# ebook vs paperback mini rant



## nev (13 Apr 2017)

paperback: needs paper and ink, printers, packagers, deliverers to wholesalers, retailers and customers. 3.00 delivered
Ebook: needs a server. 4.99
Go figure!
:evil:


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## Fitzroy (13 Apr 2017)

Ebooks have VAT on them also, paper ones don't. More madness!


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## Claymore (13 Apr 2017)

ya can't read a ebook on a desert island unless you have a solar powered charger 9-)

If they use less paper though its more wood for us to butcher


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## Stanleymonkey (14 Apr 2017)

If they use less paper though its more wood for us to butcher [/quote]


You are a very wise man


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## sunnybob (14 Apr 2017)

kindle unlimited. e books free. I read many, many (yeah, even MANY) books on it. I would need to be a wealthy man to be able to buy all the books I read. Especially if I decide I dont like it after the first two pages. Delete, download another, carry on.


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## AES (14 Apr 2017)

Hullo all,

Here's a take on E-books from a confirmed "conput/fuser Luddite" and a definite very "late adopter" of just about anything new, "modern", electronic, or what I consider to be in any way geek-ish. Specifically I'm talking about Amazon/Kindle here:

Advantages:

1. Both my wife and I are avid readers of all sorts of books. Our living room wall is literally covered from almost the floor up to ceiling height with over flowing bookshelves, and there is overspill in just about every other room in the house! I've NO idea how many there are, but it's LOTS! We both have Amazon Kindles (the "Paperwhite" model, so they're quite old versions). Each has +/- 300 books stored (in a package roughly the size of 1 slim paper back volume), which of course we can take anywhere - including reading in bed, in hospital, etc, and regardless of the size of the original book.

2. Amazon automatically backs up all these books on their own, account-dedicated to me/us personally, with a "Cloud"-type server somewhere. It works through a wifi system, so if you're at home, or logged on somewhere else, it all functions automatically, in the background, while you're reading.

4. The screen allows you to read a book in just about any ambient light conditions.

5. My wife has slowly failing eyesight (called "grau star" here - not sure what it's called in English) and although the deterioration rate has slowed, she'll need one or maybe two eye op/s one day. Meantime her ability to focus on print is reduced, and varies according to time of day and current ambient lighting. As above she can read her Kindle anywhere, because she can also easily adjust the size of the typeface and word spacing to suit her needs at any particular time.

6. Of course our Kindles need power, but even when we are both reading for (I guess) a total of 2-3 hours/day, on average they only need re-charging about once a week. The charger supplied (one of the smallest and handiest I've ever seen until the current generation of smart phones) goes into any wall socket anywhere, and can also plug into any USB (PC, tram, on the train, etc). And having spent a lot of my professional life travelling to all sorts of weird and (often not so!) wonderful places, I already owned a small travel charger which includes a solar cell. It works everywhere and charges/has charged my laptop, printer, phone, etc, and later on, my Kindle too. "Desert islands?" "No problem Sir".

7. I always read (at home) with a dictionary nearby (saves surprises when unknown words crop up). Still do actually. But Kindle has a very quick and easy to use multi-language dictionary built in. Unknown word? 1 click brings a cursor over the word. A 2nd click gives an immediate definition on screen. More info needed? A 3rd click brings up a full definition, with links to associated words. Great feature.

8. How else could I lie in bed at 4.00 am and browse a book store - and order? And how else can I get virtually instant delivery at NIL cost?

9. Here (Switzerland) a typical paper back costs about 15 to 25 Swiss Francs (roughly 10 quid+). I'm not sure if VAT is included on that or not. But here a Kindle E-book costs, on average, about half that. Only "hot new releases" cost more, and very often, a few weeks later, the price drops down to the above average.

10. I automatically get info on new releases or other stuff that Amazon thinks I might like. Their ideas of what I might like are sometimes quite off the wall, if not downright ridiculous, but are often bang on target. And they also allow me to pre-order books before release date. All automatically.

11. The range of E-books available for Kindle is larger, more extensive, and more subject all-encompassing than any book store could possibly stock. And they seem to be constantly adding older books (sometimes much older) to their E-book lists.

12. We've neither of us tried it, but you can use Kindle to subscribe to newspapers and magazines - with the above almost instant and nil cost delivery advantages.

13. Completely free of charge you can download a sample of a book you think you might like. If you do you buy it. If not you just delete it. NO cost.

14. Apparently (again we've neither of us tried it, we're just not interested) more modern versions of our Kindles allow viewing videos too. Music too? Dunno, but probably.

15. Like Aldi and Lidl for example, Amazon's customer service has been found to be second to none. No cost whatever, your choice of E-mail or phone call, friendly, very helpful, and very knowledgeable/efficient staff. Very seldom needed but very nice when Kindle does go bonk - or as has happened VERY occasionally, when you buy an E-book with so many errors in it that it just becomes unreadable - absolutely no quibble money back, again virtually instant.

I've really surprised myself - it's the first time I've ever tried to list all the Kindle advantages formally, on paper, rather than just have the gut feel of "this thing really IS good".

Disadvantages:

1. Kindle E-books are worse than useless (as well as highly annoying) with any book that contains photos, diagrams, maps, etc. especially if these form an important part of the narrative. Yes, you can expand the page on screen (through the very clunky keyboard) BUT in so doing you loose the "page overview". (I've seen exactly the same problem with aircraft maintenance engineers using tablet computers, etc, in the hangar and work shop). OK for text, but (in my old-fashioned view anyway) you just can't beat a good paper print out - especially if it's a diagram, schematic, parts break down, circuit diagram, etc. We've both now stopped buying any E-books at all with such content (knitting & dress making patterns included).

2. For similar reasons, Kindle is absolutely useless to take into your own workshop.

3. Amazon says our Kindles handle .pdf files as well as their own E-book format. They do - after a fashion. In reality, there are similar problems to those in item 1 above, and the way you're supposed to manoeuvre around in a .pdf file is so clunky (that stupid keyboard again) that we've both just given up with it. Far better to get the .pdf onto the PC screen and print out parts as required.

4. Kindle gives the ability to set up your own indexing system and we've both done that (by author, subject - whatever you like). But (again that BLOOMING keyboard) it's such a slow and infuriating task that it would be MUCH easier to just put a real book on the shelf in the required place (IF we had a big enough bookcase)!

5. Both my wife have spent HOURS browsing bookshops over the years - and rarely do we leave one without having purchased something! Still do browse such shops, but less so these days. Personally, "post-Kindle", I spend less time and money in the (excellent) English book shop in Basel. So I guess it's true that Amazon is driving bookshops out of business. That's a great pity. But to us anyway, the above advantages outweigh that. Sorry bookshops. Perhaps they need to look for a way to make visiting them outweigh the above advantages.

6. Apparently Amazon (and others) doesn't pay the tax that they really should. As until retirement we were both directors of our own limited company, we were always careful to pay exactly what we should pay - NO funny business. But equally, we both (and our accountant) were very careful to claim for all available legal reliefs - just sound business practice we think. Having had personal experience of the tax laws of Switzerland, UK, and Germany, we both know that not only are the tax laws extremely complex in all these countries, they're sometimes also downright unfair. But tax laws in all these countries are written by highly paid (apparent) experts. So if these "ladies and gentlemen" cannot draft the laws and regulations to achieve what they actually want to achieve from the likes of Amazon, we just say "Hard luck Ladies & Gents, better luck next time round".

I think this has turned into a rant. NOT my original intention and hope it's not too boring.

