Kindle

[Danny]

Thanks. But according to the latest issue of Which? magazine you cannot read books that are in "the popular e-pub format". Is that actually the case, and if so is it an issue?

 

[CopperBrompton]

No, it's not an issue: the chances are the same book is also available in Mobi format, and if it isn't you just use Calibre to convert it.

There are a whole bunch of competing formats out there at the moment. Things will eventually settle down (I suspect initially with two winners, and eventually one).

 

[Piemaster]

I was in Waterstones over the weekend and had a look at the Sony reader. It does appear a better quality build than the kindle, and the touch screen one was quite nice for menu selections (I could easily live without the kindle keyboard) but not really found the lack of a touch screen as a problem. I think I'm just used to having a touch screen phone so maybe with a handheld device its more instinctive for me.
But the important thing for me is the content and how easy it is to get with a kindle - I could have stood in the Waterstones with it and bought books from Amazon.
If anything its actually TOO easy to buy books with it.

Not sure about the format war though ever coming down to just one as with VHS/Betamax or Blu-Ray/ DVD-HD. With music Apples AAC and MP3 (as well as .ogg) seem to have settled as they are and I can't see it ever resolving to one format due to the love/hate thing with iTunes. It may just come down to which publishers are swayed to which format.

 

[marinyork]

Not sure about the format war though ever coming down to just one as with VHS/Betamax or Blu-Ray/ DVD-HD. With music Apples AAC and MP3 (as well as .ogg) seem to have settled as they are and I can't see it ever resolving to one format due to the love/hate thing with iTunes. It may just come down to which publishers are swayed to which format.

It's the DRM and huge amounts of old locked off content or released at absurd prices that's the problem.

I don't think the e-book market is particularly similar in it's demographic to other markets though. I think they are much more susceptible to being taken for a joyride by the publishers.

 

[CopperBrompton]

It's the DRM and huge amounts of old locked off content or released at absurd prices that's the problem.

There are a few examples of ebooks costing more than hardbacks, but in most cases it's not absurd prices: the paper and ink is a tiny fraction of the cost of publishing a book:
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/05/cmap-9-ebooks.html

 

[marinyork]

There are a few examples of ebooks costing more than hardbacks, but in most cases it's not absurd prices: the paper and ink is a tiny fraction of the cost of publishing a book:
http://www.antipope....p-9-ebooks.html

I'm actually familiar with the pay structures as well as the issues. However your assumption about what I'm talking about is wrong and I've said so already in the post you quote -it's not new books I'm talking about on the whole. I'm talking about those books published usually from the early 1920s onwards that are just the wrong side of the copyright laws that are either not available in ebook formats or charged high prices. I did actually say this in my post Ben. I don't so much have a problem with the new new release books out at hardback although as I've said before I think double dipping will annoy people - if publishers want to annoy customers that's their problem.

In actual fact kindle tends to keep them around paperback prices give or take, usually under by a fraction. The issue on this is as time diverges away from the publication date. There are a few examples of the reverse, out of copyright books that are popular that fetch high prices in physical print that are available free on gutenberg, some of them even on amazon for free on kindle such as one of John Stuart Fullerton's books on philosophy. A similar position with the odd other free book in amazon's top 100 free.

 

[Rykard]

Well after umming and arring for ages, the OH got me a 3G one for my birthday yesterday. I haven't had a play with it yet but the screen looks awesome. Can't wait to get some books downloaded..

 

[Danny]

I was in Waterstones over the weekend and had a look at the Sony reader. It does appear a better quality build than the kindle, and the touch screen one was quite nice for menu selections (I could easily live without the kindle keyboard) but not really found the lack of a touch screen as a problem. I think I'm just used to having a touch screen phone so maybe with a handheld device its more instinctive for me.
But the important thing for me is the content and how easy it is to get with a kindle - I could have stood in the Waterstones with it and bought books from Amazon.
If anything its actually TOO easy to buy books with it.

Not sure about the format war though ever coming down to just one as with VHS/Betamax or Blu-Ray/ DVD-HD. With music Apples AAC and MP3 (as well as .ogg) seem to have settled as they are and I can't see it ever resolving to one format due to the love/hate thing with iTunes. It may just come down to which publishers are swayed to which format.

While this ease of use is obviously a big selling point, it does mean that most customers are effectively locked into a single supplier which has its own risks.

The other thing that concerns me about a Kindle is that, as I understand it, Amazon retains the rights to any material downloaded and on at least one occasion has arbitrarily deleted a book for its customers' Kindles because Amazon was in dispute with the publisher.

BTW the Which? magazine article I referred to earlier rated the Sony e-readers more highly than either the Kindle or iPad (though they were all pretty close to each other).

 

[CopperBrompton]

While this ease of use is obviously a big selling point, it does mean that most customers are effectively locked into a single supplier

Not so: see above.

The other thing that concerns me about a Kindle is that, as I understand it, Amazon retains the rights to any material downloaded and on at least one occasion has arbitrarily deleted a book for its customers' Kindles because Amazon was in dispute with the publisher.

Amazon has apologised for this and said it will not do this again.

 

[CopperBrompton]

I'm talking about those books published usually from the early 1920s onwards that are just the wrong side of the copyright laws

'Just on the wrong side' is an irrelevance: if an agreement has to be reached, and royalties paid, those costs are incurred whether the book was written yesterday or 100 years ago.

 

[Piemaster]

The other thing that concerns me about a Kindle is that, as I understand it, Amazon retains the rights to any material downloaded and on at least one occasion has arbitrarily deleted a book for its customers' Kindles because Amazon was in dispute with the publisher.

With no small amount of irony around the Big Brother theme, the book was 1984. Story here
Comes down to Amazon didn't actually have the right to sell it in the first place.
But as I've posted previously Google can do the same thing with apps you download (for removal of malicious ones) and Apple can do it with iTunes music/apps.

 

[Danny]

But as I've posted previously Google can do the same thing with apps you download (for removal of malicious ones) and Apple can do it with iTunes music/apps.

Which is one reason why I don't buy anything from iTunes.

 

[CopperBrompton]

Ironically, as someone who is quite anti-DRM in general, I've pretty much stopped buying music altogether. I have a Spotify Premium account with a netbook hooked into my hifi, and it's rare I use any other music source these days other than in the car (iPod plugged into the car stereo). Out and about, I use Spotify on my phone, creating offline playlists to listen to while travelling.

 

[marinyork]

'Just on the wrong side' is an irrelevance: if an agreement has to be reached, and royalties paid, those costs are incurred whether the book was written yesterday or 100 years ago.

It's not at all an irrelevance if you want e-books to really take off. I don't have a problem paying royalties to the books, but they should be a lower amount than what they want. Those that aren't utilized and are very old should really be released into the public domain. Before you start spluttering on your tea exactly this issue happens in other spheres where a similar problem of archiving occurs. In those other spheres they come to a much more intelligent decision. I'm more worried about back catalogue at the moment, but what I've said will become an issue. If you think I'm interested in this just from a free books point of view I'm not, I'm concerned about fairly famous books not being archived in e-book format.

In anycase the agreement was retrospectively applied which you know perfectly well. In actual fact copyright law in the US used to actually be more along the lines of what I think it should be - if things weren't renewed it could theoretically go out of copyright (changed multiple times). It's just our laws and particularly US ones are hopelessly out of date. As is our tax policy on them.

 

[CopperBrompton]

It's not at all an irrelevance if you want e-books to really take off.

Amazon now sells more ebooks that paper books: I think you can probably now relax your concern about whether ebooks will take off.