I am of the understanding that buying books online is hardly worth anything because you don’t actually own anything. Maybe you own the digital file? I’m not sure. I don’t trust the longevity of it, though.

I’m told a lot (mainly by my Dad) that its a good idea to print those out to keep them. However, I’m talking about books that are easily 200+ pages.

I don’t know if its worth the ink or money to print them out. At that point would it be better to just buy a book?

  • pfunnyjoy@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    No, you don’t own most ebook files. You have the right to read them on certain devices, and you may have the right to share them with members of your immediate household. Amazon has household sharing, I’m not sure about other ebook vendors.

    You generally DO NOT have the right to print the files out or give them to friends or anything like that.

    You can remove DRM for your personal use and backup. The legality of that is possibly questionable, but no one will know if you don’t tell. Once DRM is removed, you may convert the file to an open format such as ePUB and it will be usable on most devices.

    Could ebook formats change? Could ePUB be replaced with a newer format?

    Sure, but an ePUB is based on HTML and CSS. That’s not going away in a hurry and even if the web mutates to something other than HTML and CSS, it’s a certainty that someone would find a way to convert ePUB to whatever the new format is. And if not, you unzip it, get the HTML files and print them then.

    Back up your files, and you need not worry about longevity.

    I’ve got .doc, .text, .pdf, .mp3, .html, .psd (Photoshop), .jpg, and .gif files that originated in the 1990s or not much later. (My digital clutter is LEGEND!) I’ve got .epub files from 2011. All of these files still open and more than one program can open them at that!

    Honestly, to print the files you’d use a ton of paper and ink and you’d have something that didn’t feel like a book, or look like a book, and would be less pleasurable to read than a book.

    You are FAR better off hitting up eBay or Etsy, or your local used book store and finding a print copy to buy used. Or even buy new and support the author.

    Print has a certain longevity, but no guarantees there either. Spill a drink on a book, or have a house fire, or hurricane, tornado, earthquake, volcanic eruption, flooding and your print copy is likely toast.