Within the above limitations, we say "long live Amazon" (or Kindle anyway). BTW I find Amazon rather less effective to deal with when it comes to "hard" items such as tools.

AES


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## AES (14 Apr 2017)

A P.S. in reply to sunnybob.

Our Kindles don't do Amazon Prime (or whatever it's called), I think our Paperwhites are too old. Because of free samples we don't miss the Prime thingy.

Anyway never mind, we both work on the basis of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" (as said somewhere above, we're both - very - late adopters of new stuff).

Anyway, buying something new when the old item still works leaves less cash free for buying new books (or tools, or whatever)!

It's also the reason why we deliberately go out of our way to avoid updating any software applications we own (apart from the MS automatic ones which are free).

In our view, as well as costing hard-earned dosh, software updates mainly just make you learn (often painfully) a new way of learning to do something you've previously learnt how to do (also often laboriously), and usually NOT resulting in a better or more powerful result, just different. (Bloody marketing flower arrangers).

"Security?", I hear you ask.

As far as we know, the software on our Kindles has never been updated, AND they've never been hacked in any way. Never even heard of Kindles being hacked or got at in any way by criminals.

FWIW. AES


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## sunnybob (14 Apr 2017)

My missus is the kindle freak, she uses the big fire for everything a laptop used to do. She uses facebook and games and emails and messaging and everything!
She has the prime package, my old hd fire (now broken with a U/S charger socket) and my paper white are all slaved to hers.

I admit I fought it, but as a lifelong reader of thousands of books loaned from every library and hotel foyer in the world, I finally caved in when my local library closed and I was faced with scanning the used book stores at sunday markets.

I can either buy a book, or "read for free". I can have up to 10 books in the queue, and as soon as I download book 11, I have to return one. Brilliant system as when I decide I dont want to read it after the first chapter, I just download another, even if it is midnight and I'm reading under the blankets with the light off.
Despite having a dozen unread books in the cupboard, I am a full convert and now just read the kindle.

One recommendation; start reading "The corridor man". Make sure you read the series in order, because youll never catch up otherwise. Makes Jack Reacher look like a slow worm


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## AES (14 Apr 2017)

Thanks for that sunnybob.

You wrote, QUOTE: ... start reading "The corridor man". Makes Jack Reacher look like a slow worm. UNQUOTE.

Thanks a lot for the tip. Never heard of it/him/them, though I'm a self-confessed Jack Reacher fan (not to mention "Inspector Grace" among lots of others).

I'll give it/him/them a go (no doubt start looking under the bed covers with a torch tonight  )!

AES


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## nev (14 Apr 2017)

Funnily enough it was the new Reacher that sparked my ire. Spooky! So I shall also investigate the Corridor Man.


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## Noel (15 Apr 2017)

Bit of a 'ard boy that bloke Reacher...must get the last one. Will also check out The Corridor man, although I see a few reviewers mentioning:



> It won't get more than that from me because it's another fricken "to be continued" piece of trash! I almost started to enjoy the book - a loser tying to get his act together again, but inherently a sleaze ball ... And then an abrupt, "I'm so sorry to stop here, but please get the next book ..."



which isn't a big issue as long as the story is good and well written.


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## sunnybob (15 Apr 2017)

Noel,
The reviewer must be the same one I read regarding a hotel, which stated his wife had been assaulted by a security guard and the hotel did nothing. Always disregard the best (written by the owner) and the worst (written by an silly person) of any set of reviews.

Of course he has to buy the next book (unless he reads for free). Its not a series, its a SERIAL! Hello????

Just to give a bigger clue;
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2611 ... rridor-man


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## petermillard (15 Apr 2017)

TBH the reviews for the new Reacher aren't so great either; download a sample chapter, or take a punt on it and make up your own mind. Not sure which is the most amazing - that you can buy a book for the price of a cup of coffee, or that a cup of coffee costs as much as a book...

And FWIW Kindle Unlimited isn't free - it's a subscription service of ~£8/month; great value if you read a lot and can get what you want in the 'unlimited' library.

Cheers, P


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## sunnybob (15 Apr 2017)

Peter, between us we get way more than our moneys worth from it (but dont tell amazon that). I couldnt afford to buy all the books I read, I would have to give up woodworking to pay for them all.

We have a friend who collects the reacher books, luckily she loans them out for free. Just a matter of waiting our turn.

Another highly addictive SERIAL is The Frontiers Saga by Ryk Brown. But be warned all you folk who buy their books, this one is 16 volumes, spread over 2 different series. make sure you get them in the right order, because theres no reprise at the start of each one.


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## AES (15 Apr 2017)

FWIW, I hardly ever read the Amazon book reviews, and I never review them myself - I think opinions on things like books (and music for example) are so personal I can't believe my own opinion is of any value or interest to anyone else.

Personally I just look at subject areas, then titles, then the brief outline of the book that Amazon themselves have published. If that's OK I then order a free sample (which is 99% of the time big enough to give me a real good feel for the book). When I get to the end I either click "Buy" or I delete the sample. Works fine for me and simple. 

Perhaps I'm just too easy to please.

AES


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## Noel (15 Apr 2017)

sunnybob":2aj4elad said:


> Noel,
> The reviewer must be the same one I read regarding a hotel, which stated his wife had been assaulted by a security guard and the hotel did nothing. Always disregard the best (written by the owner) and the worst (written by an silly person) of any set of reviews.
> 
> Of course he has to buy the next book (unless he reads for free). Its not a series, its a SERIAL! Hello????
> ...



As said, no big issue for me. Will give the books a go. Some years ago somebody here suggested Jo Nesbo, great writer and think I have a dozen or so on the book shelf. A lot of good stuff out there besides the usual (good) fare from L Child (Reacher), M Connelly, Baldacci, L Barclay, Deaver etc.


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## devonwoody (15 Apr 2017)

Yes we are ebook readers in our house these days as well.

Mainly use Overdrive and that takes us to the local library and books are free.
Also have three daughters spread around the country and they let us use their library cards for those areas which differ from Torbay libraries stock.

edit we use the ipad, library books not available on laptops?


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## Jonzjob (15 Apr 2017)

sunnybob":5jp9aqxy said:


> Peter, between us we get way more than our moneys worth from it (but dont tell amazon that). I couldnt afford to buy all the books I read, I would have to give up woodworking to pay for them all.
> 
> We have a friend who collects the reacher books, luckily she loans them out for free. Just a matter of waiting our turn.
> 
> Another highly addictive SERIAL is The Frontiers Saga by Ryk Brown. But be warned all you folk who buy their books, this one is 16 volumes, spread over 2 different series. make sure you get them in the right order, because theres no reprise at the start of each one.



Just a quick correction and quote of the first few words of the link

"The first in an exciting new series"

My favourite series is Horatio Hornblower, CS Forester. A superb read. I too and a Jack R fan and I may become a Corridor reader too as I have got the sample of the 1st 3 books. 

I'm reading Burmese Days, Orsen Wells, at the moment. A very interesting view of how we lost the Empire and the bigoted view in those days.

AES, why do you need a torche with a Paperwhite? :mrgreen:


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## AES (15 Apr 2017)

@Jonzjob:

Torch? Cos the screen is not illuminated.

Before buying the Kindles my wife borrowed another model from a friend which I briefly tried too. As I remember it was a Sony (but not sure now, it was about 4 years ago). Whatever, that reader did have an illuminated screen, and surprisingly enough, just as the pundits said (we did some research before taking the plunge) the illuminated screen seems to be a DIS-advantage - e.g. reading outside in bright sunlight.

