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This Book Will Self-Destruct In 10 Hours

Posted by timothy on from the and-then-there-were-none dept.

extrarice writes: "See here The "rent-a-book" concept is here. Pay a buck, and you're allowed to read for a cumulative total of 10 hours. After that, the text is inaccessible (unless you somehow access the content you purchased...)"

8 of 437 comments (clear)

  1. What a deal! by Blue+Neon+Head · · Score: 5, Funny

    Why pay $5 for a convenient, low-tech copy that may be read by you and others at will when you can pay $1 for every 10 hours of reading on a headache-inducing CRT?

    Yep, sign me up.

  2. Rights? by aardvarkjoe · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Although there wasn't anything in the article about it, I sincerely doubt that the license will say that you've 'purchased' the content; you're just allowed to look at it for 10 hours. Exactly why do people get all riled up about this, and yet I haven't yet seen a big story yet about "Blockbuster video intends to make you return that movie after 2 days!" The only difference is that you get the convenience of not having to leave home, and have better control over your use of the product -- when you want to use it, what you want to read it on, etc.

    Also, if you look near the bottom, it says that you can buy it (and presumably own it as much as you own any print book.) for $4.99. So your precious rights aren't being abused. Unless, of course, your "rights" include getting the product for 1/5 of the price it's being sold for. If that's true, I've been wasting an awful lot of my money...

    --

    How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
  3. OMG!!! by 3-State+Bit · · Score: 5, Funny
    Watch this gem:
    Arthur Klebanoff, CEO of RosettaBooks, said, "We are delighted to take our marketing relationship with Adobe and our distribution services relationship with Reciprocal to the next level. RosettaBooks prides itself on being ePublishing leader for quality content, innovative marketing, and critically-acclaimed titles. This first of its kind offering of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None is just the beginning of a brave new world of literature and technology."

    Good God, I hope the man was joking, and not just Freudian Slipping us an advance warning.... link1 Link2.
  4. The Right to Read... by Elwood+P+Dowd · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It didn't take that long.

    http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

    I'm a whore.

    --

    There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
  5. Re:Don't make me laugh by Wraithlyn · · Score: 5, Interesting
    A month? Are you kidding? Try a day or two. Hell, I could crack it right NOW with some sort of jerry rigged automated screen capture and OCR scheme. (Uh oh, I just violated the DMCA by saying that. Good thing I don't live in the States or they'd throw me in a cell with Dimitry)

    When will content publishers realize that security/encryption isn't worth a damn when the end party is NOT TRUSTED. Guess what? If I can read/view/hear it on my computer, there is a way of capturing it, and re-releasing it with no protection. This simple fact will never change. And yet the industries will waste countless millions of dollars trying to invent secure delivery/viewer systems, which is a complete fool's crusade.

    The only answer is to add enough value, that consumers are willing to pay the money to avoid the hassle. What these guys are doing is ADDING MORE hassle, and no real added value.

    --
    "Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
  6. Re:Well... by acceleriter · · Score: 5, Interesting
    It doesn't actually sound terribly bad. You have the option of buying the "full", untimed version, for $5, or paying $1 for the ten-hour version.

    Let me get this straight:

    Option 1: I pay almost the same price as for a paperback book. The manufacturing cost is essentially zero, and the royalty to the author is probably unchanged. In return, instead of a paperback book which I may read, trade, lend, give away, or sell at my pleasure, I get an ebook that's locked to one physical device and is not transferable in any way.

    Option 2: I pay a buck for what I essentially can get from the public library, except for less time, less portability, and one dollar more. In addition, I no doubt get to "agree" to some Draconian license that disallows anyone from reading over my shoulder or talking about the book in a negative manner.

    Yep, sounds good to me. Not! Being a Luddite, I'll do just fine reading what's already been published on paper if this actually were to take off. Unfortunately, one of the first big markets for this crap is already a captive audience: college students . If you think this topic doesn't fit into YRO, you haven't been watching the direction things are headed.

    --

    CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.

  7. And Blockbuster can't... by Wesley+Everest · · Score: 5, Funny
    And Blockbuster can't have you arrested for linking to a website that explains how to return a video a day late.

    Warning: the following is an illegal device!

    When you rent a video for one day, if you want access to it for an extra day, drive it back to Blockbuster on Thursday instead of Wednesday.
  8. Re:So PPV by cprael · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Once upon a time I was an author. I quit writing "real" books because the publishers wouldn't pay dick. Ideas like this make sure that I wouldn't get paid dick. They make sure that the publisher gets paid more, and I get paid less.

    Further, the "time-based permit" is absolutely bullshit. 10 hours, to read a 275 page book. I can do that. My wife, on the other hand, would get to about chapter 3 before her permit ran out.

    Pardon my language, but please, before you attempt to dazzle us with your insight, LEARN SOMETHING ABOUT THE F*CKING INDUSTRY. I _can not_ agree with a piece of stupidity like this, either from the perspective of an author OR from a reader (or, frankly, from a taxpayer, who pays taxes to stock libraries, and is about to donate another 20 shelf-feet of content to the local libraries). It is an absolutely blazing piece of stupidity from a company that _used_ to know better, but now seems to have portions of its braincase inserted in a most awkward position. I'm frankly ashamed to say I have friends there.