Fed2 Star - the newsletter for the space trading game Federation 2

The weekly newsletter for Fed2
by ibgames

EARTHDATE: March 6, 2016

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REAL LIFE NEWS: BARNES & NOBLE DROPS EBOOKS IN THE UK

by Hazed

I’m a massive fan of ebooks. I hardly ever pick up a proper paper book these days because I find using my Kindle is so much more convenient. It’s light, which makes it easier to read while commuting; I can carry my whole library with me, so I never run out of stuff to read; and I can increase the text size so I don’t have to wear glasses while reading.

But as much as I love ebooks, I am aware of one big problem: the fact that when you buy a book, you are beholden to the company that supplied it if you want to keep reading it.

That has been made clear by an announcement from Barnes & Noble that they are no longer going to sell ebooks for their NOOK device in the UK – and there’s no guarantee that customers will be able to keep on reading books they have already bought!

The problem is that with ebooks, or any kind of digital content, you don’t really buy them. No, you buy a licence to read them, and that licence could be taken away at any time.

B&N have said that they are trying to do a deal with Sainsbury’s Entertainment on Demand “to ensure that you have continued access to the vast majority of your purchased NOOK Books at no new cost to you.”

Key parts of this statement: they are trying, but there’s no guarantee. The vast majority of your books, implying that even if the deal comes off you will lose some of the items that you have paid for. At no new cost to you, meaning that unless their attempts succeed, you will probably have to pay to get everything you thought you already owned.

This is a shocking reminder that physical, paper books have one great advantage over ebooks: they can’t take them away from you.

Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/04/barnes_and_noble_pulls_out_of_blighty/

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