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Barnes and Noble Drops Ebooks
computx writes "I just recieved an email from Barnes and Noble that they will no longer sell ebooks and I have 1 month to download the books I have purchased. Wow!"
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You must have a really slow internet connection.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
E-books aren't popular because they are inconvenient. Have you ever tried reading in a bathtub or on your toilet seat with an e-book?
How much cost is associated w/ Ebook distribution?
At least they gave one month of service...
Still, that's not very long to "support" your products, even if they were a flop.
They must have stopped selling them because Everyone was pirating copies of Light in August, Huck Finn, and Robinson Carusoe. Poor BN couldn't make enough money
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
The eight people who bought ebooks will be VERY inconvenienced.
I can understand why they are dumping them. Who needs a whole book filled with e and E ?? They should start using some of those other letters too !
My mother in law is worse than yours...and yes I will trade!
Considering all the file sharing on Kazaa, and other P2P programs, I for one am not surprised that BN would drop selling them. I wonder how much money is lost for eBook sharing? I also wonder if some 'coalition' (like the RIAA) is going to step in and scream 'No more downloads!' when it comes to eBooks.
MoFscker
...would have been great had readers been umm readable and cheap and had the format been widley available.
I'd love nothing more than having all my college books in eBook format, and preferably for half the price... But it doesn't make sense to pay $300ish for a reader with fairly limited battery life and the pay prices for books which in my opinion are still unreasonable.
In Soviet Russia, the television watches YOU!
I recall my one experience purchasing ebooks. It seemed like a fantastic idea. I saved on shipping, and would get it right away.
The DRM management in both the Microsoft and Adobe Readers made it so annoying that it took days for me to be able to read what I purchased. A combination of buggy software and lousy online support ended my enthusiasm. In the end, I decided to go back to good, old-fashioned books.
I don't blame them. I love to read (plug for my book reviews) but reading on the computer stinks. It hurts my eyes, and I would never read a book in the positing that I sit at my desk. And I'm not about to lug my laptop along to read during commutes on the tube.
Besides, i can just walk into the local B&N and sit and read half of any book before the store closes. :) Gotta love those comfy chairs.
-=-This sig brought to you by The Cheat; and by Viewers Like You.-=-
It depends on the format, but they could be searchable. Ever have a book where you want to find the exact wording of a quote, or want to look up something in a book that has a crummy index? Just search. Also convienience; if I had a good reader (very clear screen) I'd much rather carry that around than a couple 1000-page textbooks.
I wonder what's really going on at Barnes and Noble. My roomie is a manager there and she said they were reducing the size of the computer section big time. Now they're dropping eBooks. Is this just an odd coincidence or is B & N moving more toward a "traditional" bookstore and coffeeshop mix (meaning does management think computer related stuff isn't "traditional")? Does anyone know?
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
Noone really wants to download a PDF and page through it at their desk and I don't know too many people taking laptops to the toilet, bathtub, or park in order to read. The problem isn't really with eBooks per-say, its that there really isn't a convenient way to view the content.
Some of the new OLED technology may make eBooks more practical for consumers, but right not they just aren't convenient enough and the eBook readers only add insult to injury as many consumers (myself included) just don't see the point in buying a device to read a book as opposed to just buying the paper book and not having to worry about charging it up before making a coast-to-coast flight.
that's sad. I always believed that ebooks, anyway an electronic form for books, would have been really successful. This apparently demonstrates the countrary. Or maybe this just underlines that the "ebook" form was not good enough. Personally I find very usefull to have ebooks, large PDF's, big text only files of something that is pubblically available. We can talk about RFC's, manuals, 80 years older novels, poems and so on. They are useful for research, studying (school/uni books cost really a lot of money nowadays), being informed and so on. The problem is always the same: authors want to always be sure to earn LOTS of money from their work. Blaming or not blaming them?
I don't think e-books are going to die. When offered for sale, e-books are great products for small businesses, and when given away gratis they're a great marketing vehicle. However the business dynamics of e-books are very different from paper-based books. Selling e-nooks does not make much business sense for a company like Barnes and Noble. Some other company will be kind of e-books. :-)
Greetings,
Norbert.
