Slashdot Mirror

Well, my library could consist of:

- books from project gutenburg
- free books, maybe from here or here
- technical books like this one and other technical documents.
- articles from Nupedia
- university research papers, a lot of which are on-line now.
- mirrors of websites

All free, no fees. A prediction: a readable ebook will drive publishing toward free books just as linux is driving software companies to open source. It will never be a complete transformation in either case, but it will shake things up for sure.

Read this press release from Glassbook, where they specifically say "The Glassbook Plus Reader is a full-featured, ebook software that offers a two-page view, text-to-speech capability that pronounces words or enables the text to be read aloud..."

But of course publisher control of fair use must stop, and I hope restricted-use e-books crash and burn in spectacular fashion.
--

If you want to see my screen shot of the EXACT SAME thing, then check it out. Notice I chose the contents page. Or if you don't believe that, try the Title page. Yes, the period is missing on the Read Aloud part. But it's still listed there.

That screen shot is real - whether they are serious or not is another question.

I just downloaded the Adobe EBook reader (windows or Mac). , and then clicked the library button, which takes you to Adobe's eBook collection

• Click on Children's Books,
• Click on "Alice In Wonderland",
• click on checkout, then download link. It downloads.
• Click Read Book,
• Click on "info" tab at bottom of Reader.

Voila.

The same picture submitted by Art.

Disturbing. Very Disturbing.

But not suprising.

I just downloaded the Adobe EBook reader (windows or Mac). , and then clicked the library button, which takes you to Adobe's eBook collection

• Click on Children's Books,
• Click on "Alice In Wonderland",
• click on checkout, then download link. It downloads.
• Click Read Book,
• Click on "info" tab at bottom of Reader.

Voila.

The same picture submitted by Art.

Disturbing. Very Disturbing.

But not suprising.

Download the E-book from Adobe's site.

Grabel's Law

I think that either this story is in error or is an early "April-Fool's Day" joke.

From "Glassbook's" own FAQ (emphasis added):

What happens to the book when I'm done reading it?

Since you own the e-book, once you have read it you can store in the Library that is included with the Glassbook Reader. In the future, users will be able to loan or give their e-books to others using the Glassbook Plus Reader.

Can I print and copy my e-books?

To protect copyrights, publishers establish their own guidelines for how much of their e-books can be printed and/or copied. This means that these permissions will differ from book to book. For example, some of the free books from the Glassbook Bookstore have no restrictions on copying and printing. For example, a publisher might give consumers the ability to print several pages of a cookbook within a set period of time.

Either there's been a serious mix-up at adobe and/or glassbooks (If any of their books are printable, a public domain work copied from Project Gutenberg ought to be!), or someone's pulling our collective legs. The FAQ implies that giving "your copy" of an e-book to someone else is intended to be allowed (presumably, they're trying to find some way of ensuring that your copy disappears when you give it to someone else). I find it hard (though, sadly, not impossible) to imagine Adobe refusing to allow printing from a public domain work...

Has anyone else downloaded and confirmed this? Unfortunately, as is all-to-often the case, only Windows and Mac users can get an 'e-book' reader, so I can't download it myself and check...you can download the book from here.

If these restrictions are really printed here, it looks like we should be complaining to the publisher ("VolumeOne") more than Glassbooks.

Here's an excerpt from their FAQ
To protect copyrights, publishers establish their own guidelines for how much of their e-books can be printed and/or copied. This means that these permissions will differ from book to book. For example, some of the free books from the Glassbook Bookstore have no restrictions on copying and printing. For example, a publisher might give consumers the ability to print several pages of a cookbook within a set period of time.

Alice In Wonderland is a free book and probably has no restrictions on copying, transfering, or "reading aloud".

GEEZ!