If You Had a Library with WTS Books, It's GONE Now!

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

There's no substitute for a local copy that is also backed up.

Yep. I always look at a store's cloud as a nice third backup, but not a primary.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Apache

I have always downloaded my books and stripped any DRM. When it comes to businesses and their ability to change management, I never trust them to do the right thing.

This. If I couldn't have stripped DRM I wouldn't have bought any e-books. My e-reading would then be constrained to DRM-less books or classics.

I'll stick with ADE version 2.0.1 as long as it will work, and my current version of K4PC, should I ever buy at Amazon. I'll also keep my old KPW1, as a receiver device when choosing 'send to computer.' If I can't, in the end, use a method to un-DRM e-books, I'll stop buying them.

Not that it matters. I already have more books than I'll ever read.

Oh, and the same goes for games. I've bought a lot of games at GOG.com. Even though they offer the games for download at any time, I have at least three local copies. (Then requested to have half my library deleted in a huge spring cleaning, because it contained many old/nostalgic games that I always thought I'd (re)play some day, but I never would... and yes, I also deleted the games on my own disk. Fortunately, most of those games were only €1-3 during sales. The reason for having them deleted is that games, as compared to books, age very badly, especially with regard to graphics. Some games though, mainly the Inifinty Engine series, I can never delete. I'll play those games until the day I die... and no, not the bodged up 'Enhanced' versions.)

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

This. If I couldn't have stripped DRM I wouldn't have bought any e-books. My e-reading would then be constrained to DRM-less books or classics.

Same. While I had purchased a few ebooks way back, I didn't buy my first dedicated reader (Sony 505) and go all out with ebooks until I was sure there was a way to uninfect stuff I acquired (with C-Lit at the time).

[JSWolf]

There are a lot of eBooks that I've bought that I can no longer download as the stores they came from are gone. I did download all of them so I did not lose any. But even back then I knew to download and strip the DRM (before Apple and the price fix 6).

[Josieb1]

I've bought from ten different retailers/publishers that no longer exist. One of my jobs this year is to check the backups of all the others but all my books are in Calibre and are DRM free. I don't trust any company to look after my books. I fail to understand anyone that spends money on ebooks and doesn't download and backup.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

I've bought from ten different retailers/publishers that no longer exist. One of my jobs this year is to check the backups of all the others but all my books are in Calibre and are DRM free. I don't trust any company to look after my books. I fail to understand anyone that spends money on ebooks and doesn't download and backup.

One of the problems is a lot of people do not strip DRM so even if they download and keep a copy, it could has DRM. And in that case, there's a chance that sometime before the book is read, the DRM needs to be updated and that can't be done if it cannot be downloaded. So even if the book is downloaded, that doesn't mean it can be read.