this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2025
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"your" ebooks. – You never owned them in the first place. And if buying isn't owning, questionably acquired ebooks aren't stolen.
Check if it’s available on your library website first, for the sake of the author.
I download books from my library to my kindle. It goes through Amazon though, so I assume I am also impacted by this BS.
It shouldn’t. The DRM is on the Amazon book file format. The books I get from my library are usually epub format.
I mean authors don’t see money anytime someone rents an ebook do they? Libraries just need to pay for licenses to the publisher annually from what I’ve read on reddit/Lemmy.
I can understand renting ebooks so that your library continues to fund a digital library, but if the book is available in paper form that doesn’t really benefit the author either.
Authors receive 25% of the ebook sale to a library in the US. Frequent lends will also influence future purchases made by the library.
https://janefriedman.com/what-do-authors-earn-from-digital-lending-at-libraries/
Libraries in Canada and the UK pay royalties for each lend.
https://societyofauthors.org/where-we-stand/public-lending-right-plr/
It's not a great deal for the libraries. They ebooks can come with a limited number of checkouts and cost far more.
I switched to Kobo and have been very happy so far. I was able to download my books from Amazon and mumble and then I was able to read them on my Kobo device and store them in my Calibre library.
Good to know! Thanks! I’ll start using my e-lending app again, ever if that just means I instantly return the book.
Even after years and years of this being discussed, it shocks me how many people keep dropping money into services which force them to own nothing.
Convenience is a helluva drug.
It depends, sometimes you can "buy" digital ownership from these places in the form of DRM-free files. If you are able to download the DRM-free file and make a reliable backup of it, then I could call that actual ownership. This is how I approach my music and ebook libraries. I don't do subscriptions for streaming anything but TV.
True, though such services are in the extreme minority at this point.
Bandcamp is great for music downloads