This is exactly why I only buy unencrypted e-books and sci-fi magazines from Fictionwise
Their Multiformat books are available as:
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) for Macintosh and PCs
Palm DOC (PDB) for Palm compatible devices
Palm iSilo (PDB) for Palm compatible devices
Microsoft Reader (LIT) for PC and PocketPC devices
Franklin eBookman (FUB) for Franklin eBookMan devices
Hiebook (KML) for Hiebook devices
Mobipocket (PRC) (currently available for Palm, PocketPC, and Franklin eBookman devices)
Rocket (RB) for Rocket and REB/1100
I think I have a faily good chance of being able to read at least one of those formats in a few years time, and unencrypted Acrobat files can be transcoded into html easily.
Please note: Even though these books are not protected I have bought over a hundred books and short stories here and mysteriously failed to put them on kazaa or even give copies to my friends.
I am (shock horror for SCO, RIAA etc) both an open source programmer and I support copyright. Without copyright the GPL is meaningless.
- Paul
I believe there are many reasons for this. A big one would be that most people do not enjoy staring at a computer monitor reading for long hours at a time. This can become very uncomfortable, especially for people who work on computers all day to begin with. I read three 300+ page novels (Star Wars fan fiction, the Snotzenexer Trilogy, awesome stuff, check 'em out) on a computer screen, and pretty much the only reason I did that was because I didn't really have the capability to print those pages.
anyway
Another big reason, is that most people don't seem to like the idea of paying for something that is just some digital document that just sits on your hard drive, and doesn't seem to be anything more than a typical word processing document.
Then there's just that psychological factor of books, turning pages, seeing the book on your shelf, being able to hold it in your hands. In this day and age, with so many people doing all kinds of work on computers, the idea of coming home and curling up with a cup of coffee in front of your computer monitor is a whole lot less appealing than in your bed with a book in your hands.
So while e-books have obviously failed this generation, I do not believe that publishers should totally give this idea up. They should wait for a little bit, and then push this idea on this new generation coming up. If they can get the kids to grow up with this concept, books will become far less prominent. ahem.. I shall leave now
This post was brought to you by the number 584811 and the characters / and .
While the costs, profit margins, and filesharing probably had an effect.
I think the true killer to this product is that technology just isn't up to doing recreational printed material. The readable font-size and eye comfort factors are still inferior to good old ink on paper. And it will still be that way for a few generations of screens.
I say there won't be a comeback for a good 5-10 years.
Go to http://www.blackmask.com.
Thousands of *free* ebooks.
Who cares if B&N drops 'em? Blackmask has the good stuff, everything's free, and they're in six (at least) different formats for nearly every device under the sun. Plus no stupid DRM.
The eBook is too young to die.
The eBook isn't dead - it's just immature. Anyone remember the Apple Newton? I don't mean to offend the legions of devotees that the machine apparently has, but the fact of the matter is that it was too young an idea to succeed, and we had to wait until US Robotics came out with the PalmPilot to see that kind of computer enter the mainstream. The same thing happened with Windows 1.0. I could go on and on. The problem with these kinds of things is that some solid ideas are lacking things - battery life, maybe, or size or reliability.
I think the same thing is happening with eBooks - they're too bulky, expensive, battery-hungry, difficult to read, and just generally inconvenient to read when compared with books. Not to mention that I don't like shelling out a few hundred dollars for a machine to read eBooks when I could use that money towards twenty or thirty paperbacks. And as many people have said, paper does have its charm.
I can see the convenience of eBooks, and it seems like some early adopters have, too. But they're just not ready for widespread adoption yet.
I produce electronic music and write little games. Have a look.
"potentially lucrative"
I've yet to meet anyone who ever payed for an eBook. But thats besides the point.
Even if sales are low, B and N still makes a profit because the author/pubisher is the only one they have to pay, and they only pay them if they sell ebooks.
