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> people who buy digital copies should be able to take advantage of the fact that ebooks can update the contents of a book over time, and authors should be able
by Ansil849 6y ago
> people who buy digital copies should be able to take advantage of the fact that ebooks can update the contents of a book over time, and authors should be able to update their books easily (if they choose to do so).
The important caveat that needs to be explicitly mentioned here is that readers should be able to consent and opt-in to these updates. Authors should be able to release updates, but they should not be able to push them, overwriting the purchased version of the book without the reader's consent. The keystone example of the outfall of giving an author/publisher the ability to tamper with a purchased book is of course the infamous Amazon 1984 fiasco [1].
[1] https://io9.gizmodo.com/amazon-secretly-removes-1984-from-the-kindle-5317703 https://io9.gizmodo.com/amazon-secretly-removes-1984-from-th...
- robfitz 6y agoFor kindle, at least, authors can do an "optional" update or a "forced" update. The forced one is pushed to every device automatically, and Amazon strongly warns against this when you attempt to do it, becaues it deletes all the readers' notes, comments, and bookmarks. It's basically suggested to only use it for book-breaking issues where the current version is essentially worthless. The optional one adds a little update marker to the book in kindle (similar to a phone app) and lets the user grab it at their own leisure, or ignore it. It's highly unreliable, but is the best practice for any updates which aren't fixing a book-breaking issue.
- geerlingguy 6y agoAnd with LeanPub, it’s opt-in only; the author can send a notification but it’s up to the reader if and when they update.