Our Kindles do not have an illuminated screen, and again surprisingly, you can read it clearly and easily under just about any ambient light conditions, as per my o.p. But NOT in complete darkness, hence the later "flip" comment about using the torch under the bedclothes. (Shades of my miss-spent youth)  

Apart from the lack of illumination making reading the Kindle Paperwhite screen so clear and easy, I GUESS that this is at least one reason for the pretty long battery life (re-charge about once a week after roughly 2-3 hour use per day).

AES


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## thetyreman (15 Apr 2017)

I've recently build a wooden bookcase for all my real books, I can read them offline whenever I want, as many times as I want, it's brilliant.


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## Droogs (15 Apr 2017)

I now use a kindle for nearly all my reading as I no longer have the space for books. Having not thrown away any book I have bought since I was around 12, I was forced by SWMBO to get rid of them and only keep the ones I really needed. So consequently I now have a small library in the spare room with around 700 books and gave away 3500 to various charities around Edinburgh. I do read on average 4 books a week as I was taught to spead read as part of my trade when in the forces. The Kindle unlimited is great as I've read around 300 books since last november. 
I do get my woodcrafts and The woodworker subs through it as well. Though to be honestif I need to really see the pics in detail I have to look at it on the laptop


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## Jonzjob (15 Apr 2017)

AES that is where the confusion is? A Paperwhite is lacklit and can be read by a black cat in a coalcellar at midnight mate :mrgreen: 

I have a Paperwhite and it's just as clear in our strong sunlight as in the dark.


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## AES (15 Apr 2017)

@thetyreman: You wrote, QUOTE: I've recently build a wooden bookcase for all my real books, I can read them offline whenever I want, as many times as I want, it's brilliant. UNQUOTE:

I built "a" bookcase a long time back and it's now overflowing, with no room to place another in any sensible place. But I can read my Kindle-stored extra 300+ books at any time whatever also, also as many times as I like, and also do NOT need to be on line to do so!

@jonzjob: Sorry mate, don't know where/how the misunderstanding has arisen, but neither of our Paperwhites' screens have any illumination at all (not sure exactly what backlit means in this context). And I can assure you that ours most definitely CANNOT be read in nil light conditions e.g. (in a coal shelter at midnight) by either of us. Sorry, we have no black cat to experiment with!

But, as per my previous post, the other E-book reader we tried (Sony maybe?) WAS illuminated and could NOT be comfortably read in bright sunshine. We tried. Our Paperwhites can be read in such conditions (and we often do so) though I admit I cannot understand why the lack of screen illumination makes this possible, and the (Sony's?) screen illumination makes it impossible. I do seem to remember some Amazon "marketing yuck-speak" rambling on about specially-developed screen "backing material" with properties to accurately resemble paper, or something of that ilk, but have frankly forgotten it all and probably did not even understand it all in the first place! 

AES


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## AES (15 Apr 2017)

@Droogs: You wrote, QUOTE: Having not thrown away any book I have bought since I was around 12, I was forced ..... UNQUOTE:

Yeah, we were/are both exactly the same. In our case, having suffered several house moves over the years, including overseas and back (twice actually), it wasn't SWMBO but sheer necessity which forced us both to - VERY reluctantly - ditch some books. We both well remember standing almost knee deep in empty boxes & boxes, deciding volume by volume which to keep and which to scrap! Very difficult.

Still at least the ditched books all went to good homes, hospital libraries, etc, so who knows, some may even still exist.

As per my o.p. here, a real positive advantage of Kindle (E-books in general I guess).

AES


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## sunnybob (15 Apr 2017)

I dont like samples, I hate knowing what happens next. I like the book to be a surprise.
On the other hand, I wont read books that contain gratuitous violence or people abuse. (i know, that SEVERELY limits me nowadays).
That why i find the unlimited so good. Start the book, soon as you see which way its going, carry on or delete and start another.
There was a book last week that I deleted after not finishing the first paragraph. i cant believe the depravity of so many authors nowadays, no wonder our children are desensitised to violence.


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## petermillard (15 Apr 2017)

AES":6jszb19m said:


> ...neither of our Paperwhites' screens have any illumination at all (not sure exactly what backlit means in this context). And I can assure you that ours most definitely CANNOT be read in nil light conditions e.g. (in a coal shelter at midnight) by either of us....



Just FYI, all Kindle Paperwhite's have an illuminated screen - it was their big selling point when launched in 2012 - so you either have a different Kindle, or you have the illumination turned off. And not to be pedantic, but e-ink screens are opaque, they can't be backlit; Kindle Paperwhite and others with illuminated e-ink screens are side-lit.

HTH, Pete


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## sunnybob (15 Apr 2017)

2nd that. If its a kindle paperwhite you have backlight.
When you tap the top of the screen to get the options up, starting from the left is HOME, then BACK ARROW, then a cog shaped sun emblem.Tap that will give you sliding scale of brightness.

Sometimes when I turn mine on it doesnt light up, so i have to press the lower button off, then on again, and the screen lights ok.


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## MarkDennehy (15 Apr 2017)

Paperback (and hardbacks too) : You buy a book. Do with it what you want. Resell it later to a charity shop if you want, give it away, share it with someone, hell cut it up and use it to hide a small bottle of something if you're a complete turnip. 

eBook : _Licence_ a book's content. Which means it's not yours, you just bought the right to read the content. You can't legally share it, give it away, cut it up and use it for something, and if the company (amazon, B&N, Kobo, whomever) thinks you shouldn't have it, they can remotely delete it from your device (no, they _have_ done so in the past, quite publicly and with no sense of irony).

I buy ebooks a lot, the convenience factor is great, but if it's a good book I buy the dead tree version as well. Sometimes only the dead tree version. Your tom clancy and john grisham cookie-cutter books, that's a good use for ebooks, you don't care to own them for a generation or two. Your Lost Art Press books.... no, I want those in hardback and Bezos can keep his hands out of my library, thankyouverymuch.


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## sunnybob (15 Apr 2017)

I never felt the need to keep books, mainly because I would need a warehouse I suppose. I know a woman here who has the entire jeffrey deaver catalogue, all arranged by release date and pristine and no she WILL NOT loan them out. Wouldnt even let me handle one of them. Cant get my head around that.
Since emigrating 10 years ago, all I have left now are around 15 Terry Pratchet books (1 signed), mainly because he's the only author i have ever read who can make me giggle even when I'm reading for the fourth or fith time.


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## novocaine (15 Apr 2017)

I'm sending all my books (via the neighbour who wants some of them) to charity or the local phone box library next week.

Except Terry pratchet and my text books. I've got all the TP stuff on the kindle too. So sad. Got a first edition colour of magic in there that's never been read.


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## AES (15 Apr 2017)

@petermillard & sunnybob:

This is very interesting and complete news to me, thanks a lot. There (I should now say) "appears" to be no sign of any screen lighting at all, and if you take it into "the coal cellar" (completely dark) you simply cannot see the screen.

When I get a minute I'll try what you say about turning the "light" on and report back (not that I don't believe either of you).

I should obviously stand well and truly corrected. Just for info, I didn't realise that Paperwhites have been available for so long - at a guess we bought both ours 4 years ago, perhaps 5 max, although Amazon did say that it was old model/s they were selling us, hence them being pretty cheap (would I be correct at "remembering" about 25 quid each)?