No, they have to pay to own and operate a bunch of servers, pay for bandwidth, pay for staff, pay beancounters to do the books, pay all the other trappings of any business venture. The only thing they save is the couple of bucks the real books would cost them wholesale.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
BOO! TERRO
The basic problem is straightforward. The public believes that the prices that they charge for e-books are too high.
When you do not recieve a hardcopy of a book, you don't feel that it is of the same value. Just today, I was reviewing a book on Amazon that I was interested and found that it is available in electronic format for 2/3 the price. However, that is TOO MUCH MONEY for what you are getting. Without a physical book:
- you cannot read it elsewhere
- you can lose it with an accidental keystroke
- it is more difficult on your eyes (in most cases)
- At times, you are not in control of the media. In cases of some digital music, DRM allows another company to possibly "disable" your music at a later date, if they decided to change the purchase terms.
Those are major downfalls. If a book cost $20, I would be much more willing to purchase an e-book if it were $5 instead of the more likely $15. That, however, is probably below the cost of "manufacture" for the book, which is unacceptable to most publishers. However, the product they are selling is not equal in value to what they are trying to charge.
What I suggest is making the e-book an incentive 'add-on' to a physical book. Sell the physical book for $20, but then throw in the e-book as a bonus, or for around $2-$3 extra. That way you not only have the physical volume, but also a searchable e-book.
www.webscriptions.net. Just because B&N doesn't want your money doesn't mean that nobody does...
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
Baen Books has an electronic publishing program that works for them and their authors. For $15 you get all of their books for a month (generally 6 titles, although 2-3 are usually reissues or the paperback release of a previous hardcover). If that's too much of a committment, individual books are available for $4-5. You can download the books in HTML, Palm Pilot, Rocketbook, RTF, and MS Reader formats. There's no DRM involved - Jim Baen figures that if he makes the books available at a reasonable price, people are generally honest and will pay for them rather than pirating them. They even give away electronic books in the Baen Free Library, and their authors have reported that they're seeing increased sales in their backlist, even from other publishers, that they can only attribute to appearing in the BFL.
OK, this has been covered ad nauseum. But if you really want eBooks, done the way that they should be, with no DRM, and an outright friendly redistribution policy that amounts to "Make copies for your friends and hand them out, as long as you aren't charging for them that's great", then go to Baen Books (follow the big "Free Stuff Here" link).
They seem to be making money on them. They sell the eBooks cheaper than the real paper ones (the problem with BN's was that they were ludicrously expensive) and you can get the full eBook whenever the hardcover comes out. Actually, you can get the book in pieces before the hardcover hits stores.
In addition to giving away free books, they also have free sample chapters of upcoming books.
You can read all about the how-and-why of it here on Baen's site. Go read that link. It's absolutely indredible. It seems that Jim Baen gets it. We'll wait and see who else does.
I've been reading Baen's eBooks for about a year now. Reading on a desktop PC with a CRT does suck. Reading on my PowerBook's LCD is awesome. It's not without some inconvenience (batteries, not being able to read in the john), but it's comfortable and easy, and it's way cheaper than buying the whole book (they offer individual titles for $5 each, or $15 for their selection of 5). I usually have enough magazines and stuff laying around to read in the john anyway.
If you purchase a selection you can download it in MS Reader shareable format (no DRM). Or HTML, or RTF. Whatever. No DRM on anything. There's no Adobe PDF, because Jim Baen doesn't like PDF (never have heard that story).
If you purchase the latest John Ringo Posleen series book (Hell's Faire) in hardcover you get a CD with the first 3 books on it, along with a boatload of other books (like a dozen books on one CD). And the license is "not for commercial redistribution", so you can use it, read the books, make copies for your friends, whatever.
Barnes & Noble is rapidly falling down my list of "places I like". They're succumbing to all the same horseshit that companies like Music Warehouse, K-Mart did -- They spend less and less time being concerned with their core product (books & periodicals), and spend more and more time trying to sell me peripheral foo-foo shit like DVDs, Playstation games, and cotton candy in a bag.
About a year and a half ago, I went into a Music Warehouse looking for a Zeppelin CD.. A classic, an album that any place calling itself a "music warehouse" would be insane not to have. I walk inside, and what do I see?
