The Pros And Cons Of E-Books

Books are one of the most widely known, used, and oldest form of story-telling in human history. They are defined as “a volume of many sheets bound together, containing text, graphics, or music” (Book), but today, books are also contained in electronic forms ranging from simulated pages to audio files with no pages to speak of. E-books allow those without storage space or the time to head to the bookstore to own an entire library in their hands, and audio books has allowed the blind to read without needing a physical book in their hands and those with long commutes and little free-time to enjoy their favorite books without dropping the task at hand. But, while the evolution of books seems to be only positive, each version has its downfalls,

E-books are readily available, easy to access, and you don’t have to wait, making them seem like the perfect solution for today’s demands for your time to be constantly split. However, you don’t always get what you ask for. Most e-books you purchase, whether it is from Apple’s iTunes, Amazon’s Kindle Content services, or even Barnes & Nobel are not even sold to you. Rather, you sign an agreement through these companies to purchase a license from the company or content provider to view the specified work or works. For example, Amazon’s “Kindle Store Terms of Use” clearly states that “the Content Provider grants you a non-exclusive right to view, use, and display such Kindle Content an unlimited number of times, solely on the Kindle or a Reading Application or as otherwise permitted as part of the Service, solely on the number of Kindles or Supported Devices specified in the Kindle Store, and solely for your personal, non-commercial use. Kindle Content is licensed, not sold, to you by the Content Provider.” (Kindle Store Terms of

The company may find this alarming and remove your access from your otherwise legally-obtained content, never to be seen again. This would force you into the option of buying a single-book audio player or a physical copy, which you were trying to avoid in the first place. However, audio books are not your savior either. Many of them fall under the same governing contract, meaning that, regardless of how hard you try, your books are not yours, rather they belong to some multi-billion company and you just happen to be paying them to borrow their