I’m curious…why differentiate between Kindleized and not Kindleized? If it’s legal, it’s legal, right?

It isn’t necessary to destroy the books to scan them…it’s just easier and cheaper. When I scanned books, the books were fine afterwards…I’d say no more wear and tear than reading them (and perhaps less, due to even more mindfullness).

i would only do it for books that are NOT yet kindleized (John Jakes “Kent family Chronicles” as an example). I would have no qualms about them destroying the book as they must to do the scans. Also, there are already tons existing, and even used books evetually get dumped (even by libraries after the library sale is over). OCR is too much work, because the resultingfiles are so often filled with mistakes (the OCR is still quite mistake prone- we even see that in many officially relased kindle versions!!) So, I’ll take the pdf’s, which should read well on my Kindle DX!!

But, as I said, I haven’t done it yet.

Absolutely! I certainly could have included “abandonment”…good point. Part of that is tied into the the “general decay”, especially with paperbacks from the 1970s forward, I’d guess. They simply fall apart. However, as homes cease to have bookshelves (and “entertainment units” with storage for CDs and DVDs), many may opt to simply toss their books rather than move them.

People cite having books which are a hundred years and still able to be read (I have some). They extrapolate from that that p-books are much more durable than e-books. A hardback published in 1900 is far more durable than a paperback published in 1975.

Older paperbooks may also increasingly move into the hands of collectors, who may have a disincentive to letting those books be scanned once they are in the public domain. Let’s say that you have a rare book by a brand name author…let’s say Stephen King. It’s existence is nearly of mythical proportions. People will pay a lot of money to own one of the few copies, even to read it. If you own it as an investment, is it to your advantage to make it freely available once that’s legal? Perhaps…if it heightens awareness, but I think that rarity will tend to be more of a price driver.

Now, if the book is destroyed, I can not do the proofing of the OCR scan. They say they do it, but they also sound like English is a second language for them. That is my primary concern.

OCR scanning can be pretty good, but it 3an /Foo c3 lcriH1 BAD.

My second concern is that a penny a page is still more than I am willing to pay.

I might have thought I’d gotten a bit past honoring the paper and ink, as opposed to the words. This tells me that I haven’t. I just can’t get past the idea of the books being destroyed. Honestly, it would probably be better if I could. Paperbooks are likely to eventually be lost (damage from insects, fire, water, and general decay).

Other losses must occur from being discarded. Paperbacks have been around in a big way since 1935 or so. But one rarely sees paperbacks from before 1960 or so still around.

Many owners, faced with a move, and lacking a nearby used book store, or having one with only trade-in payment, must just dump them. Recipients of donations, like hospitals, must discard their “oldies” from time to time.

And of course, many unsold new books get “pulped.” (Fewer now than in the past, now that remaindering is more common, I guess.)

As someone who has taught both Project Management and Time Management, I would point out that you should account for your salary in scanning that work. Let’s say your work scanner takes you…five seconds a page, and we need to count the time to tear the book apart, put the pages on the scanner, then probably to combine the pdfs…oh, and proof the scan (which they say they do).

Let’s make this easy and say ten seconds a page.

Six thousand seconds is one hundred minutes. Do you make six dollars in an about an hour and a half in your normal occupation?

I would guess they are not sharing the file with friends…that might give them some real legal headaches.

Typing this on the Fire again. Typing getting faster but excuse missing punctuation it speeds things up.