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Thoughts on the eBook Ripoff

Back in the day I could buy a print book.  I could buy it from thousands of places.  Barnes & Noble, Crown books and countless little corner bookstores.  I could take the book anywhere, read it almost anywhere, quote it and copy it, with reference in school papers.  When I was done with the book, I could give it away, sell it, burn it or throw it away, or I could put it on my self for posterity.  Everyone would agree that I owned the book.  I may not own the ideas or the words on the page, but I owned that instantiation.  No one would call me wrong if I said, “This is my book.”

With eBooks, companies like Amazon and Apple treat these books like software.  Bill Gates changed the way software was bought or sold.  Prior to Bill Gates, software was owned.  Bill Gates licensed his software which allowed him to distribute billions of copies of the same software package, literally getting the sale price over and over.  The terms and services state that you do not own Windows or Office, but can use it.  When you die, or become incapable of using it, the software reverts to Microsoft.

Amazon and Apple are not selling eBooks, they are licensing them.  If you read the terms and services agreement, you can read the book, but if Amazon feels like it, they can remove it from your Kindle, no chance for appeal.  If I die or if Amazon stops the Kindle program, all my books that I bought revert to Amazon.  For Apple, if I stop using iDevices, I have no access to my books.  Additionally, iBooks will not open on a Kindle and Kindle books will not open on iBooks.  The distributor changes the books to lock them into their own device/app.  This is the same for Olive Tree, Accordance and Logos.  It is not uncommon for a pastor to spend hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on books and eBooks in Bible software.  It is currently illegal for me to will my books to anyone.  I cannot sell them on eBay and transfer the license.  Apple has stated that a person can will their iCloud credentials, thereby transferring ownership of all Apple account stuff like apps, storage and iBooks, when I die.

Amazon is trying to minimize the idea of book ownership with their Amazon Kindle subscription.  For $10 a month I can read any and all Kindle books in the Amazon library.  I do no own anything and when I am done, all the books go away.  Almost like Netflix for eBooks.

A better way would be for people to buy books from the publisher, or the author directly.  They would be in charge of providing the various formats for the books.  So I could buy the latest Stephen Covey book and receive it in both Kindle and iBook format.  I would receive an actual file via email or download and I could backup and save and even print that file if I want.  Take Control books does exactly that.  They write “How To” books for using Apple computers and various applications.  When I buy a Take Control book, I get a Kindle version, an iBook version and a PDF.  I can read them on anything I want.  I can save the PDF and even print it, if I want.  I own those books in the same way I owned a print book.



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