@ MarkDennehy: That's also complete news to me/us. Does this apply to Amazon/Kindle (I've never heard of the other E-book suppliers you mention)? I guess that as Amazon seem to have pretty much complete "background control" over our Kindles, what you say is at least theoretically true. Do you know if Amazon have ever done this to a Kindle customer? And why? And what about the (few) Kindle E-book files that I've downloaded to my own PC?

I haven't read the fine print (of course not!), but until I read your post, as I BUY my E-book files from Amazon (for real money) I always imagined that the files are now my property, just the same as when I buy a hard/paperback book from them. What's to stop me (apart from a huge ink cartridge cost and hours of boredom!) from downloading all my Kindle files onto my PC then printing them all out? 

Thanks all

AES


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## MarkDennehy (16 Apr 2017)

@AES - yes, it's happened (see the link I gave). 

What stops you downloading your ebooks and printing them out? Well, the T&Cs for a start, it's illegal (yeah, laugh away, but that's the actual law saying that you paid for it but you don't own it); and also, have you ever tried? You'd have to break the DRM encryption on the files and load them into a program that allowed you to print them, which is doable but a bit of a faff (Kindle for PC didn't have a print function last I looked).


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## AndyT (16 Apr 2017)

Mark makes a good point about ownership vs licensing. 

Also, whiile I agree with the many advantages of a tablet type device to read books on, I'd like to remind us that Amazon's walled garden approach is not the only game in town. On a non-Amazon device you can have the Kindke app and Amazon content when you want it but you can also read content, new or old, from other sources and in other formats.

Personally, I rather like the idea of using 21st century technology to read 19th century books, including plenty on woodworking.


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## MarkDennehy (16 Apr 2017)

Yup. Personally, I buy those Amazon Fire 7" HD tablets, they're the cheapest going at the moment, and I uninstall the Kindle OS and install Cyanogenmod on them (it's a non-Google port of Android). Then I can install the Kindle App, the Kobo app, the B&N app, and readers for things like PDF and ePub formats. Its Kindle library is still constrained by the Kindle T&Cs but at least the device itself is not constrained to Amazon-only.


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## AES (17 Apr 2017)

L O N G post warning! 

OK all, but actually I don't think anyone HAS actually made a good point about file ownership, sorry.

I've had a rather interesting time (a LONG time actually) investigating a number of the points raised in this thread.

First, that "ownership" issue, as first posted by MarkDennehy.

I asked "have Amazon ever actually done this, and if so, why?" (My apologies Mark, at the time of posting that I hadn't followed the link you provided). Now I have, it's from an article that appeared in the "New York Times" dated July 17th 2009.

As the article says, it was because some customers had (no doubt unwittingly?) down loaded a pirated copy of George Orwell's "1984". But the article also says that those customers did get their money refunded, and it seems to suggest that _with the benefit of hindsight _(my italics), Amazon could have acted in a rather more measured fashion. Here's part of said article, 
QUOTE: ..... the books were added to the Kindle store by a company that did not have rights to them, using a self-service function. “When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers’ devices, and refunded customers,” he said. 

Amazon’s published terms of service agreement for the Kindle _does not appear to give the company the right to delete purchases after they have been made. It says Amazon grants customers the right to keep a “permanent copy of the applicable digital content.” _(My italics once again).
UNQUOTE:

Incidentally, Orwell's "1984", and all the Harry Potter books (also mentioned in parts of Mark's linked article) WERE this evening all available for purchase on the Amazon US Kindle web site when I checked yesterday evening.

But we have learnt that Amazon COULD, and at least sometimes, DOES "interfere" with customer's Kindles, apparently without their prior knowledge and consent. (Though to give the customers' their refunds, I would say those customers must have got to hear about that interference pretty quickly afterwards!)

And "Big Brother"-ish? Yes, I certainly think so, and certainly I don't very much like that idea. But short reflection suggests that at least since Henry VIIIth's time there's always been some kind of "Big Brother"-ish bloke or organisation at work (no, I'm not that old personally!). And in a not dissimilar context, while at first sight I don't like the idea of NSA or GCHQ (examples) reading my E-mails or my UKW posts, when I then consider that I'm not a terrorist or any other sort of criminal, and also considering that monitoring E-mails could (and GCHQ etc claim DOES actually) prevent terrorist attacks, then I'm not really objecting, except in a general, "in principle", grumbling way.

But that's just my personal attitude., Going back saving/securing my purchased Amazon/Kindle context, I end up really not worrying that much in the light of re-reading the text taken from that article, repeated, QUOTE: .... does not appear to give the company the right to delete purchases after they have been made. It says Amazon grants customers the right to keep a “permanent copy of the applicable digital content.” UNQUOTE:

In fact I DO have a copy of EVERY E-book I've purchased from Amazon. It's on my PC, and I access it through my down-loaded Kindle reader application (free from Amazon). Furthermore, all that (both the application itself and all the books I've bought) are back upped (by me) on an external hard drive. So in practice I don't see too chance of a "stealth Amazon attack" there!

Further, to answer one of your subsequent questions Mark, I HAVE printed out selected pages from a Kindle E-book I bought, with no problem at all, and certainly without going through the "computer contortions" you mention (just as well, as I couldn't have done any of that)!

Just to illuminate that statement, I bought a book "Understanding AF 447" (info - it's the "infamous" Air France Airbus A330 accident that ended up "disappearing" one night in May 2009 over the S. Atlantic, en route Rio/Paris). It's a highly technical book (ask anyone who's ever studied the Airbus fly by wire control laws and Auto Flight system!) and it contained loads of diagrams, maps, and internet links. I printed out some pages from that Kindle book (using the above Kindle reader app on my PC), and also some of the pages from the internet links. So while I was trying to get my head around "how on EARTH did they all manage to do THAT??", on my desk I had, all at the same time, my PC window open on one internet page, my Kindle open on a different page, my Kindle open on another page (via the PC app), plus a printed out diagram (from the Kindle E-book) and a printed out chart (from one of the internet links).

The linked "NYT" article does go on to say that buyers of physical goods cannot have someone just bursting into their homes, even if said goods were bootleg. Fair enough. But I wonder what would happen if, just for the sake of this discussion, one of our UKW members bought, say, an expensive Festool "down the pub" because it was 10% of list price, then boasted about that on the building site, only to be followed a short time later by a visit from the "gentlemen in blue"? Yup, this discussion is all getting disturbingly "hypothetical, out of the real world" - just as I feel are certain of the arguments put forward in that article. But IF the cheap Festool buyer was visited by the local constabulary, I can't see them giving him his money back, not matter how innocence was in his original purchase!

OK then, is this "better"? (from the same article):
QUOTE:

“It illustrates how few rights you have when you buy an e-book from Amazon,” said Bruce Schneier, chief security technology officer for British Telecom and an expert on computer security and commerce. “As a Kindle owner, I’m frustrated. I can’t lend people books and I can’t sell books that I’ve already read, and now it turns out that I can’t even count on still having my books tomorrow.”
UNQUOTE:

Well I'm not sure what said Mr. Schneier's expertise really is, but according to my Kindle User's Guide, I MAY loan any of the Kindle E-books I've bought to anyone else who also has a Kindle that I care to link to. The ONLY limitations are that said loan may not last more than 14 days, and that during that loan period I cannot read said book myself. As said, I have NOT tried this, but that is quoted directly from my Kindle User's Guide, which is Version 2 BTW.

The only part of the Schneier quote that appears to be true is that I cannot sell the E-books I've bought onwards. I admit that this does infringe the rights I would have if I had bought a "hard copy" book instead of the E-book version, but in practice that limitation does not worry me at all - speaking personally, I don't sell any books, "E" or "hard".

