Color Nook

[david-8uUts6sDVDvs2Lz0fTdYFQ at public.gmane.org (David Kramer)]

On 12/26/2010 06:24 PM, Kent Borg wrote:
> Edward Ned Harvey wrote:
>>> From: discuss-bounces-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org [mailto:discuss-bounces-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org] On Behalf
>>> Of Kent Borg
>>>
>>> I don't have a Kindle and I am badly annoyed by the "rental" aspect of
>>> DRMed books which is why I don't have one now 
>>>     
>>
>> What do you mean by that?  You think your books are no longer yours after
>> some period of time, or something like that?
>>   
> 
> Just the fact of DRM in general. ("Digital Rights Management", it sounds 
> so gentle.)
> 
> Buy a DRMed e-book and it will eventually evaporate. It make take some 
> time, but with nearly 100% certainty, eventually it *will* go <poof!>. 
> In contrast, there are a lot of old paper books in the world that have 
> no provenance, yet default into a quite readable state, and those that 
> are old enough have even fallen into the public domain. (How does a 
> Kindle e-book do that?) For DRMed books to be readable, a lot of things 
> have to work right. Even my non-DRMed O'Reilly books are rather fragile 
> because they have no durable physical existence, formats become 
> obsolete, etc.

There's a huge difference, though.  I am nearly certain that whatever
comes along, you will be able to convert your unencumbered PDF files to
a newer unencumbered format.  Nobody flips a switch one day and
instantaneously all PDF files vaporize into the aether to make room form
the new SuperZog format.  There's always an overlap.  Records got
recorded to tapes.  Tapes got recorded to CD.  CDs get ripped to music
players.

You cannot say the same thing about encumbered files.  Yes, there may be
a way to do it, but it's much less likely.

> There are some nice used books stores out there, but the very idea of a 
> used e-book ranges from strange to illegal.

Oh, you mean like the Guttenberg project?  Preposterous.  Never happen.
 I don't see anything about nontransferability in O'Reilly ebook
website, either.

> I have to admit I don't know the details of Amazon's rules, but there 
> was that story of the e-book that vanished from some student's Kindle 
> because Amazon remote wiped it (I know, the original offering for sale 
> was not legal). I think the policy is now different, but it demonstrates 
> the fact that one's shelf of e-books is at the mercy of a corporate 
> policy and the typos that implement it.

The policy change is that now they have to tell you ;)  They can still
delete it, though.

> -kb, the Kent not only hates DRM, but who also doesn't make copies of 
> his CDs for friends or relatives, who respects the copyright of the 
> O'Reilly e-books he has, etc.

You can, however, rip them to an MP3 player and keep the CDs.  And back
them up to a USB hard drive.  Which is what I do.