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‘My Cellphone As My E-Book Reader’ (and how Sony will unwittingly help e-book pirates)
August 1, 2006 | 5:58 am
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By David Rothman
“I load up my SmartPhone with all kinds of e-books imaginable, from Tolkien’s lore, to Twain’s classics, to Dumas’ adventure novels (you can find a lot of freebies over at Project Gutenberg). And for the copyrighted material? Let’s just say I feel quite comfortable with downloading e-copies of books which I already own hardcopies of.” – BCellphones.
The TeleRead take: Here’s another great example of the stupidity of the Sony Reader’s proprietary approach. Just extrapolate a little from the above. Without paying extra or breaking the law in one way or another, will you be able to read the same copyrighted books on your cellphone as on your Reader? And yet you may still want to read books on all your e-book-capable devices. Oh, how bootleggers will love Sony. It’ll draw more readers to their sites, given all the people who don’t want to pay full prices for e-books for each device they own. Remember, large publishers love DRM, and the Sony can read DRMed books only in its BBeB format.
Fair use: Fair use advocates might argue that if you own a book in hardbook, you should be able to read an e-book at no charge. Most publishers would disagree.
Related: Some disturbing questions about the Librie in MobileRead. An owner of the Librie, a predecessor of the Sony Reader, writes, among other things: “Will the new Sony Reader have a more durable case? My existing Librie has ceased to function at 15 months as the pearlescent plastic has chipped out to the point that the main circuit board has failed (case became too flexible.)”
Also of interest: E-books on low-end Java-capable mobile phones.
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Comments:
Not sure what he means about the case becoming too flexible, but I have experienced chipping on the corners (bought mine in March of ’05). I foolishly put it in the front pocket of my backpack while on vacation with my family. I tend to drop the backpack heavily (as it usually has my laptop and several p-books in it), so it was during that time that a small (as in smaller than my fingernail) bit of plastic from the bottom left corner of my Librie cracked and fell off. I taped the cracked bit back on, and it works fine. I’m nursing it until the Reader comes out though.