Ebooks at Handango for $ 2.49 - Is it legal??

[karinatwork]

I stumbled over some ebooks for sale at Handango, books from Stephen King, Michael Crichton, Harry Potter books, etc. Most of them are for sale for $ 2.49.
Click here for an example... (http://www.handango.com/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=1&jid=81129X27F32283F8A6ACDF214D2X682X&productId=66623&productType=2&navTitle=Last+7+Days&catalog=1&topOption=6&daysOld=7&posit=100&sectionId=0&platformId=2)

Is that possible and legal? When I look for books at Peanut Press or Amazon, I can never get a book from a relatively well known writer for less than $ 6.00.
Just wondering. I don't want to give money to a company who stole the books. Of course, if it's legal, at those prices, I'm in... :D

[Eitel]

MSReader - Please support us in continuously nourishing your minds & spirits by purchase any of the ebooks which we spent hours converting them into MSReader format. Thank You! =:)

After reading that, I really doubt they are legal. :?

[Unreal32]

Looks like they have a lot of these for sale... and it sounds *highly* suspicious. Doesn't handango check for copyright infringement on this stuff? I'd say this looks like lawsuit material:

http://www.handango.com/PlatformSearch.jsp?siteId=1&jid=DC667388EB2F3FE96D1B5F2BD7962D98&optionId=1%5F2%5F2&txtSearch=mobipocket&platformId=2

[davidspalding]

Found these books from a tip at another site. Yes, Karin, it is HIGHLY suspicious isn't it, that all these popular books are available from some nobody, at such a low, low price. Many of their freeware titles I recognize from Project Gutenberg titles, which are freely available from other cottage publishers as well. "Hours and hours of work" my eye.

But the popular books? Note that all their covers seem to be scans of paperback covers. <chuckle>

I wrote to Handango support and got a really funny response. (My question is below their Customer Support response.)

Response (Kristin) 04/21/2003 03:07 PM
David:

This information is confidential. I apologize that I cannot release this to you.

Customer 04/20/2003 08:43 AM
Vietnamese Mobipocket seems to be selling many copyrighted tooks converted to eBook format. Is this legal? Does this seller have license to sell Stephen King books, Harry Potter books, etc?

[spursdude]

I wrote to Handango support and got a really funny response.

Response (Kristin)
04/21/2003 03:07 PM
David:

This information is confidential. I apologize that I cannot release this to you.

Customer
04/20/2003 08:43 AM
Vietnamese Mobipocket seems to be selling many copyrighted tooks converted to eBook format. Is this legal? Does this seller have license to sell Stephen King
books, Harry Potter books, etc?
:rofl:

Yeah I don't trust them either. First they say that they spent a lot of time putting them into MS Reader format. And, they're too cheap compared to other recent ebooks. Also, they say you need MobiPocket Reader to read the files. :D

[Brad Adrian]

I don't have enough information to know whether this is legal or not. I have a personal rule, though, that I will not do business with anybody listing only a Hotmail account as their e-mail address.

[davidspalding]

There's not much wrong with charging $2.45 for an ebook compilation of texts, so long as the copyright holder allows resale. Sheesh, I'd love it if I could buy an eBook for < $10.

I believe the PG texts allow small charges for formatting and transcoding (if that's the correct term), their etexts contain the legal details.

But ... well ... hey, does anyone think that Stephen King and J. K. Rowling's publishers would provide license for $2.45 .LIT copies? Naaaaw. It's just too regal to be legal.

BTW, here's the corrected link for this particular publishers schtuff (http://www.handango.com/PlatformTopSoftware.jsp?siteId=1&jid=X25EC62812E79BXFB1B99DCD3DAX85E2&platformId=2&title=Vietnamese+Mobipocket+&authorId=321428) on Handango.

[Brad Adrian]

[CAUTION! Stupid pet peeve to follow. If you do not like pretentious rants, skip to the next post.]

Reading the seller's posts on Handango really bugs me. It never ceases to amaze me how horrible people's grammar and spelling can be when trying to sell a product. We all make grammatical errors and occasionally aren't the most concise, but what ever happened to proofreading something before you throw it out in the public for everyone to read?

Maybe it's because my dad was an English professor, but I sometimes can't bring myself to do business with a company that's too lazy to proofread its own marketing materials.

