Re: Re: Proposing an eBook Guaranty Association

On Mon, August 22, 2011 2:48 pm, Ellen wrote:

> Most ebook PUBLISHERS (not software providers) have no problem providing
> replacement ebooks if the reader can prove they've got a purchased copy,
> either by supplying a receipt, or having the book in the reader's online
> account at the publisher site.

Which online account? The one for the publisher that just went belly up, or
the one for the reseller that just went belly up? (How many publishers even
/have/ online accounts for consumers? It seems to me that that is the job of
the reseller.) The problem does not arise when I lose a book from my local
data store (that's my problem, for not backing up often enough) the problem is
when the business that has sold me a defective product (defective = DRM)
suddenly goes out of business (or have lightning strikes that corrupt its
databases, or decide that it shouldn't have sold me a book in the first place,
or ...).

Anyone who thinks that storing their library "in the cloud" is a good idea (or
at least storing their library /exclusively/ in the cloud) is living in a
state of self-delusion.

Now in Microsoft's case, discontinuation of their Reader should have little or
no impact. It's not like their software is all-of-a-sudden going to stop
working on August 30, 2012. You'll still be able to use the software to read
all of the .lit books you've purchased, so long as you haven't stored them "in
the cloud", and you have plenty of time to copy them down to a local store.

There /is/ a problem if you try to upgrade your hardware or Operating System,
but that problem would exist even if Microsoft stayed in the game. And in the
end, software to remove DRM from .lit ebooks and convert them to more current
formats is just a Google away.


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