

Sony's e-book store now has more than 1 million titles








Comments     Threshold


By Cypherdude1 on 7/31/2009 1:39:12 AM , Rating: 2
I hope these eReaders crack open the book market the way the Ipod / Itunes changed music.

Actually, no. MP3's were popularized by Napster, before it was sued by the RIAA. Napster is what changed the music industry. Napster and music trading caused an explosion in the number of MP3's being used.

Are you saying that shakespeare (or his estate) gets royalties from his books? The $15 charge on shakespeare is purely for the paper and PROFITS to the publisher.

No, he was trying to say that books should have a shorter copyright period before people can freely copy it.

Oh and the fact is, most people just prefer paper to ebooks.

That's true. I prefer paper books to ebooks because most of the eReaders have tiny 4" screens. Amazon's new Kindle DX 9.7" screen costs $489! NO WAY! The Kindle DX's battery is not user-replaceable. You must mail it in. The Kindle DX only has 3.3 GB storage and no SD slot. Also, I can highlight and write notes in cheap paperbacks (not in expensive hardcovers though).

Ebook readers are not going to open up anything. A format you can buy for any device is what is needed. In fact I think ebook readers are just a proprietory way of forcing DRM.

That's true. Amazon and the others force you buy from them. For $400-600, you can buy a 15.5" laptop. When Amazon, Sony, or BN come to their senses and allow you to read their books on ordinary laptops, then you will finally see eBooks become commonplace, not before. Until then, I'll content myself with reading paper books.

