how much?!?!
£130 for the complete audio book collection? you can get all the full movies on blu-ray for £50
even the ebooks are much more expensive than buying some real books.
one of the world's richest women is milking the kids... badly.
Fans of JK Rowling's student sorcerer will be pleased to know the Pottermore Shop - the only place to buy Harry Potter e-books and audio books - is now open for business. It may be behind times in terms of e-commerce - the last book was published nearly five years ago - but Rowling's seven novels have finally made it into the …
I suppose audio books do cost money to make, and have such a small audience that they need to get the money back [i]some[/i]how...
That said, what happened to these reader apps that automatically read e-books aloud? Last I remember, copyright owners were claiming this was illegal because it amounted to giving a public performance, which merely owning the book does not give you the right to do. Did that ever get resolved?
@JDX I never said I had copies so I don't need to be lectured. I'm just pointing out the bleeding obvious that given the choice between having the book instantly in an open format that many people are going to take that option over waiting some indeterminate amount of time (two years and counting) just for same title to eventually appear in a DRMd format.
EVERY book will exist in some dodgy scanned format if more than a handful of people want it. So what? I don't believe that most people would think it was fine to download such a version simply because a legit digital version doesn't exist.
Those who would get a free pirate version - especially those who would use DRM as some kind of moral justification - would do the same thing even if legit paid versions existed from the start, just as they do with film, music and software.
@JDX er no. Most ebooks are released day and date with the physical copy, usually when the physical copy is in hardback too. So when one of the best selling series of books appears without an ebook equivalent it is no surprise whatsoever what happens. Moralising about it is utterly missing the point. If publishers want to compete with free it helps to actually compete. Not doing so just see anyone who wants an electronic copy picking it up for nothing. And if you don't believe most people would think it fine to download a version because no official one exists then you are incredibly naive.
The books aren't DRM'd. They have a watermark of the buyers name but they can be read, converted, backed up, transferred to your Amazon kindle library, whatever. All of which is a big surprise to many and puts the big publishing houses to shame. Oh, and its available as EPUB; a nice open specification format. And, by all accounts, there are a lot of people prepared to buy them if the availability of the web site yesterday is anything to go by. Not me though.
Rowling's seven novels have finally made it into the digital domain
Strictly speaking, "made it into PAID FOR digital domain. E-book piracy has been rampart since at least as long as that of music and this pottery series must be available in every conceivable format, including those long-dead ones, like ".lit". Oh, where is the c-lit satisfaction of the yesteryear! :D
The US paper edition had illustrations and so does the ebook edition. The UK paper edition had no illustrations and neither does the ebook. That's the size discrepancy, and maybe the price difference too.
The US edition doesn't need notes to explain the words; they already changed the words. If you live outside the UK and want to read the original UK version then you're stuffed. Beyond this stupid Geo-restriction, which didn't exist with the paper books, she did a much better job at this than most interested parties expected. Certainly better than the big publishing houses can do. Shame it took her so long. I expect when you have more money than god there are lots of other distractions to fill your time with.