About a month ago I wrote a post about wanting a mirrored library, that is, the ability to have my books in hard copy as well as in digital form for easy searching. I said that it would be cool if, when I buy a hard copy book, I could get a digital copy for a reduced price.
Apparently, amazon.com is already doing this with some books. A few days ago I bought French Grammar: A Complete Reference Guide; after purchasing it, I was given the option to get the digital version as well, for a mere $1.89. I of course jumped on the option.
I’m not crazy about the implementation, as you have to login amazon.com to read it, and the reading is done in their online reader (the same system which you can preview books in). It makes sense, though; if they allowed PDF downloads they’d be all over the internet in a matter of hours.
The online reader lets you highlight and add annotations, as well as make an unlimited number of bookmarks. You can then search the whole book, just bookmarked pages, highlighted text, or your notes. The only feature which seems to be a bit wonky right now is the copy feature. Standard copy and paste is disabled in the reader, so you have to select the text you’re after and then press a “Copy” button at the top of the controls. However, when I try this, a little “Loading…” window pops up, and stays there indefinitely.
Still, though, it’s cool to see things moving in this direction. I wish I could upgrade my long-ago purhased copy of Hammer’s German Grammar and Usage, but it looks like it’s not yet available in digital format.
Comments 2
“It makes sense, though; if they allowed PDF downloads they’d be all over the internet in a matter of hours.”
Well, there are ways of encrypting a PDF so only people using their account on Adobe Digital Editions can use it. That’s limiting in its own way, though; I ran across it when trying to see if there was any way I could buy legit copies of digital books and put them in formats for use on PSP. Buuut with things like that in place it’s just not doable.
Posted 09 Apr 2009 at 9:47 am ¶Yeah, it’s a difficult situation. To make a digital book easily accessible on multiple platforms, they more or less have to remove any protection from it.
However, it seems a little strange that they’re okay with selling DRM-free MP3s, which can easily be thrown onto the net, while not being okay with selling DRM-free books.
Posted 10 Apr 2009 at 8:17 am ¶Post a Comment