[Eitel]

I don't have enough information to know whether this is legal or not. I have a personal rule, though, that I will not do business with anybody listing only a Hotmail account as their e-mail address.

So, you don't have PocketHackMaster (http://www.handango.com/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?catalog=1&jid=D6DD84FF7CF437D549AE695FFD74C5FB&productId=52913&authorId=94704&sectionId=0&productType=2&siteId=1&platformId=2) then? :mrgreen:

[MLO]

[CAUTION! Stupid pet peeve to follow. If you do not like pretentious rants, skip to the next post.]

Reading the seller's posts on Handango really bugs me. It never ceases to amaze me how horrible people's grammar and spelling can be when trying to sell a product. We all make grammatical errors and occasionally aren't the most concise, but what ever happened to proofreading something before you throw it out in the public for everyone to read?

Maybe it's because my dad was an English professor, but I sometimes can't bring myself to do business with a company that's too lazy to proofread its own marketing materials.

Its not just you. In my opinion, if you are sloppy with grammar when advertising your software, then you are sloppy in other areas as well. I don't even consider software that has sloppy advertising.

MLO

[Kaber]

Aren't you guys aware that the majority of the people on this planet do not read, write, or speak english?

[PetiteFlower]

Then write your marketing materials in your native language! If you want to sell to english-speaking people, hire someone(or even just find someone to do it for free) to translate it for you. Be at least a tiny bit professional.

[karinatwork]

I'm sorry, Petite Flower, but if we are going to trash a company, I'd rather trash it for their poor business ethics (allegedly stealing copyright material), than for their poor English.

English is not my native language, and I am well aware of how difficult it can be to find someone that speaks English perfectly, when you don't live in an English speaking country.

I worked in Italy for 10 years, and I had to write letters to international customers with just my highschool English, and my colleague was supposed to proof read these letters. She had a university degree in English, yet her English was worse than mine.

There are a lot of great programs out there made by companies that don't speak and write their marketing materials in perfect English. I wouldn't want to miss any opportunities just because they posted their information in Japanese or Greek. I don't have a problem with poor English, as long as I understand what they mean.

We all want to be part of this big universe called "The Internet", that happens to use English as its main pillar of communications, even if our language skills aren't perfect.

Sorry about the long ranting. It's just my personal opinion... :)

Karin

[davidspalding]

Internet equals WORLDWIDE
Internet not equal to ENGLISH ONLY
Lusers who insist the Internet's official language is English ... equal to prejudiced? or only myopic?

I'd say half of the s/w on my pda is from non-English speaking countries. Some of the help info is clunky, but the s/w works great.

I think the blurb for this pirate is aggravating because it prevails upon us (consumers) to feel sorry for this guy/gal/crew spending hours and hours slaving over scanners and keyboards, creating ... pirated, unlicensed ebooks of American and British authors' works. The poor English only reinforces a stereotype that this is some clueless Asian operating out of a third world #*@&hole. Could be a teenager working in his mom's home office in Toledo. We just don't know.

Hopefully Handango's legal affairs dept. will find out.

[trachy]

Internet equals WORLDWIDE
Internet not equal to ENGLISH ONLY
Lusers who insist the Internet's official language is English ... equal to prejudiced? or only myopic?

Man, where's Esperanto when you need it?

- Drew

[PetiteFlower]

I don't have a problem with a few minor errors. I understand that English is a difficult language to learn. I'm talking about horrifically glaring errors, stuff that looks like it was written by someone with 1 year of middle school english. If you are running a business and you want to sell something to me, then at least try to put together advertising that I can understand. I suspect that the companies with the most illegible materials ALSO have the same quality of speech in their native materials. Seriously. I don't remember much of my french, but if I was going to attempt to write something professional in french, I would hunt down some grammar books and put a genuine effort at making it sound intelligent. There's a difference between reading something and being able to tell that it was written by a non-native speaker, and reading something that sounds like there was no effort to make it sound professional or polished at all.

I do NOT think that everyone on the internet should have to speak english, but again, why not only write in your native language if it's all you know? There are still probably millions of people online who speak your language and will buy your product.

Anyway I'm not going to buy illegal ebooks from anyone either :) I don't even read ebooks, I'm still hooked on the whole "paper" concept :) Plus I can go to the library for free, and paperbacks don't eat up my RAM ;) But I will agree that selling stolen work is definitely a greater crime then having a poorly written web site.