A glass case on a pedistal, with a pair of Reebok shoes lovingly placed inside of it...like i'm supposed to fall to my knees and start jerking off to it. After walking through 6 of 7 aisles of DVDs and and *childrens backpacks* I get to the back of the store. What do I see? An entire *wall* stacked floor to ceiling with hundreds of copies of a single Britney Spears CD. At that point, I just walked out.
Pretty much the same goes for Barnes & Noble these days... I cant go in there and find books they *should* have. What I *do* find, is plenty of DVDs, backpacks, cake, Playstation games, and cotton candy..in a bag.
No doubt, they're getting rid of eBooks to make room for something else neither your or I need. Like some more glass pedistals with Reebok shoes inside.
Bowie J. Poag
I bought one, once upon a time. Didn't want to wait for the harcover version. Hilarity ensued:
1) Price was the same as hardcover, $24.95 WTF?
2) You could only read it on the PC you downloaded it to. WTF?!?
3) You could not make a backup of it. If it got hosed, kiss your $24.95 goodbye WTF!?!??!?!
No more of that crap for me.
And the funniest thing about all this? You can download a DRM-free version of just about any book you want for free on IRC and other places. The publishing industry need to quit following the RIAA's footsteps and instead learn from someone who is doing it right.
Don't throw your computer out the window, throw the Windows out of your computer!
I see a lot of posts complaining about how eBooks aren't so great. I've put close to $400 into eBooks in the past couple years which is a lot more than I've put into dead trees. Perhaps I can explain why.
You see, I read a lot and I go different places. 50 books is a lot to haul around if I'm not sure what I want to read next. A laptop is a lot less so. An Internet-enabled computer at the other location where I can get back to the secured section of my home page is even less cumbersome.
"Ah ha!" some of you are now saying. "Most eBooks are locked down so you can't just pick them up from the password-protected part of your web page!" Well, that was true of Barnes and Noble's offerings. That's why I spent very little money there.
I spent quite a bit of money at places like Fictionwise and Baen's webscription service. All of Baen's stuff comes wrapped in a pleasant HTML format that's easy to use. Some of Fictionwise's stuff is still locked down, but you know what? Most of that is available in the Microsoft Reader format, and the cracking program discussed on Slashdot a while ago is easy and quick to use and it does a reasonably competent job of converting to HTML.
So, while I am sorry to see Barnes and Noble drop out, I want the folks at Baen and Fictionwise to know that they can expect more cash from me. A lot more.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Baen Books does well with ebooks. They have a "webscriptions" page where you can purchase ebooks individually or a month of ebooks on a serial subscription model. There are even freebie books available.
With the month of ebooks, you get about 5 or so books for $15. Two of the books are usually new, and released in parts. 3 months before paper release, you get 1/2 of the book. 2 months before paper release, you get 3/4 of the book. 1 month before release you get the entire book in ebook format.
Many different formats are provided including HTML, Microsoft Reader, and RTF.
I've purchased a number of books and month "subscriptions" from them. I find it handy to have the books on my laptop when I travel. Not as good as paper, but handy when I've run through all of my paper books or I'm waiting for something to finish. Of course, sometimes, I just can't wait to get the latest book from some of my favorite sci-fi authors.
The real reasons ebooks are having a hard time getting noticed are drm and pricing.
MS has jacked up DRM to the point that its nearly impossible to use an ebook if you arent willing to pirate it. Many book publishers havent figured out that if an ebook has 0 portability (another drm issue) or is only useful for a certain amount of time..its value is far less than that of even its paperback equivalent. Even $10 for a half meg text file is way too much IMHO. Amazon, Baen and Peanut have the right idea with many books priced at only 2-3 dollars. Even fictionwise is at least semi-reasonable but B&N has never seemed to get the idea.
As for convenience, e-books are much better suited to the palm or pocketpc than full size computers. I believe that in many instances e-book reading on a portable device is better than reading on paper. Note taking, highlighting and reviewing are much easier not to mention most devices remember where you left off if you have a tendancy to fall asleep reading.
