Piracy Experiment

[Quexos]

I said "while you may have more than me" in that other post.
Learn to read and keep your vanity at bay, it does not serve whatever higher cultural value you hope to flaunt from such a big figure of owned books. Big one

Originally Posted by Belle2Be

Well, 45 to 4000 could be considered NO knowledge. Think outside your box, small one.

[Belle2Be]

Originally Posted by Quexos

I said "while you may have more than me" in that other post.
Learn to read and keep your vanity at bay, it does not serve whatever higher cultural value you hope to flaunt from such a big figure of owned books. Big one

I don't own that many books, again, you need to not assume. I was just stating that to some, owning 45 e-books (and I highly doubt that every single one has perfect formatting and is error free) would be comparable to having no knowledge in the ebook world. Your youth and ignorance is showing in your answers, not only to me but to several others here who apparently have the know-how (or "friends" who do) and are proving you blatantly incorrect.

[Freeshadow]

great - another - "mine's longer than yours" even if it's the f* digital bookshelf.

[Belle2Be]

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

great - another - "mine's longer than yours" even if it's the f* digital bookshelf.

I don't have anything to be longer than... Us ladies generally aim for Mine's Smaller than

[Freeshadow]

oh it depends if the front or backside is discussed :P
methinks most lasses rather don't like a "yours are smaller than..."

but to sum up what was written about quality I'd risk following statement:

commercialy made ebooks are often enough just mediocre, whereas privately made copies seem to be covering extremes:
on the one side there are hastily scanned un-proofread OCRs from hoarders

and on the other, the also mentioned laborously checked and epub-source-finetuned copies created by hardcore fans, following the motto that for the master's work only the best is good enough.

[Quexos]

That is correct, there are some errors in some of those books. Which is one of the issues I discussed about in some other thread.
Youth and ignorance ? I don't know what frustrations you have in your life that push you to defend yourself with "personal" and somewhat ridiculous attacks. (you don't know what experience or knowledge I have).
But please refrain from such quips because it gets us nowhere. Tell me how you disagree with the present issue because this and that. But my age, experience and books I have or don't have ... that is pathetic.
Now if you don't get it and feel the need to continue this, then you're on your own cause that's where I draw the line. I guess we all made our points and when one guy (you in this case) begins with personal attacks, that's the cue to move on to other topics.
Cheers.

Originally Posted by Belle2Be

I don't own that many books, again, you need to not assume. I was just stating that to some, owning 45 e-books (and I highly doubt that every single one has perfect formatting and is error free) would be comparable to having no knowledge in the ebook world. Your youth and ignorance is showing in your answers, not only to me but to several others here who apparently have the know-how (or "friends" who do) and are proving you blatantly incorrect.

[silasgreenback]

Originally Posted by Quexos

Well I can assure you that what you found is NOT Retail quality

A copy can be formatted horribly and turned into "retail" quality in no time flat. With most, all you really need to know is how to join split lines, find & replace, insert blank lines after carriage returns, and then have a working knowledge of Calibre.

With the new heuristics controls, it's even more of a cinch.

[Belle2Be]

Originally Posted by Quexos

That is correct, there are some errors in some of those books. Which is one of the issues I discussed about in some other thread.
Youth and ignorance ? I don't know what frustrations you have in your life that push you to defend yourself with "personal" and somewhat ridiculous attacks. (you don't know what experience or knowledge I have).
But please refrain from such quips because it gets us nowhere. Tell me how you disagree with the present issue because this and that. But my age, experience and books I have or don't have ... that is pathetic.
Now if you don't get it and feel the need to continue this, then you're on your own cause that's where I draw the line. I guess we all made our points and when one guy (you in this case) begins with personal attacks, that's the cue to move on to other topics.
Cheers.

"Learn to read and keep your vanity at bay, it does not serve whatever higher cultural value you hope to flaunt from such a big figure of owned books. Big one "
You really want to pull the "wahh you're making a personal attack" card after you made this "brilliant" comment?

[Quexos]

I see.
I wish I could do that. While I have figured out some formatting in an epub file, most code lines are arcane to me. It's not my strong point LOL.
However the problem remains. If a retail book has errors in it, it should not be up to the buyer to worry about the fixing. Perhaps the problem is due to the fact that ebooks as a popular medium is a relatively young phenomenon and that given time those errors hopefully will be less and less.

Originally Posted by silasgreenback

A copy can be formatted horribly and turned into "retail" quality in no time flat. With most, all you really need to know is how to join split lines, find & replace, insert blank lines after carriage returns, and then have a working knowledge of Calibre.

With the new heuristics controls, it's even more of a cinch.

[silasgreenback]

Originally Posted by Quexos

However the problem remains. If a retail book has errors in it, it should not be up to the buyer to worry about the fixing.

If I bought a retail ebook that was full of errors, I'd just get a refund and buy the tree version.

I'd be tempted (but wouldn't) to strip the DRM, fix the errors, and send it out over the wires.

[FF2]

viviena:

Thanks for the additional info on "translations" from BE to US-E. In 400 years there will be margin notes like in Shakespeare for Potter books (g)

[DixieGal]

Is it just me, or does it seem like every single discussion for months now is nothing but an ugly endless argument?

[GA Russell]

Originally Posted by viviena

Generally speaking, although a lot of ebooks to be found in torrents are of poor quality, there are easily 'retail quality' ebooks if one knows where to look. The torrent scene also has release groups that tend to pride themselves on uploading quality copies. Then less commonly there are ebook copies, usually of books in which no commercial ebooks are available, which are lovingly crafted by fans and quite frankly, look superb.

Don't sites like The Pirate Bay cost money? Aren't you risking a lot by giving them your credit card number? I can understand college kids doing it, but it sounds dangerous to me.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by GA Russell

Don't sites like The Pirate Bay cost money?

Nope.

[viviena]

Originally Posted by GA Russell

Don't sites like The Pirate Bay cost money? Aren't you risking a lot by giving them your credit card number? I can understand college kids doing it, but it sounds dangerous to me.

No. The Pirate Bay is free, as far as I know. I would be very surprised if other torrent sites charged money too. I've never used TPB though and I'm aware they've had legal difficulties, so I don't know if they've changed to a Napster-like model recently. In any case, TPB acts like a distributor of torrents and such torrent sites often claim they're not responsible for the material their users post. In addition, according to some of my unashamedly freeloading friends, TPB hasn't been seen as a 'good' torrent site in a long time -- it's just the most public. Invite-only torrent sites, which are free but have only limited signups, are seemingly becoming more popular.

I don't want people going away thinking that 'torrent' is synonymous with 'illegal activity' though. Torrenting is also a very effective way to distribute legitimate material. Examples are clearbits, GameUpdates.org for game demos, patches, and mods, and LinuxTracker.