The rest of Schneier's "guff" about not being sure if he's still got his books tomorrow is, IMHO, just that - guff. I believe for all the reasons I've set out above, that Amazon cannot, and further will not even try to, "disappear" any of my books, though they apparently could.

But Mark, I really have searched for hours and hours through several Amazon "Conditions of Use" (as they call their Ts & C's), and I just cannot find a specific clause which says a Kindle E-book that I've bought DOES (or alternatively does NOT) belong to me. Can you help me with a specific quote/clause, etc to nail that fact down, one way or the other, please?

Now to the screen "illumination" subject (I promise this bit is MUCH shorter)! I'm referring to previous posts by Jonzjob, petermillard, & sunnybob.

When I think about it, my Kindle Paperwhite screen MUST be illuminated in some way or other, of course. But I have no idea how. Perhaps it's got something to do with the "electronic ink" stuff that Amazon talks about?

Anyway, I can see no "lights" around/within the screen in any shape or form, and I repeat categorically, no matter what settings I use, there are NO provisions whatsoever on my Paperwhite to change screen brightness. I say that after going though both versions of my User's Guides (hard copy and electronic, stored on my Kindle itself). If it's dark (NIL ambient light) then I cannot read my screen.

The controls sunnybob referred to are not at all like those on my Paperwhite, and neither is my screen in any way touch sensitive (which your post suggested sunnybob).

Here's a .jpg scan of the controls on my Paperwhite:







Within the "Settings" menu (the LH of the buttons to the R the centre "5 way controller" thingy you can see above), amongst other things I can adjust typeface size, typeface type (sorry!), and Landscape or Portrait page on screen orientation. That's all, NO illumination/brightness - and please note, making those adjustments only works when a particular book is open, AND those changed settings do not apply when opening another book.

But interestingly, when using the Kindle app on my PC, I CAN adjust screen brightness (but that's only on the PC screen of course! It does nothing to the E-book file itself).

Here's part of the full spec of my Paperwhite, copied from my on-screen Users Guide:

Model Number: _D01100

Display: 6" diagonal, 600 x 800 pixel resolution, 16-level grey scale (please note I cannot find
any way of increasing or decreasing this)

Size: 6.5 x 4.5 x 0.34 (all inches)

Weight: 170 g

Storage: 2GB internal (approx. 1 GB available to user).

(Plus a lot of other stuff and approvals, etc, not relevant to this post).

Looking at the Amazon web site I see that there are MANY different models, so saying "I've got a Paperwhite" is probably just about as informative as saying "I've got a Metabo drill", without quoting a model number! Sorry all, I just didn't know that.

And said in a previous post Amazon does not update my Kindle software - as far as I knew. I was wrong, it seems from the Users Guide that they do, but I don't know about it.

But the main point for me is that A) it doesn't cost me anything for updates, and B) so far, no update (no idea how many I've had) has in any way changed my operation and/or control and usage of the device, so I don't have to learn anything new - my main bugbear with updates.

In summary then, I do believe that my first post on this thread listing advantages and disadvantages as I see them was both pretty accurate and pretty fair, with the new, added caveat that "one day, MAYBE", Mr. Amazon is going to raid my Kindle and steal all the books I've bought! 

As detailed above, I think that in reality, the chances of that actually happening are vanishingly small, and even if it did happen, I THINK I'm pretty well covered in being able to recover the situation.

Thanks all for an interesting discussion, GREAT Forum this. 

But now, IMO, unless someone has any defined inputs (NOT opinions please) about the "files belong to you/no, they do not belong to you" point, personally I feel we've drained this subject dry! (And that's NOT just me trying to have "the last word" in this discussion).

Cheers all

AES


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## sunnybob (17 Apr 2017)

aha, that explains to lighting problem.
Like you, I was under the impression there was only one paperwhite.
Mine is all touch screen, apart from an on/off button on the bottom edge.

Not even getting into the copyright stuff.


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## MarkDennehy (17 Apr 2017)

Okay, so a few small things: 


You can't print out pages from Kindle. I've just installed Kindle for Mac to double-check and I've had Kindle for PC on the machine upstairs for years. There's no print function. I can print out those books, but I have to break the DRM and export it as a PDF to do so. I don't know how you managed it but it's not a function they intend for you to have in that application.

Ignore the big brother bit, that's just that journalist (who wouldn't be an expert on this stuff and who would be facing a deadline) seeing that it was an Orwell novel and jumping at the cliche like a drowning man after a lifejacket. This stuff isn't big brother, it's all legal and above board. I mean, it's sneaky and conniving, but it's not _illegal_ and it's being done out in the open, albeit in lawyer-speak. Like so many other things these days.

About Bruce Schneier's expertise... look, woodwork's my hobby and software is how I pay the bills, so I'm not looking to rag on anyone, but asking about Bruce Schneier's expertise on security and encryption and how it relates to day-to-day life, that's roughly equivalent to asking if Paul Sellers knows anything about wood. Seriously. Schneier has an incredible track record and is world-renowned. The current insane world where you can hack a website using a distributed botnet made up from baby monitors? He predicted that kind of thing. A decade before it happened. Things like being tracked by cookies and the kind of predatory stuff that companies are doing now? He predicted that two decades before it kicked off. He's not the only expert out there on this stuff, but his name always makes the top five and usually the top three and it has for years. If he says something about this stuff, you're safe enough listening to it.

And the main thing:


> I really have searched for hours and hours through several Amazon "Conditions of Use" (as they call their Ts & C's), and I just cannot find a specific clause which says a Kindle E-book that I've bought DOES (or alternatively does NOT) belong to me.


That's something that has been specifically complained about before. It takes nine hours to read through the T&Cs on a Kindle (seriously, one lad did and filmed it and it's on youtube). Almost nobody who buys one actually knows what's in them. I'm certainly not an expert on them. This is intentional by the way - you'll find, for example, that you couldn't just take Amazon to court if they deleted your favourite book (I'm assuming you've won the lottery here and are bored because nobody else would have the time and money to even try), because in the T&Cs you agreed to an arbitration process to resolve disputes. If your kindle had a dodgy lithium battery and set fire to your dog, well, your T&Cs limited their liability and now you're stuck trying to prove EU law (or UK law in a few years I suppose) trumps the Amazon T&Cs which were written with the US screw-you-buddy system of consumer law in mind. The entire thing is - to use the technical term from the IT industry - a pineappleshow.

However, the "you do not own the book, you've just licenced it" part is something that kindof stands out. It's right at the start, in section one of the Kindle Store terms of use (you have eight or nine EULAs to read, don't forget, not just one): 


> ... the Content Provider grants you a non-exclusive right to view, use, and display such Kindle Content an unlimited number of times (for Subscription Content, only as long as you remain an active member of the underlying membership or subscription program), solely through a Kindle Application or as otherwise permitted as part of the Service, solely on the number of Supported Devices specified in the Kindle Store, and solely for your personal, non-commercial use. Kindle Content is licensed, not sold, to you by the Content Provider.


You licenced the content and that licence has some strict conditions. You did not buy a book. And software companies have gone to the US Supreme Court to nail the legal difference between the two to the wall because it's how they make money. And while for application software I might think "okay, fair enough", they pushed that first-sale doctrine stuff onto _content_ as well, which means that when you think you've bought an e-book, you haven't really. And the 2009 Orwell incident wasn't the only time that happened to ordinary people. 

