>>Multiple warnings about cyber piracy were received with one fellow author advising that - for exactly this reason - he will never publish an e-book again.
The issue of piracy and copyright on ebooks etc. is interesting, especially with technical manuals. Last year, I bought the ebook version of a hardback book I'd bought a few months before just so I could carry it overseas on an iPad. While the ebook version was cheaper than the hardback, I still resented the fact that I had paid for the same thing twice. I would not have felt particularly guilty if I'd "illegally" downloaded the ebook version since I'd already paid the author for his work. Ditto with a lot of recorded music. I bought the 12" LPs, sometimes twice or more and then bought the CD and then the remastered version… all at full price. I'd already paid the writer and musicians for the right to play the recording several times over and paying again for exactly the same thing on a different substrate seems wrong in some way. If I own a CD or LP of a recording, I don't feel too guilty or unscrupulous about downloading an electronic version… after all, I can always transfer my own CD if I can find a CD reader any more. iTunes deals with this fairly well since once you have paid for a recording, you can re-download multiple times but there was an interesting court case somewhere last year where someone wanted the right to give, donate or bequeath their music or ebook library to someone else… and why not? I can give my solid library books away, why not an ebook or recording? With technical manuals, especially software, there is often an update every five minutes. Often these are minor revisions, correcting errors or revising for OS changes or adding things that the writer omitted in earlier versions. It's possible with ebooks to allow purchasers to download revised or later editions for free or at reduced cost. Somehow this does not happen. >>Although the prime motivation for writing this book was to combat the high >>drop out rate in our sport I’m very reluctant to open the door for >>unscrupulous cyber thieves. So how about opening the door a little to folk who have already purchased the first one or two versions of the book at full price and who may not want to pay the full price for an "upgrade" or bug fix? :-) _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
