Lastly, it’s important to point out that the Kindle does not support the popular, open and free ePub format, which means the Kindle will be unable to borrow from libraries that lend ePub titles.
This is disingenuous, and getting a little tiring honestly now. The Amazon Kindle can read ebooks in the .mobi format fine, which is based on the Open eBook standard [1] just as the EPUB format. (EPUBs may be technically superior to MOBIs, but that's a different issue altogether)
EPUBs can be converted to the MOBI format fairly easily. Inconvenient? Yes. Evil, locked in system? No.
Saying the Kindle does not support ePubs is simply a literal statement. Interestingly, the Kindle will support ePubs soon, and thus libraries that lend ePubs, but the paper was written last year, before Amazon even hinted at supporting ePubs.
It is unlikely Amazon will switch to ePub. What's happening with library loans is that Amazon will mirror in Kindle format the ePub catalogs each library has.
Can you convert any ePub to the Mobi format? No. Try to convert a DRM-enabaled ePub from an Amazon competitor like Google into a Mobi file, or try to convert a library eBook into a Mobi file. Amazon's Kindle platform is a prime example of an evil, locked in system.
Allowing a standard, open format to work on the Kindle would make sense for users; Amazon currently chooses to disallow it. Imagine having a DVD player that could only play Amazon-formatted movies and not standard DVDs.
Buy an eBook "from Google's eBookstore, you'll be able to read it on your desktop PC, your iPhone, the Nook, the Kobo eReader, the Sony Reader, or a garden-variety flip phone — just not your Kindle."
In either case it's a license. The difference is what the license is bound to.
Amazon kindle ebooks are bound to my Amazon account (I can read same book on my Android or Amazon Kindle device as long as I sign in with same account).
With a physical book, the material is literally bound to the pages of the book.
In neither case do I own the copyright. It's the same as owning a film on DVD or VHS.
You cannot make copies of the content of the book to sell it, you cannot take large excerpts of the book and sell those either. In short, you do not have full intellectual property rights to the book.
You have licensed a single copy for the purpose of reading the book.
It's not the same thing. In neither case do you own the copyright to the book, but when buying a physical book you legally own that copy of the book. The key difference here being illustrated by that fiasco a couple of years back when Amazon revoked people's access to the copies of 1984 they had on their Kindles. With a physical book they are not allowed to do that (and physically cannot do it anyway).
I think if a bookseller had been making copies of 1984 without permission from the right holder, and you had bought one of these copies, the right holder would have demanded its return. Had you refused, I think you may have been in violation of some law (possession of stolen goods?). I have no idea whether they would have been able to raid your house to recover the book, but it wouldn't surprise me. I'm obviously not a lawyer...
An illegal copy of a book is not a stolen good, since it has not been taken away.. In most countries I'd expect the buying of the illegal copy of the book itself not to be criminal (and certainly not leading to home raids), but the distribution the bookseller did, since he did not have the license to do that.
On the other side, I would expect that many countries have laws that would prohibit a bookseller from selling you a hard-copy but writing in the terms of service that they're free to enter your home to retrieve it for reasons they decide on, since it'd be a very surprising clause.
In most countries I'd expect the buying of the illegal copy of the book itself not to be criminal
Why? If you make it legal to buy pirated works, and allow the purchaser to keep the purchased copy, you remove all burden from the consumer to validate the authenticity of the goods they are purchasing.
A consumer should not be so vulnerable as to be terrified of purchasing any book, but they should not be immune, especially if they purchased the illegitimate copy knowing it was illegitimate.
If there are laws against buying of goods you know are stolen, then of course you are correct. However, if that's not in place, then the buyer didn't violate any laws (since he didn't break the copyright) or contracts.
To circle back to the original point, wouldn't it be kind of outrageous if a police team were allowed to storm your home and violate your right to privacy in search for an illegal copy of 1984?
>wouldn't it be kind of outrageous if a police team were allowed to storm your home and violate your right to privacy in search for an illegal copy of 1984?