For example, lending - yes, you can "lend" your ebook in kindle. _Once_. For two weeks only. And only to specific people you know and have told Amazon are your friends or family. See Amazon's help page on that topic. And a small side note - knowing who your friends or family are is valuable financially to Amazon because now they can sell ads to your friends or family. And these aren't random ads, they're targeted. You told Amazon when your birthday was when you registered, so leading up to it, they pester your friends and family with adverts for things you would like for your birthday based on your purchases at Amazon. Sounds great, until you remember that (a) you're now prey, and (b) Amazon's AI doesn't really have a lot of cop-on (_"Why not buy your Dad this new buttplug? He seems to like that sort of thing based on what he was browsing!"_). Now you personally aren't very valuable to them. A few euros a month or so in ad sales. But your metadata - that is, what you like to buy, who you know, who's likely to buy stuff for you and when - that's far more valuable. It gets packaged up and sold (well, licenced really, and on a subscription basis) to advertisers, often being sold several times (say, once to rockler, once to Ashley Iles, once to laptops.co.uk, once to some other company that makes something you do unrelated to woodworking or the internet, and so on) and those advertisers are paying fees either annually, monthly, or per-click depending on contract setup. And Amazon has over 300 million active accounts - that's a massively lucrative source of advertising metadata for them. They not only sell you physical goods and digital goods, but they also sell you. It's nice money if you can get it (to the tune of around 30 billion dollars a year in revenue).

Look, I still buy ebooks. The convenience is a serious boon (and they're selling them at a lower price to discourage you buying physical books because they make more money overall if you buy ebooks). But any book I want to be able to hang on to? I buy it in dead tree format. (Also, because of how Amazon and the other e-publishing companies are managing publishing rights and the mess involved there - read Charlie Stross's bits on that sometime - you can still get dead tree format way before you get ebook format even today).


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## petermillard (17 Apr 2017)

Just FYI the Kindle model #DO1100 is not a Paperwhite. It's a Kindle 4 'basic' i.e. non-touch e-ink reader with a 4-way rocker switch for navigation, and no illumination. 

Enjoy your reading


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## AES (18 Apr 2017)

Thanks very much Mark, it must have taken you as long to write your post as I took to write mine. I'm a bit pressed for time at the mo, and had visitors yesterday, but I'll be back. VERY interesting discussion, thanks.

Thanks Peter (Millard). "Well I THOUGHT the thing's called Paperwhite" !!!!!! No wonder I was confusing you all (hammer) .

Sorry

AES


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## devonwoody (18 Apr 2017)

You members have not discussed the Ipad and overdrive!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## sunnybob (18 Apr 2017)

I wont have any thing to do with apple.
there, enough discussion? (lol)


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## sunnybob (18 Apr 2017)

to expand a little bit... I dont like the fact that apple stuff only talks to apple stuff. the whole point of bluetooth was to make a universal language. but apple dont like that, oh no.


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## Ian down london way (19 Apr 2017)

If my house caught fire, and its contents were destroyed, well, at least I could buy a new Kindle and get all my e-books back. Whereas all my paper books, apparently neither the authors nor the books shops are willing to give me replacement copies -how unfair is that! I bought copies !


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## Ian down london way (19 Apr 2017)

PS - I wonder how many books have been destroyed in house fires compared to those retrieved by Amazon ...


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## MarkDennehy (19 Apr 2017)

Er... that's why we have home insurance that specifically covers the contents of the home against fire...


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## RobinBHM (19 Apr 2017)

There is some controversy over ownership of kindle downloads.

For example is a couple have a joint Amazon account and both order kindle downloads through the same account, if the couple split, the downloads can only be uploaded to that original account -Amazon wont split accounts or move to a new account

If you die you the account cant be part of your estate, although somebody can take on the Amazon account......so kindle books can be immortal.


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## AndyT (19 Apr 2017)

I think this is a genuinely enlightening thread, bringing out advantages and disadvantages that don't always get explained well.

I'd just like to mention a few excellent sources of out of copyright material, where you don't have to pay anyone or link your use of an ebook file to a personal account. I know that Amazon include some out of copyright material in the Kindle store, but they charge you for it.

The long established Gutenberg Project has a wide range of free books, carefully transcribed to digital format by human beings. http://www.gutenberg.org/ 

The Open Library lists as many books as it can, with links to ebook versions where available. 

https://openlibrary.org/

And don't forget our own sticky:

free-downloadable-woodworking-books-plans-ref-sites-t82220.html


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## Ian down london way (19 Apr 2017)

MarkDennehy":2dmnt063 said:


> Er... that's why we have home insurance that specifically covers the contents of the home against fire...




Good point. 

How about, how many books have been lost (left behind on trains etc) compared to those retrieved by Amazon. Or dropped in puddles. Or destroyed by teething dogs / babies, or spilt coffee (other drinks are available).


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## MarkDennehy (19 Apr 2017)

I dunno about you though Ian, but I'm on my sixth kindle/tablet device. Primarily because toddler-proofing is not physically possible in this universe without locking the toddler in the attic. Of another house. In another country. And then moving house and faking your own death and living on a small island off the coast of Fiji. 

And then you have the problem that the wifi there absolutely _sucks_...

On the other hand, books are repairable for most minor forms of damage that render electronics pretty much toast by letting out the magic smoke.


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## AES (20 Apr 2017)

Here are my responses to Mark Dennehy's recent posts.

Mark's posts are marked "MARK" (sorry!) and shortened by me (I have tried to do it FAIRLY!). My responses are marked "AES":

(In response to my claim about printing out pages via my PC-installed Kindle reader),
MARK wrote: "You can't print out pages from Kindle. .... There's no print function ..... it's not a function they intend for you to have in that application".

AES: Yup, sorry Mark, I was guilty of not writing precisely. Now that I've searched for a "print" function, I see there isn't one, you're quite right. What I should have written was "I've printed out CHARTS, etc". NOT necessarily the same thing, I agree. When I was forced ("kicking and screaming" of course!) to change from Win XP to Win 7, I got "free of charge" (as part of the Win 7 OS I think), a thing called "Snipping Tool". Quite easy to use (it does various shapes & sizes, or you can drag it over a particular area, like the "Lassoo" tool in Photoshop). As I was interested in various charts, etc, in my AF 447 book, I simply used that tool to outline the various charts, etc, I needed. Then saved them as separate printouts & files (you can choose .pdf, .jpg, etc, etc). I suppose I could have done a whole page with it (I didn't try). But as I said in a previous post, if one was perverse enough, had an unlimited amount of time, plus a HUGE budget for inkjet cartridges, I GUESS one could print the whole book out. But who's going to do that in the real world? And I'm not clever enough to know what the "DRM" is that you referred to. I guess some IT professional's term. Just like "RVSM" is a professional aviation term. Anyway, here's one of the charts I did print out, very easily, as above (it's a .jpg BTW):







MARK: "Ignore the big brother bit, that's just that journalist ........ This stuff isn't big brother, it's all legal and above board. I mean, it's sneaky and conniving, but it's not illegal .......... "

AES: Yup, I've seen what journo's do with something I do know about. Far too often they've NOT a clue, and far too often, the result is just not even worth reading!

MARK: " ........ if Paul Sellers knows anything about wood."

AES: "Paul WHO?". (Sorry, Mark. I just couldn't resist that)  

MARK: "Seriously. Schneier has an incredible track record and is world-renowned."

