8 ms·

Wow. E-books such as non-DRM'ed ePub are great sharing and accessibility tool. I can't quite decide whether this conflating of e-books with the Amazon Kindle st

Wow. E-books such as non-DRM'ed ePub are great sharing and accessibility tool. I can't quite decide whether this conflating of e-books with the Amazon Kindle store is stupid or dishonest. The Kindle format/store is only "typical" in that Amazon is a major bookseller. There is nothing preventing every benefit listed there of printed books with ePub, and even people who are blind can access them too.

netcan 11y ago
I don't get the complaint. This is the context: "printed books …(stuff that applies to printed books) ..Contrast that with Amazon e-books (fairly typical).. (stuff that applies to kindle ebooks and other DRM restricted formats):" Its fairly typical in that Amazon is the biggest retailer, a trend setter and other retailers and tech providers follow their lead putting out similar stuff. I don't perfectly agree with the Free Software Foundation at a high level, but I think this comparison is pretty fair. If you compare in most people's physical and legally obtained digital book collections, this is what you will find. The ebooks don't come with the same rights.
- panglott 11y ago
  e-book != DRM EDIT: To be more clear, it says "We must reject e-books until they respect our freedom." But every single benefit it notes of printed books is also true of non-DRM'ed ePub book, except that non-DRM'ed ePubs respect your freedom even more—your freedom to freely copy and distribute it, your freedom to have it displayed by a screenreader or braille device. If you want more free e-books, just go to m.gutenberg.org, find one, and open it in your app of choice.
  - netcan 11y ago
    I don't disagree with this and neither does the article. It is however true that in the practice, in the wild, ebooks mostly do have DRM. Hence, it's a problem with e-books to the the extent that it is a problem.
1wd 11y ago
From the article: "E-books need not attack our freedom (Project Gutenberg's e-books don't)"
- panglott 11y ago
  Exactly. And yet the message of the page is that it is e-books that are the threat. "The Dangers of E-Books". "Join our mailing list about the dangers of e-books". "We must reject e-books..." DRM is the enemy, not e-books.
jobigoud 11y ago
+1, I'm equally baffled by the title and introduction paragraph. I would guess the campaign is pretty US-centric, as I think in Europe Kobo readers are more typical.
Rudism 11y ago
I am against DRM in general, but I don't really understand the whole "free" software movement. Whenever I see the FSF (Stallman et al) deriding any and all software that isn't open source and licensed for free use by anyone for any purpose, it just seems ridiculously naive to me. Does their ideal world really have zero commercial closed-source software? How do software developers get paid in that world? And why stop at software? Do they eat food from restaraunts that don't publish their exact recipes? Do they pay for commercial transportation (buses, airplanes, etc.) that restrict your destinations to pre-set terminals? Why does software get this special "it's evil if it's not open and free" treatment but nothing else? I find it truly bizarre.
- ionised 11y ago
  Free software doesn't mean free and is free of price. It's free as in free to use, copy, alter and redistribute. You can still charge for it.

netcan 11y ago

I don't get the complaint. This is the context: "printed books …(stuff that applies to printed books) ..Contrast that with Amazon e-books (fairly typical).. (stuff that applies to kindle ebooks and other DRM restricted formats):" Its fairly typical in that Amazon is the biggest retailer, a trend setter and other retailers and tech providers follow their lead putting out similar stuff. I don't perfectly agree with the Free Software Foundation at a high level, but I think this comparison is pretty fair. If you compare in most people's physical and legally obtained digital book collections, this is what you will find. The ebooks don't come with the same rights.

panglott 11y ago
e-book != DRM EDIT: To be more clear, it says "We must reject e-books until they respect our freedom." But every single benefit it notes of printed books is also true of non-DRM'ed ePub book, except that non-DRM'ed ePubs respect your freedom even more—your freedom to freely copy and distribute it, your freedom to have it displayed by a screenreader or braille device. If you want more free e-books, just go to m.gutenberg.org, find one, and open it in your app of choice.
- netcan 11y ago
  I don't disagree with this and neither does the article. It is however true that in the practice, in the wild, ebooks mostly do have DRM. Hence, it's a problem with e-books to the the extent that it is a problem.

1wd 11y ago

From the article: "E-books need not attack our freedom (Project Gutenberg's e-books don't)"

panglott 11y ago
Exactly. And yet the message of the page is that it is e-books that are the threat. "The Dangers of E-Books". "Join our mailing list about the dangers of e-books". "We must reject e-books..." DRM is the enemy, not e-books.

jobigoud 11y ago

+1, I'm equally baffled by the title and introduction paragraph. I would guess the campaign is pretty US-centric, as I think in Europe Kobo readers are more typical.

Rudism 11y ago

I am against DRM in general, but I don't really understand the whole "free" software movement. Whenever I see the FSF (Stallman et al) deriding any and all software that isn't open source and licensed for free use by anyone for any purpose, it just seems ridiculously naive to me. Does their ideal world really have zero commercial closed-source software? How do software developers get paid in that world? And why stop at software? Do they eat food from restaraunts that don't publish their exact recipes? Do they pay for commercial transportation (buses, airplanes, etc.) that restrict your destinations to pre-set terminals? Why does software get this special "it's evil if it's not open and free" treatment but nothing else? I find it truly bizarre.

ionised 11y ago
Free software doesn't mean free and is free of price. It's free as in free to use, copy, alter and redistribute. You can still charge for it.