There is a market for e-books, but much like the RIAA and the record companies, the publishers and sellers just have to get over the old model of doing business and accept the reality of the new market.
One thing I would like to see happen is maybe having publishers inlude a mini cd or secure url for an official digital version with the hardback editions. The costs would be minimal and it may do alot to generate awareness, they could even keep their DRM intact.
How odd to see so many posts from the /. community railing against what is clearly a prototype technology.
Yes, ebooks are sucky. Yes, the nicest fonts on the most optically undemanding monitors are still no substitute for the feel of the dead-tree edition in our hands. But isn't this just a thinly disguised cousin to the decades-old analogue/digital debate? Am I the only one who is sick of vinyl die-hards and their "CDs have no warmth" rhetoric?
The current problems with ebooks, as Cory Doctorow says, is the ever-present spectre of DRM.
"I believe that the electronic publishing models that have been tried -- especially those that rely on restricting readers' freedom with "Digital Rights Management" software -- are dead ends. There are lots of ways that electronic texts are inferior to paper (every discussion of "e-books" has to involve at least one paen to the smell of old books and another to the wonder of reading a book in the tub), but there are also lots of ways in which they are superior. You can carry a lot of them around in a small device. You can back them up. You can email them to friends. You can convert them to your favorite file-formats, you can search them, you can copy-and-paste them. When we turn to use-restriction technology, we foreclose the possibilities that make electronic text superior to printed text." (source)
Ebooks, once sites like this one go the way of napster et alia, will become as common as MP3.Some journalistic follow-ups from this article:
"Demand for e-books has been growing quickly, but remains relatively tiny. According to the Open eBook Forum, a trade organization, e-book sales totaled about $5 million in the first half of 2003, compared to $3.8 million in the first half of 2002.
"One bookseller dropping out will have no impact on Random House's commitment to e-books," said Random House Inc. spokesman Stuart Appelbaum.
Open eBook Forum executive director Nick Bogaty said he has no individual corporate statistics, but believes Barnes & Noble.com had just a small percentage of sales. Palm Digital Media, OverDrive, Inc., and Amazon.com are among the leading e-book competitors, Bogaty says.
Barnes & Noble.com had been quite active in the market, even starting its own digital imprint in 2001 and releasing an original work by Dean Koontz.
"We all believe there is a future for e-books," Goldman said. "It's just not here yet."
While I agree that eBooks would never replace the traditional books, they're good for some uses.
By now, everyone is familiar with Gutenberg Project, (been mentioned several times in the discussion already). It's a great resource to grab the classics and go over text, if you only need a chapter or an exerpt. It saves me lots of time instead of driving to the library, finding a book, then sifting through 500 pages to find a section, a quote or a paragraph. With Gutenberg Project, it's really convinient to just download/open the text file and search for whatever it is you're looking for by familiar strings or phrases.
As for commercial eBooks, I find them excellent for searching through the massive text for a specific mention of the subject I'm looking for (take political books for example). It makes research much more easier. Same goes for 400 page technical manuals.
Reading them entirely is a challenge though, since staring at the monitor/LCD/etc for hours is cumbersome and then there is the power factor.
So to sum up, there are many purposes for eBooks existing, but not as a substitute for traditional books. If authors were to include an electronic version of the book with the hardcover or paperback, I doubt there would be a mass piracy problem. People would still buy them. I have bunch of eBooks somewhere on the storage drive which I'd very much like to read, but they're just collecting eDust. I can't remember ever reading an entire eBook. I'd rather pay $10 dollars and save my eye-sight.
I've looked into it seriously for the last couple of years, and so have other authors of my acquaintance; with a few exceptions, eBooks just don't pay the bills.
From the consumer standpoint, reading an eBooks is unpleasant. I get a nasty headache reading for sustained periods from even the best displays. Handheld devices are too small, large screens aren't portable -- and an "old fashioned" paper book doesn't require power, nor will a "real" book become unreadable because of changing formats and hardware standards.
I see ebooks as a suplement to -- and not a replacement for -- paper books. Audio books have found a very comfortable place in the market; ebooks, I'm sure, will find their own niche.