AES: Sorry to denigrate a world-renowned expert. I'd never heard of him (which should NOT of course prejudice my listening to him), but what DID prejudice me was his "statement" that you can't loan Kindle E-books (which of course, you CAN, and under exactly the conditions I quoted in my earlier post). As you suggest, the journo probably mis-quoted him.

MARK: "And the main thing": (Then you refer to my hours of searching Amazon's Ts & Cs). "That's something that has been specifically complained about before".

AES: As you say, it's not fair, and it takes HOURS, but as your linked Guardian article says, QUOTE: .........., _said many terms and conditions agreements, not just Amazon Kindle’s, _(my italics) were “completely unreasonable". UNQUOTE: To which I would add that like it or not (I really do NOT, who does?), there's absolutely nothing new in lengthy, dense, and "hidden" unfair Ts & Cs. You're right, this clearly IS intentional. But why are we singling Amazon/Kindle out here? If we all "as a matter of principle" didn't buy stuff (goods AND services) from companies who have unfair Ts & Cs, then we'd all be, in MANY respects, a lot "worse off". In the real world, I suggest that most of us know we're buying something from some company who will bend over backwards to protect themselves whilst not giving a fig for us, the buyers. And although "Consumer Rights" have made some progress in some areas, the reality is that we do all continue to buy, often without even knowing, (or often simply surmising) that the scales are tipped against us. BTW, I am NO Amazon fan (but am a fan of their Kindle - there's a difference!), but in this area, it seems to me that Amazon are simply doing exactly what so many others do (and have been doing since before Amazon was even a little start up). So no need to rule Kindle out on those grounds - IMO.

MARK: "However, the "you do not own the book, you've just licensed it" part is something that kind of stands out. It's right at the start, in section one of the Kindle Store terms of use (you have eight or nine EULAs to read, don't forget, not just one)".

AES: Thanks for the detailed quote Mark. I really did miss that - looking in the wrong place I guess. OK, you're correct, and just as you say, I haven't bought a book (or a software file), I've simply licensed it. But again, back to the real world. "So what?" I ask. The likelihood of me (or anyone else) winning the lottery and taking Amazon (or any other "Big Brother") to court (your example) is, in reality, just about as likely as Amazon "stealing"/shutting down every Kindle reader's E-book! What sort of a business plan would that be? Clearly their goal is to make as much money as possible, and personally I fail to see any way in which doing something like that would assist that business plan in any way (even if they could get away with it). On the contrary, they're in the lovely position of having somehow "bought" that AF 447 book, have "sold" (sorry, licensed!) it to me, and they're now gagging to sell it to you and as many other people as humanly possible.

MARK: " And the 2009 Orwell incident wasn't the only time that happened to ordinary people".

AES: Yup, I followed that link too. That article makes clear that A) this licensing "problem" applies NOT just to Amazon/Kindle, but again, applies to just about every sort of software we all "buy". And B) this is again a SINGLE example of an individual running into problems with this licensing business - but it does NOT appear to be happening every day, to lots and lots of individuals (I wonder why not?) - and further, just like your first example Mark, (now I quote the linked article) "After taking her story public, Amazon saw the error of their ways and restored her Kindle library. She's still waiting on her replacement Kindle, but in the meantime has access to her library through the Kindle iOS app on her iPad." Agreed, the reasons why Amazon did this to that particular customer seem to be somewhat "sinister" (journos again?), but I keep coming back to the day-to-day real world - it's unfair, it's unethical, it smacks of big brother (or big business), and I do NOT like the idea - BUT the chances of this actually happening to me still seems VERY VERY slight, AND I still have my books (and the software reader) backed up on a device which, as far as I can see, Amazon cannot access in any way - even if they wanted to (which, as above, would not only seem to go against common sense but also completely against any rational business plan I can possibly imagine)!


Quote:
MARK: "... the Content Provider grants you a non-exclusive right to view, use, and display such Kindle Content an unlimited number of times (for Subscription Content, only as long as you remain an active member of the underlying membership or subscription program), (my italics again) ..... not sold, to you by the Content Provider. You licensed the content and that licence has some strict conditions. You did not buy a book".

AES: OK, I concede that point. But as above, I ask "So what?" - in the real world.

MARK: "...... you can "lend" your ebook in kindle ..... only to specific people you know and have told Amazon are your friends or family. ....... a small side note - knowing who your friends or family are is valuable financially to Amazon .... "

AES: Also agreed (I did spot that and already noted those Ts & Cs in my previous post). BUT (real world again, sorry, but that's where I live!) if you lived next door to me I could lend you my device and you could then read all my books. Provided you didn't log in with it ("aeroplane mode") Amazon would - COULD - never know, correct? And of course, you do not need to log in to read my books! And YES, I do know about the marketing tricks for "friends and relations, etc". (Aside: This reminds me of the story, no doubt apocryphal, about the big-wheel Senior Veep in the US who was moaning to his wife about being away for a week 'cos he had to go to a conference in Connecticut or somewhere equally boring. But he really booked himself and his "secretary" on a 1st Class trip to Hawaii. He then had rather a lot of explaining to do some weeks later when his wife opened a letter addressed to him from the airline saying something along the lines of "As we're sure you and your partner enjoyed your recent 1st Class trip to Hawaii with us, you'd really like to know about some other special offers to exotic destinations we have for our top-level customers, wouldn't you?" - or something of the sort!

MARK: "Look, I still buy ebooks. The convenience is a serious boon (and they're selling them at a lower price ..........".

AES: Precisely my REAL WORLD point Mark. Despite your list of objections to Amazon (which I've demonstrated apply equally to many, many others), you still buy E-books. And YES, just like you, I still buy "dead tree" books too - mainly if diagrams, etc, are involved.

But to be fair, you have proven your point, albeit IMO, to suit the largely "theoretical/in principle" world. So to the list of 15 Kindle advantages and 6 Kindle disadvantages I posted (right back on P1 of this thread would you believe!), to be fair I should add a 7th disadvantage:

7. You are NOT buying a book you're buying a license. This means that Amazon/Kindle COULD block your access to material which you've "BOUGHT", and WITHOUT your permission too. They've done it before. But based on evidence supplied so far, it seems that provided you stick to the rules, the chances of Amazon/Kindle actually doing this to you are vanishingly small.

And being the "electronic dummy" that I am, I should perhaps an 8th possible "disadvantage":

8. Unless you buy the latest model, you cannot read your books in the coal cellar without a torch!  

OK, IMO this has gone on far too long, but thanks to you Mark, and others, for engaging in a debate which has NEVER gone "Jacob-ish" (or "sharpening-ish") and which has, hopefully, kept several members amused - NOT bored. 

P.S. Andy T is quite correct, and Amazon/Kindle is not the only source of E-books - by far. AND there are some old books which have been digitized and which are now in the public domain. I have the 1913(?) book about toy making, linked to on this site, and as Andy says, there are many others too.

AES


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## RobinBHM (20 Apr 2017)

For anybody interested in seeing what kindle published books are available free, on Amazon site search for kindle books and select 'cheapest first' for the display order -all the books that are free come up first.

Not saying there are any good ones mind you!

My Father who has poor eyesight loves having a kindle since he can choose the font size -something I think has made a huge different to older or partially sight readers


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## RogerP (20 Apr 2017)

I use this to find free books on Amazon.
http://uk.dailyfreebooks.com/

You can set it up to find only stuff you're interested in and get a daily email if you wish.


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## MarkDennehy (20 Apr 2017)

> the chances of Amazon/Kindle actually doing this to you are vanishingly small.


