> Let me get this straight, the author has a bad experience with one website selling ebooks, so they decide they’ll never buy ebooks ever again?
It may be hyperbolic, but I basically feel the same way, because I had more or less the same thing happen: I saw a book I wanted to buy, it said EPUB; there was absolutely no indication that there was DRM, that I'd be required to install Adobe software, or anything. I bought the book, and after paying for it, was told about all this.
I was so furious I emailed them immediately and demanded my money back (which they complied with). But it certainly put me off buying e-books from random websites -- I haven't even thought about doing it since.
> That comparison is flawed, the author has already been compensated because you (or a library) bought the book
And if I got the book as PDF/EPUB and without paying anything (but legally)? Would it be moral for someone to force me to read because their business model says so?
> Despite all the warning signs, I went ahead and bought the ebook...
> ...allow me to retire from having to write the tools that bypass your restrictions.
You either agree to the rules, or you're breaking them. If you're breaking the rules, authors won't get compensated and we won't see other Human Kenetics books. This should be illegal.
Personally, I would love to pay hundreds for a limited access to books I would like to read. But folks aren't inspired too much about writing books today that can make them a living, since there are pirates everywhere. They want free content, because "information should be free". No, it shouldn't. Pay for it.
>OP specifically contrasts this experience to buying from publishers who sell DRM-free ebooks as a counterpoint to the awful experience buying her/his book.
Or maybe he just likes them because they're easier to pirate from? In a prior paragraph he admits that it was the first time he bought an ebook.
> For math textbooks, being “open source” doesn’t really add much value (compared to just free)
That is wrong. For one thing it allows someone to take up a project if the original author dies.
> I would urge people to not hesitate to pirate PDFs of good, non-free textbooks if you can’t afford them or find them too much of a financial burden
That is also wrong. Authors spend a significant part of their lives on a book and are entitled to do with it as they like. The best way to get free access to a for-cost text is to use your library. (BTW, I write books that are freely distributed.)
> Digital books are a scam. I never bought (and will never buy) one.
It seems like less of a scam and more of a technology constrained by publishers and authors. Lots of people borrow digital books from libraries, for example, without ever buying them.
> answer questions for people without having to buy the book.. is that really fair?
Yes.
It's fair because that happens all the time with non-AI intelligences (i.e., people). No author has the right to prevent me from discussing a book with someone. If I were a clinician and incorporated that exercise into my practice, as long as I wasn't copying any content (e.g., worksheets, scoring tables, etc.), then I owe nothing to the author.
It's also a fundamental principle of copyright law, at least in the United States.
Well no, it's not. You're purchasing a license to consume the content, conditional on the terms of the license. What gives you the impression you're buying the book?
>ebooks to me are a solution in search of a problem.
Especially since they haven't implemented all the features that would make them handier than books:
a) Copying excerpts (most DRM readers either forbid this or make it a time consuming BS process)
b) Adding notes (ditto)
d) Easy access to all your bookmarks and notes across your whole book collection.
e) Proper, book quality typography and layout (not markup BS that looks like a webpage), with overrides/re-layouts for larger font-size etc only as an additional option not as the main way to read.
> But just like paper books there are a lot of books that I read once and never look at again. They aren't priceless treasured objects for me.
Traditionally your books could have been donated, or given to friends and relatives. DRM prevents those things. It really sounds like you might be better off using a library to borrow ebooks than to buy them. You're already basically just paying for a rental.
It's not renting really. If I rent a physical book (or house, etc), I have exclusive access to it. Nobody else can possess it. It's for this privilege that I'm paying. Obviously, this is not true of ebooks because 'X' persons can "rent" at the same time.
You're just licensing them. You're just paying for a license which can be revoked at Amazon's whim.
Not at all.
> You only buy books for which you can obtain the ebook for free?
Yes, I do.
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