MX Linux Forum

It's a pleasure to read a real book at the end of the day and give my eyes a deserved rest

Gordon Cooper wrote: Wed Apr 03, 2019 11:11 pm A sign of things to come? https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47810367

Like an on-line library, except you have to pay.

*sigh* bring back the good ol' days of free school books, free or subsidized school meals, free higher education...

anticapitalista wrote: Thu Apr 04, 2019 6:33 am

Gordon Cooper wrote: Wed Apr 03, 2019 11:11 pm A sign of things to come? https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47810367

Like an on-line library, except you have to pay.

*sigh* bring back the good ol' days of free school books, free or subsidized school meals, free higher education...

You know you can't generalise in every country and it depends on school grade. By the way what grade do you teach?

Gordon Cooper wrote: Wed Apr 03, 2019 11:11 pm A sign of things to come? https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47810367

That's why I'm careful about buying ebooks. I like to buy those free of DRM, and generally only buy ebooks I know I'll re-read. Otherwise I can get them for free through Overdrive. You never really own anything you buy digitally. You buy a 'license' which can be revoked at any time.

cyrilus31 wrote: Thu Apr 04, 2019 8:03 am

anticapitalista wrote: Thu Apr 04, 2019 6:33 am

Gordon Cooper wrote: Wed Apr 03, 2019 11:11 pm A sign of things to come? https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47810367

Like an on-line library, except you have to pay.

*sigh* bring back the good ol' days of free school books, free or subsidized school meals, free higher education...

You know you can't generalise in every country and it depends on school grade. By the way what grade do you teach?

I teach University students (during the summer in the UK), and I used to teach 17-18 year old Greek students who wanted to study in the UK.

In our house, all of the textbooks all stay at home-- but then, so do the kids. :)

The thing about ebooks is in that BBC article up there-- unless you download them from the Gutenberg Project, you don't actually own them. They belong to Amazon/MS/B&N/whomever and they can be erased anytime. It's like a library you pay for.

That's why there are verrrrrrry few ebooks in the house, and some of those get printed for the kids.

I could just see what would happen if Amazon erased the ebooks people paid to "rent'. They would be shooting themselves in the foot.

richb wrote: Thu Apr 04, 2019 1:24 pm I could just see what would happen if Amazon erased the ebooks people paid to "rent'. They would be shooting themselves in the foot.

They did that once with 1984 :(
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/tech ... mazon.html

KBD wrote: Thu Apr 04, 2019 4:08 pm

richb wrote: Thu Apr 04, 2019 1:24 pm I could just see what would happen if Amazon erased the ebooks people paid to "rent'. They would be shooting themselves in the foot.

They did that once with 1984 :(
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/tech ... mazon.html

For cause.

books were added to the Kindle store by a company that did not have rights to them,

“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.

I only read the free ebooks available from the Gutenberg site which I download to my pc then transfer to Kindle by wire.

https://www.gutenberg.org/