Well, no, they're 100% because they already have done it in the past. 

Look, I buy ebooks, but when I do, I know what I'm buying. So long as you understand what that is, there's nothing inherently wrong with it; it's just that it's inferior (in terms of your consumer rights) to buying an actual dead-tree edition of the book. The latter becomes your personal asset on purchase. You can keep it, pulp it, loan it, resell it, or do almost anything else you want with it (I think if you scanned in all the pages and uploaded them to the net that might get you in bother). With an ebook, none of that is true. If that doesn't bother you (and it doesn't bother me for books I'd class as airport reading, like the Tom Clancy and John Grisham novels), then apart from the advertising metadata issue which takes effort to avoid these days, you should be fine.


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## Gerry (20 Apr 2017)

Download and install a program called Calibre to your PC. It will allow you to archive and manage your kindle library on your own Computer.

Gerry


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## DTR (20 Apr 2017)

Am I the only one not overly impressed by the Jack Reacher books? The first one was a good yarn, but the two or three I read after that all followed the same pattern...
[spoiler alert]
1. he arrives in new town 
2. beats someone up
3. discovers crime ring
4. gets the girl
5. smashes crime ring
6. leaves town


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## AndyT (20 Apr 2017)

+1 for Calibre. I think it's the best defence against finding that you can't access your eBooks because you have got locked out of your account. (That could happen with Amazon for no clear reason, (as in one of Mark's links) or because of a dispute or malware problems.)

If your Amazon content is only on a Kindle, there's also a warning in what happened with some of the earliest models. If they didn't connect to Amazon by a certain date and download a software update, they would stop working altogether. In other words, Amazon had built in a self-destruct date for any device not linked to a live account.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.pcadvi ... 431/%3Famp

I'm not saying that they have done this for newer devices - I don't know - but they have form, so shop with your eyes open.


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## AES (20 Apr 2017)

@Mark:

You wrote, QUOTE: Well, no, they're 100% because they already have done it in the past. UNQUOTE.

Well I don't see how, just because they've done it "sometimes", this works out to be 100%. As I look at, in comparison to the - must be "vast" number of Kindle users - "subscribers" (whatever we should call them) this does indeed work out to be vanishingly small.

But anyway, we're repeating ourselves now, and that's boring for you (I guess), for me, and everyone else too.

Thanks for a lively, good-tempered discussion which has never degenerated into mud slinging. MUCH appreciated Sir.

Thanks also to all the other participants too, especially for the news about Kindle free-bees, and the link to this Calibre software. I shall download that and see if I can make it work (IF I can, then absolutely anyone can!!  

You see Mark, (and Andy T: QUOTE: .... so shop with your eyes open. UNQUOTE. I have learnt something new, and so I AM heeding your caveats!

Cheers all (off to look at Scroll Sawing and other good stuff now). "Good on 'ere, ain't it?"  

AES


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## AES (22 Apr 2017)

Just a P.S. to all the above:

Following the tips from Gerry and Andy T (above) I have now successfully down loaded and installed Calibre (MUST have been easy, 'cos I did it all on my own, "right first time")! I haven't used it yet (it'll get a good bashing tomorrow, 'cos SWMBO doesn't allow me into the cellar on Sundays) but having watched the demo, I must say I'm pretty impressed so far.

If anyone's interested, I'll let you know how I got on with it later, but meantime, thanks a lot for the tip Gerry and AndyT.

But I have a question - I'm a complete virgin when it comes to this free down load/open ware stuff, and see the owner asks for "support". Is this usual, does one do so generally, and as a rough guide, what amount would be considered normal (a complete guess but there must have been a HELLUVA lot of work in writing that program).

TIA

AES


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## sunnybob (23 Apr 2017)

DTR... Yup, lee childs found a winning formula, and he stuck to it.
Reacher worked so well for me that I read about 8 or 9 before it became samey for me.

But then again, I only bought 1 of them and borrowed the rest so I dont feel hard done by.


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## DTR (23 Apr 2017)

sunnybob":1q6va6lw said:


> But then again, I only bought 1 of them and borrowed the rest so I dont feel hard done by.



Indeed...... SWMBO works in a charity shop, so she has an ongoing supply of cheap paperbacks to bring home. They don't get many ebooks donated though.....


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## MarkDennehy (23 Apr 2017)

That whole own-v-licence thing took an interesting turn today. Apparently you can't own a tractor anymore, you can only licence it, according to John Deere... 
http://boingboing.net/2017/04/22/drm-eschatology.html

And yeah, not many people use a tractor for rip cuts or dovetails, I get it - but what about CNC machines? And how far does the gadgetry have to come in before software becomes enough of the tool to get covered by that? Like that new hand-held computer-aided router thing from Shaper: 







That's weird-looking today, but give it a decade. The first hand-held trim router looked pretty stupid at the time too I'm guessing. 
And how long before someone invents a fancy planer thicknesser that does some sort of autocorrection or whatever, sticks a microcontroller in there to do that and suddenly your planer has software. How far does that have to go before you're a licencee rather than an owner?

Ah, "interesting times", don't you just love 'em?


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## RogerP (23 Apr 2017)

There are other tractor manufacturers, in fact John Deere are no longer the largest. That honour now falls to the Indian maker Mahindra. So go elsewhere if you don't like John Deere's terms of business.


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## MarkDennehy (23 Apr 2017)

What has that got to do with the legal precedent they could set?
I mean, one of them is always going to be first, the problem is when they all follow after because that first one broke trail. 
Pretty soon "I don't like their terms of business" becomes "I don't like *anyone's* terms of business" and you have to make your own tractor. Cool, if you have the machining tools and time and expertise to do it and nobody sues you for using it in a place of work...


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## AES (23 Apr 2017)

Re tractors (I don't have one, and doubt I ever will) and planers (ain't got one o' them either) personally, I'm not particularly bothered. As said earlier in this thread, there are LOTS of Ts & Cs and general "immoral attitudes" around (always have been) but in practice not many people really bother about it except "in principle". Perhaps we should care (but I doubt anything we do - even ALL of us - will change much)  

But can I go back to my post on P4 please? I wrote about the Calibre software and asked whether the ask for monetary support on that site is a scam or genuine, then went on to ask if genuine, how much should one donate?

Mark, it's your professional area I guess? Or anyone else? Any ideas please? This is a completely new field for me.

TIA

AES


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## AndyT (23 Apr 2017)

Re donations for Calibre. It used to be widespread, back in the 80s, as shareware.
It's an approach which is creeping back. I think it's an honest compromise.

If the creator of the software tried to make it chargeable only, bad people would rip off copies anyway. So instead, he appeals to people's gratitude. A bit like a busker, passing round a hat. So give the software a go for a few weeks. If you don't like it or don't want to use it, just uninstall it, pay him nothing.

If you like it, bung him the price of a pint, or a paperback, or a charged-for smartphone app. If you are loaded, give a bit more and enjoy a warm glow for doing the decent thing.


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## AES (23 Apr 2017)

Thanks AndyT. Your advice is appreciated, completely new idea to me.

I'm getting to grips with Calibre now (I now know what "DRM" is!!!!). If I like Calibre I'll bung him the price of a pint, if not, I'll delete it.

AES


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## MarkDennehy (23 Apr 2017)

AES":33jdnuuz said:


> if genuine, how much should one donate?


Depends on how much time it saves you or how much you use it. For calibre (I've used it myself but it didn't fit my needs in the end), I'd send the guy an hour's pay. 
(How much that is varies, which is fine).


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