No more outrageous than if they were taking a copy of a DVD that you'd acquired that was produced by copyright infringement.
I think the police (in my country) do have power to retrieve goods on order of the court because you've committed a tort, contributory copyright infringement. If you were aware that you were supporting an act of infringement by paying for the goods produced by that act then I'd expect you could also be sued successfully.
The economics don't work well for the company suing though so this is an unlikely reality.
In my opinion, not really, not if they have reasonable suspicion. I mean, it'd be a complete waste of their time and yours due to the low value of the object in question, but I don't know that low value should mean they shouldn't be able to.
That is, of course, just my opinion. I do not claim that reflects local laws.
Truly speaking, you do not own the information on the pages, only the paper and binding upon which it is printed. I cannot be sure, but I suspect blanking the pages of your book if the license was revoked or fraudulent would be in keeping with both copyright and property law.
We just get the feeling that we own both the object and the information because it is so much more difficult to separate the two than with digital media.
Ownership is a legal term, and it grants rights. You own some things, but not eBooks. We're talking about owning what you pay for, not becoming the copyright holder.
O'Reilly sells their ebooks without DRM. I haven't read their licensing terms, but I suspect them to be very liberal. Their page says they trust you to do the right thing.
Since we do not own eBooks from Amazon, Apple and the like, maybe a Netflix-like service for eBooks needs to be created. I read 6-10 books a month, and if I could pay $10/month to read them like I do with movies at Netflix, it would be nice. Instead, Amazon and the like charge users to license each copy at $10/each and up, usually, which is such a ripoff. Amazon can sell virtual goods to us, but we can't resell them after we finish using them? Such a ripoff. At the most, Amazon should charge a small rental fee for their eBooks.
What happens to all those licenses when you die? Are they eternal licenses, lifelong licenses or what?
Granted, most of my books will probably just bore my kids by the time I die, but still, it bothers me a little that I might not even be able to pass on my library.
Put your account name and password in your Will and Amazon or any other company will never know. Do any TOS contain "Services terminated upon your death" clauses? I don't think so.
Pulling a fast one on Amazon is possible, sure, but does this maneuver violate the Amazon terms of service? Speaking of the TOS, it would be worth checking to see what is actually written.
Most of these services allow organizations buy copies. So then your Merry Andrew Reading Club LLC can perhaps transfer rights as needed when you pass on.
You can purchase the book and scan it, create your own EPUB and own that copy (but only use one copy at a time!) or you can purchase the EPUB (or whatever format) and have a much more limited license.
Of course scanning a book is hard work. You'll want to outsource that. So you buy a book of the shelf, the company scan it for you - your book, your format shift, hired help - and forward your copy of the book (now in EPUB format) and kindly dispose of the book for you.
You're now using paper as a digital transmission medium, wasting a whole lot of energy, producing a lot of waste and the result to the customer is the same as if the publisher just sold you the book in EPUB format at the regular books store price¹.
Of course I'm sure common sense will win out in the courts ...
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1 - I'm assuming a book shop could scan the books and cover their costs in the usual retail margin by not needing a high street location and by selling the books on for pulping.
Aside I - In the UK there is no "fair use" but instead a far more restrictive idea of "fair dealing", see www.ipo.gov.uk/ipreview-doc-j.pdf for a recent comparison.
Aside II - Australia (http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ca1968133/...) have a similar format shifting provision but it specifically applies to "videotape embodying a cinematograph film in analog form" which is messed up in more ways than one.
I use my Nook exclusively for out-of-copyright stuff. Great for long plane rides. If I want to read something specific I'll acquire it on paper, but if I just want to read something then I'm sure I can find something in the pre-early-20th-century archives of the English language.
Even if you buy a book, you're still only getting a license to the one copy of the book as manifested in the stack of bound pages that you hold. You don't have rights to make and give/sell copies of your own.
