illustrations, footnotes, etc.) worthwhile.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Fair use offers a lot of protection for personal use (so transcoding for your own use *might* be okay, TOS or not--that kind of clause hasn't been tested in the US--but it might not). And once other people are involved it gets very murky real fast. A few universities have discovered that what is fair use for one isn't fair use for many. Or even a few.

How would that theoretically be testable in court in the US? One would have to sue someone else, right? If you use fair use for personal use, nobody will find out, because you are not sharing anything.

[darryl]

I would add to the enumeration of the benefits of buying a Kindle book syncing reading position both across devices and with an Audible Audiobook, and of course on some books a very attractive price on also purchasing the Audiobook. Sometimes as little as $1.99.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

How would that theoretically be testable in court in the US? One would have to sue someone else, right? If you use fair use for personal use, nobody will find out, because you are not sharing anything.

The personal use side would be hard to detect, much less sue, yes.
But the format shifting by itself might get litigated.

One scenario I can think of is in the academic environment where a lot of the fair use book cases come from or maybe a side effect of a mashup culture lawsuit. Those are not unheard of.

The academic case might stem from the growing dissatisfaction with the behavior of scientific journals so somebody might decide to convert a document or group of documents out of an app-locked system with limited flexibility to an open format for use in a classroom setting. The publisher, say Pearson, which is in pretty tight straits as is, would object and sue.

The court would then have to decide if a legally classroom copy can be format shifted while still being used for what it was acquired. In other words, if format shifting by itself is legal. There have been copyright suits over less.

The fight over TTS comes to mind, which hinged on whether TTS software renders a page or performs it. That was settled out of court so it's still open. That one relates to book readings in public venues.

Another case is the conversion of pbooks and ebooks to DAISY format for accessibility which is allowed under a copyright exemption.

As big publishers see their markets erode they're suing more often these days. Soon enough we'll see a case, I think.

[hildea]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

"What can you do with a legally free, but copyrighted book?"
The answer, as pointed out above, is "only what the terms of service explicitly allow".

To be not-quite-pedantic: That depends on the local laws. If terms and conditions violate local laws, laws take precedence.

Norwegian law is extremely unclear. It's illegal to circumvent "effective" DRM measures, unless it's done to be able to use a legally aquired work on what's commonly considered relevant equipment. So noone really knows if DRM for books is "effective" or so trivial that the law doesn't apply, and noone knows if it's a common opinion that you should be able to read epub books on a Kindle or Amazon books on a non-Kindle.

(Law in Norwegian: https://lovdata.no/lov/2018-06-15-40/§99 )

[rem736]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Ah, but I re-read my books, hence my desire to store them safely.

in addition, it's not just about re-reading a book. under cases where the book is used for research, especially a non-fiction reference manual, you would want to keep it around for future use. imagine a dictionary. even if someone is industrious enough to read everything cover to cover, that person is not likely to toss it away. even after reading everything, you are not likely to remember everything. another similar case is a book of poetry. read it and toss it? not likely.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by rem736

another similar case is a book of poetry. read it and toss it? not likely.

The last book of poetry I read, I never managed to finish. To quote whomever actually said it, "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."

One of the items I most appreciate about poetry is the density, the ability to convey many images with a lot of different referents. In the case of this collection of poems, a walk through the oceans of the poet's soul would not have gotten my ankles wet, the only image that was conveyed was a desire to worship the porcelain goddess.

The consolation was that it was a library loan though I still think I paid more than it was worth.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by DNSB

The last book of poetry I read, I never managed to finish. To quote whomever actually said it, "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."
.

Probably Sid Ziff. In 1959 or 1960.

From a book review: “It is not a book to be lightly thrown aside. It should be thrown with great force.”
—Sid Ziff in Los Angeles Mirror-News