All about me
This is yet another shining example of how attempting to sell a product you can never hope to control the distribution of is fataly flawed.
At the very least you can't hope to sell it at the same price you would for something you can actually touch and claim possesion of.
Apples Itunes is the right way to run this setup (and the sales figures back that up).
Another nail in this ideas coffin was the fact that books are more than just the words within them. Theres something exciting about having a 1st edition print, or the cover art, or the binding. People like to hold books, and carry them around, and look at them, and show them to thier friends, etc, etc. Its just not the same with a PDF, or an "encrypted PDF" (ebook).
/* * pope1 */
Barnes and Noble booksellers (NYSE symbol BKS) is not the same as bn.com (NASDAQ symbol BNBN). They are separate companies with separate management. BKS does however own about 38% of BNBN's stock. BNBN is a joint venture between BKS and Bertelsmann. Don't feel bad, the fools (Motley and otherwise) at Fool.com and Forbes magazine don't seem to know the difference either -- and they are both selling investment advice!
I downloaded it in seconds without having to go to the store, in fact I wouldn't be likely to find it in a store (Old H.L. Mencken stuff. I'm sure I could find it but I'd have to do some serious hunting around, or "special" order). It runs under Linux with my existing choice of "reader" (vim, so sue me) because it's in a standard format (ASCII). White text against a black background is easy on the eyes with a decent monitor and high refresh rate. I can grep it. It'll be easy on my back when I move and I didn't have to build more shelf space to house it. If it lose it somehow I'll just get it again.
Ain't Project Gutenberg great?
Keep your damned propriatary stuff.
Downsides? Yeah, you know. I can't curl up in bed with it. That part does suck. If I really want I can print it though, then give the printed version to a friend ( or even sell it, legally) when I'm through with it.
E-books are just spiffy when they're the right book, in the right format, for the right price and for the right usage.
It's just that B&N can't deliver that kind of e-book.
KFG
I agree, white is not the best color for reading on a computer, but black is not the solution.
Try this out: 255 255 240 or #FFFFF0
It's close enough to white that it looks "normal" but doesn't cause as much strain. Also, with the way our eye work, when it's the closest color to white on the screen our eyes fool us into thinking it's acctually white.
Try it sometime. Works best to make your document editor paper this color and then place a white picture farther into the doc. On a blank page let your eyes get used to the color then scroll down to the white pic. You'll be amazed at how the colors seem to shift though you know they didn't change.
------
THEN ebooks will take off. When you can "curl up" with one, and no sooner.
--- Ban humanity.
In case of eBooks, the way of reading adds something to the formula and as a result the most viable customers for eBook would be people who love (or just used) to read from the screen. Guess who? That's right - computer engineers and web artists. And what do they love to read? The stuff that they have to read: books for their job.
I can prove it. Just check the most successful eBook retail site and see yourself: they have lots books for that audience, new books are coming frequently and the price is very affordable. Oh, by the way, no need to even download it: you can read it right from the web or you can cache it for reading later on any off-line browser. You can cut and paste examples right to your editor or the terminal window. And you can even give up the book from your bookshelf back to to the store and get another one instead!
Less is more !
This is what the RIAA, SCO, and the like really fear, everything else is a sideshow. When people use open source software, public domain works, and entertain themselves online, as befits a free people.
What about a medium or genre that was created after the cut-off date for perpetual copyright (1923 in the USA)? Such mediums include sound films, and such genres include rock music.
What happens in several decades once Project Gutenberg has finally digitized all known public domain works?
Sonny Bono owns you.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I have to wonder if the problem isn't pretty much the same thing as the RIAA's - they are attempting to apply 19th-century business logic ("Business=Sell Things") to 21st century business, where a lot of the things being sold aren't, uh, "things".
A number of posters have pointed out that people selling E-Books are having trouble "because they can't control distribution". Fundamentally, that's because an "E-Book" isn't really a "thing" in the traditional sense of the word.
