Digital Books and Your Rights: A Checklist for Readers
After several years of false starts, the universe of digital books seems at last poised to expand dramatically. Readers should view this expansion with both excitement and wariness. Excitement because digital books could revolutionize reading, making more books more findable and more accessible to more people in more ways than ever before. Wariness because the various entities that will help make this digital book revolution possible may not always respect the rights and expectations that readers, authors, booksellers and librarians have built up, and defended, over generations of experience with physical books
- Does it (your e-book reader/service/tool, etc.) protect your privacy?
- Does it tell you what it is doing with regards to your data via privacy disclosures, open code, etc.?
- What happens to additions you make to books you buy, like annotations, highlights, commentary?
- Do you own the book or just rent or license it?
- Is it censorship-resistant?
- Is it burdened with digital rights management (“DRM”)?
- Does it promote access to knowledge?
- Does it foster or inhibit competition and innovation?
Full Article (EFF - eff.org)
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