The ebook vs print debate is getting bigger every day it seems. Many people I know of despise ebooks and see them as nothing more that a new thing trying to kill print books and a ways to make pirating easier. They hate reading on screen and don’t want ebooks available period.
Meanwhile some reader who love ebooks and ereader (and who new numbers say actually buy more digital books than they did print books) are tired of getting stripped down versions of books, that don’t come out until (sometimes) months after the print version and in some cases are more expensive than print books, or at the least, the same price.
And publishers want to meet readers needs, but fear piracy and lost sales of print books.
Apparently with all the buzz about the new B&N “Nook” (which I would be more than happy to test out for you Barnes & Noble, please & thank you) which allows readers to “lend” ebooks to friends for a few days (wherein they lose access to the book themselves) it’s surfaced that the Amazon Kindle contract allows consumers to share one amazon Kindle account with up to six machines. That means I could have an account, but all the members of my household and my sister and brother-in-law could each have an individual Kindle each with an individual copy of a book that I only paid for once.
Some authors snapped out accusing people who take advantage of this thieves.
How? How is this any different than the piles of print books right next to me in my room, which *gasp* any member of my house hold as well as frequent visitors (like said sister and brother-in-law) can pick up and browse or read if they wish? Oh yes, it’s different because my bookshelf didn’t cost $250 like the Kindle and most of my books cost less than the Kindle standard book price of $9.99. Not to mention I can, at any point, load up a box with books and sell them or trade them in for different books at a used bookstore.
Over at Dear Author this is how they put it:
Because some readers prefer to read digital books, our rights have been erased. We cannot resell a digital book because no one trusts that we have deleted the originals. We cannot be allowed to share a book because the fear is that pressing the email button with an attachment being feared we are using it as a copy button. WE ARE PRESUMED TO BE DIRTY, THIEVING CRIMINALS. I AM VERY TIRED OF IT.The default position is that we ebook readers are always engaged in some form of wrongdoing. We are charged more. We don’t get the book at the same time. We are constrained in how we use our books, on what devices we read them on, with whom we can share them. We are not considered legitimate customers if we do not leave our house and buy a paper copy.
They also say:
…The biggest threat to authors’ livelihood is not piracy. It is not casual sharing. It is a declining readership. It is rising rates of illiteracy. It is alternative forms of entertainment.
Which I absolutely agree with. So far ebooks have served to meet the needs of a select group of people better than print books, or else they wouldn’t be buying MORE books. The Kindle and Sony ereader wouldn’t be selling so well that B&N put out the Nook. Ebooks wouldn’t been a steadily increasing segment of book sales.
It’s clear to me that ebook readers (the device and the people) foster reading by making it convenient, easy and quicker (the device) and by encouraging the passion of vocal people who talk books and foster word of mouth based sales (the people). How is any of this a bad thing? And why are we making it difficult for these things to amp up the reading community?