While the market of internet users seems primed to jump for a RATIONAL commercial venture (I think Apple's music service is a step in the right direction, though not QUITE there yet), this is because of the advantages involved in digital media (such as "being able to easily make a lossless copy to bring with me on a trip", or "seeing music/writing/etc. that I want and being able to get it for myself in a matter of minutes"). "Old Media"'s obsession with only selling "things" gets in the way. The purpose of DRM, after all, is really just to make an awkward 'wrapper' around intangible digital data to make it behave like a real "thing". Sorta. But in so doing, you lose the benefits that make digital media interesting to people - I suppose cement-headed executives are still clinging to the notion that they can force the public back to physical CD's and such regardless of the public market's desires.
If the **AA can get it through their evidently thick skulls that when online, they should quit trying to "sell songs" or "sell books" or "sell movies", but instead try selling "song/book/movie access service" at a REASONABLE price, I think they'd be a lot more successful at making money and reducing copyright violations ("piracy"). WIthout obnoxious DRM restrictions, I'd be quite happy to pay roughly the same as video rental costs to download a 'moderate quality', unrestricted-for-personal-use movie (say, $3.00-$5.00 for 'new releases', $1.00 for older movies, $0.50 for TV show episodes, $0.25 for a good-quality MP3/Ogg song, $0.50 for a typical fiction paperback novel in electronic form, etc.). Sure, that's somewhat less than I'd pay for pre-made physical media, but without the cost of physical media and shipping, that ought to STILL be quite profitable, not to mention being sold at a rate that would make 'pirating' the material about as "profitable" as getting a free gumball out of a gumball machine...
This is not to say that I think people should be ALLOWED to re-distribute materials still protected by reasonable copyright (what's "reasonable" is, of course, a whole other issue) without permission. I just think the "Old School" industries need to quit obsessing about it and get on with adapting to the market, and things will be a lot more tolerable for both them AND us. (Why dredge through a P2P application looking for a bad-quality copy of a movie 'for free', which may or may not turn out to be a 'fake' planted by the **AA when one can get a decent quality version for a few dollars or less direct from the copyright owners?)
And I still think the legislature needs to grep through the laws on copyright and simply replace every single "copy" with "distribute" or "distribution" as appropriate, since the doctrine of "fair use" implies that the problem isn't really 'copying' but the distribution of those copies...
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
lets face it - books were invented for paper publishing. Portable pixel screen devices have one page with little density in comparison. The mass of users determines what computers, pda's, cell phones etc are used for in an evolutionary process. It appears to me that the new devices are being used for abbreviated reading - notes and 'bites' of information - fast changing day to day stuff - that's where their strengths lie. Ebooks are a format pushed by industry, bound to fail like most such things by mass scruteny.
Granted, I usually just get the ones from peanutpress.com (I'll forgo the link - you guys can cut 'n paste).
/. come from peanutpress.com libraries. And they're usually a few bucks cheaper than the meatspace versions anyway - and I don't waste a tree.
They fit on a Palm, I think Windows CE devices, and can even be read on a windows/OS X box. (No idea if Linux support is even offered, though I doubt it for some reason.)
My previous Palm Vx was a great eBook, and my Tungsten is even better. I can put it in a pocket, read on the train, toilet, and the rest. And they tend to have modern books (I'm about to break down and get Tad Williams "War of the Flowers".)
Most of the book reviews I've written for
Just my $0.02.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Don't buy a used Palm IIIxe off of eBay from this guy. Unless, of course, you want to get cooties...
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
One of our mutual friends wrote this up after hearing the story:
If you're looking for old public domain stuff, BlackMask is fine. But places like B&N sell the new stuff that Blackmask can't just give away.
The fact is you could spend your whole life reading public domain books.
Some people however, would rather read the new stuff that you can't get for free and are happy to pay for it. Apparently, not enough people fall into that category.
So yes, to some people, B&N dropping e-books DOES matter and Blackmask can't supply them with what they actually want.
You can always go through the digital black market to get what you'd normally have to pay for, for free.
Some people actually have morals, however and would rather not have something or get it in another form, rather than break the law.
Ben
Work Safe Porn