When you buy a hard copy you actually own it, you do not license it, and you can do with it as you please as long as you do not infringe on the rights of the copyright holder. You can sell it, lend it, etc.
eBooks are licensed. You cannot sell them, or lend them unless the right to lend is granted in the licensing agreement. I like the eBook format, but ownership is superior to licensing. Far superior.
Yes, because it doesn't even make sense. This is why I simply don't understand this conversation. There's nothing for me to resell, because we're discussing a virtual good. Implicit in the resale of an item is that I can no longer possess that item.
Talking about reselling eBooks makes almost as much sense as talking about reselling the sandwich I just ate for dinner. The only mechanism for creating personal value has been irrevocably consumed.
The points of ownership, right to resale, and lending are important ones. They represent a fundamental divide between two entirely different technologies used for the same purpose. At a very basic level comparing eBooks to print books makes almost no sense. As soon as we can dispense with the comparison we can start thinking about each system according to the value it creates.
What do you mean? Ebooks don't get consumed, they don't degrade. And how you sell it is quite obvious. Like you said, the new person possesses it and you no longer possess it. Give them the file and delete any temporary copies you may have.
That isn't an analogous scenario. The problem with trying to compare physical and virtual goods is that, for virtual goods, transferring requires copying. There is no way to transfer an electronic data file without copying it in some way. Until such a process is developed, analogies between physical and virtual goods will always be flawed.
Yes, because it doesn't even make sense. This is why I simply don't understand this conversation.
From what I gather, the point is exactly that: That one should be aware that there are more differences than eBooks being electronic versions of books.
I think the controversial points come from people having different use-cases. I wouldn't want to not have control over my books about Hebrew numerology that took me a while to track down. I wouldn't worry nearly as much about a book about a programming language. For some books, real possession is part of the value. For others, everywhere-accessibility is worth more.
This exactly. If you have a paper book, then removing that book (except via court, anyway) is theft. If it's digital and Amazon issues an arbitrary delete to Kindles, you've agreed to them being able to do it already.
This sort of thing is why I'm still not so comfortable with cloud media services in general. If you want a good example, look at the tracks that randomly get disabled on Spotify (sometimes when bands reform, sometimes, like Hotel California, apparently randomly).
What does it mean to sell an eBook? Lets say I went and actually bought an eBook from Amazon. How would I sell my copy of the eBook to you? Doesn't it have to be bound to HW to actually sell it (or DRM'ed). It seems like prohibiting transfer is the only reasonable solution, unless DRM is used.
But how do I give you an eBook and relinquish my ownership rights? It seems like it relies upon me voluntarily deleting the book. Just from a pragmatic perspective, is that really a feasible plan?
Thanks, I enjoyed reading your article. That doesn't mean I need to own a copy of it ;-)
I actually do have a handful of dead tree books that I own for emotional reasons, so I can appreciate that aspect of ownership. But I love my Kindle. I do far more reading now that my books are electronic. It's no exaggeration to say that switching to the Kindle has improved the quality of my life.
Different people feel different ways on ownership. I personally can't wait to own a house. I know my in-laws have never owned where they live, not because they can't but because they don't want to.
They like the fact that someone else cuts the lawn, someone else fixes the major appliances, etc. They like that they can call someone and give them shit when their roof leaks and someone else will deal with the repair.
I like to own things, and I'm not sure why. However, when it comes to digital data I accept that I'm paying for convenience over ownership. MP3's even if I only license them, sure kick the ass of having to rummage through a pile of CD's just to listen to one song.
When you own something you can keep it forever, you can pass it down to your children or give it (or sell it) to others. When you license something you can lose access on the whim of the licensor. Considering the importance of the dissemination of ideas, sometimes subversive ideas, through books, this point should not be taken lightly.
This is disingenuous, and getting a little tiring honestly now. The Amazon Kindle can read ebooks in the .mobi format fine, which is based on the Open eBook standard [1] just as the EPUB format. (EPUBs may be technically superior to MOBIs, but that's a different issue altogether)
EPUBs can be converted to the MOBI format fairly easily. Inconvenient? Yes. Evil, locked in system? No.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_eBook