6 ms·

I do the same. And I rip the DRM off my Kindle books. I'm not putting them on a torrent site, but I'll send one to my girlfriend if I think she'd like it, becau

by deong 11y ago

I do the same. And I rip the DRM off my Kindle books. I'm not putting them on a torrent site, but I'll send one to my girlfriend if I think she'd like it, because well, that's how you treat books. If Amazon cares enough to try to shut down the decryption with better technology, I'll stop buying Kindle books and I guess we'll both be a little bit poorer for it. That's their call though. I'll worry about it when I have to. I don't generally pirate things. I can't say I never do, but it's very rare, and I don't believe I'm in the right for doing so. But with ebooks, I'm paying Amazon for the book, and while I recognize the truth is that content creators and publishers have the right control distribution of their work, in practice I'm only willing to recognize those rights when they're not wholly unreasonable. HBO wanting me to pay for Game of Thrones is reasonable. Wanting to charge me as a commercial broadcaster if I have a watch party at my house isn't, and I feel like my treatment of ebooks is morally fine. It's an arbitrary line, I recognize, but it's one I'm currently fine with.

gdilla 11y ago
For the longest time, ebooks and physical books were priced about the same by the publishers - even though the revenue structure was different (wholesale vs agency). What they forgot was, because of the reasons above, these products are not equivalent. You can resell, lend, etc a physical book whereas you can't an ebook. The consumer gets that an ebook is intrinsically less valuable (well most consumers; the convenience of not using up physical space or taking up weight with ebooks is a value add for many, but that may depend on price too).
- eosrei 11y ago
  It's even worse when the digital version is more expensive than the physical book. $4 delivered for a real older book or $8 for the digital version? Why? The physical book is far more valuable; rather than simply recommending it, I can give it away.
- cableshaft 11y ago
  Since the publishers won the rights to set their own prices on Amazon, the Kindle version has started to become $2-5 MORE expensive. There's two book groups I'm in right now where the current book they're reading is more expensive for the digital copy than for a brand new paperback. I refuse to pay more. Sometimes I might be willing to pay the same, but NOT more. In comparison, The Martian was only $2 for the Kindle version because that guy originally posted his book for only a dollar (or something), and I bought it immediately and told everyone I knew about how cheap it was (the book was good enough I'd have been happy to have paid $10 for it, though).

by deong 11y ago

gdilla 11y ago

For the longest time, ebooks and physical books were priced about the same by the publishers - even though the revenue structure was different (wholesale vs agency). What they forgot was, because of the reasons above, these products are not equivalent. You can resell, lend, etc a physical book whereas you can't an ebook. The consumer gets that an ebook is intrinsically less valuable (well most consumers; the convenience of not using up physical space or taking up weight with ebooks is a value add for many, but that may depend on price too).

eosrei 11y ago
It's even worse when the digital version is more expensive than the physical book. $4 delivered for a real older book or $8 for the digital version? Why? The physical book is far more valuable; rather than simply recommending it, I can give it away.
cableshaft 11y ago
Since the publishers won the rights to set their own prices on Amazon, the Kindle version has started to become $2-5 MORE expensive. There's two book groups I'm in right now where the current book they're reading is more expensive for the digital copy than for a brand new paperback. I refuse to pay more. Sometimes I might be willing to pay the same, but NOT more. In comparison, The Martian was only $2 for the Kindle version because that guy originally posted his book for only a dollar (or something), and I bought it immediately and told everyone I knew about how cheap it was (the book was good enough I'd have been happy to have paid $10 for it, though).