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Next week, Amazon is stripping away your ability to download your ebooks. (lithub.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 96 points 2 years ago (12 children)

"your" ebooks. – You never owned them in the first place. And if buying isn't owning, questionably acquired ebooks aren't stolen.

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  • [–] 18 points 2 years ago (7 children)

    Check if it’s available on your library website first, for the sake of the author.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    I mean authors don’t see money anytime someone rents an ebook do they? Libraries just need to pay for licenses to the publisher annually from what I’ve read on reddit/Lemmy.

    I can understand renting ebooks so that your library continues to fund a digital library, but if the book is available in paper form that doesn’t really benefit the author either.

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  • [–] 17 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    Authors receive 25% of the ebook sale to a library in the US. Frequent lends will also influence future purchases made by the library.

    https://janefriedman.com/what-do-authors-earn-from-digital-lending-at-libraries/

    Libraries in Canada and the UK pay royalties for each lend.

    https://societyofauthors.org/where-we-stand/public-lending-right-plr/

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago

    It's not a great deal for the libraries. They ebooks can come with a limited number of checkouts and cost far more.

    I switched to Kobo and have been very happy so far. I was able to download my books from Amazon and mumble and then I was able to read them on my Kobo device and store them in my Calibre library.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Even after years and years of this being discussed, it shocks me how many people keep dropping money into services which force them to own nothing.

    Convenience is a helluva drug.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    It depends, sometimes you can "buy" digital ownership from these places in the form of DRM-free files. If you are able to download the DRM-free file and make a reliable backup of it, then I could call that actual ownership. This is how I approach my music and ebook libraries. I don't do subscriptions for streaming anything but TV.

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