[Florida Kev]

When buying a ebook from someplace other than Amazon can I then share that file with someone else?

 

[Leslie]

When buying a ebook from someplace other than Amazon can I then share that file with someone else?

It depends on whether it has any sort of security or not. It also depends on what the regulations are of the site you bought it from. For example, at Fictionwise, they have this posted:

Am I allowed to email an eBook to a friend?

Sorry, that is not allowed by law. These stories are copyrighted. If you email a file to a friend, you are making a copy of it. You would be committing a crime. The file is licensed to you and you alone. It's not like a physical book that you can loan to a friend. When you purchase and download an eBook from Fictionwise.com, you alone are authorized to read it. You can download it onto multiple devices, for example a Palm and also your home PC. That's allowed by your personal license. But you cannot send copies to any other person. Besides being illegal, making an unauthorized copy of a work deprives the author of their fair royalty, and makes it harder for us to acquire more content in the future. If we catch a violator, we will prosecute him or her to the fullest extent of the law, which can include heavy fines and even imprisonment. So please don't do it. We charge reasonable prices, don't steal from us and our authors.

L

 

[Florida Kev]

Thank you. I do not see such notifications on mobipocket.com.  So assume those publishers don't care otherwise would only publish ebooks via Amazon?   I can certainly see the writer/publisher concerns where a book could be shared by thousands of people via internet.  I really was not thinking in terms of sharing a  book with the www, just passing along a good read to a friend. New to this want to stay on the right side of the law with respect to the arts. 

 

[Leslie]

Thank you. I do not see such notifications on mobipocket.com. So assume those publishers don't care otherwise would only publish ebooks via Amazon? I can certainly see the writer/publisher concerns where a book could be shared by thousands of people via internet. I really was not thinking in terms of sharing a book with the www, just passing along a good read to a friend. New to this want to stay on the right side of the law with respect to the arts.

Mobipocket books are secure (like Kindle books) so you can't share them. Fictionwise does sell non-secure books which is why they have their policy. And even with that, stuff gets ripped off.

L

 

[Ann in Arlington]

But there are a lot of public domain books running around and you can pretty much do whatever you want with them.  Um, except claim you wrote them yourself. . . . .

see the Free Books Thread and there's also a thread with useful websites.

Ann