O'Reilly and Associates just announced that they're offering a 50% discount on every ebook they sell (or 60% for orders of more than $100). Amazon is competing with a massive ebook sale of their own, offering "up to 80% off" on over 2,000 Kindle ebooks. But O'Reilly and Associates notes that their ebooks are DRM-free, and they're also offering discounts on their videos (which includes cloud syncing and a lifetime of free updates...)
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O'Reilly Discounts Every eBook By 50% or More in US - For 3 Days Only
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(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday December 02 2014, @01:46PM
pragprog had 50% off everything until... midnight yesterday. Great timing guys, just hop into a time machine and go back about 5 hours and we're all good.
https://pragprog.com/promotions [pragprog.com]
I have no connection with pragprog other than spending too much money as a customer.
One huge problem I have with "programming books" is I tend to buy/expense them when I need them, they are simply not in the category of things I buy in early December for friends and family. Like windshield wiper blades, RAM, HDMI cables, or toilet paper. So I have nothing to buy at this time that I'd want, at least WRT "computer books".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 02 2014, @02:50PM
...by 100%.
Seriously, who would pay for an O'Reilly ebook when you can get it instantly for free from The Pirate Bay or other torent communities? Now, if this publisher would discount its high print prices to under, say, $10/title, then I might be interested.
(Score: 2) by aclarke on Tuesday December 02 2014, @03:50PM
These books aren't free to produce. The authors generally aren't getting rich off them, and in my opinion it's immoral to take them without permission. If I don't want to pay the money, which I almost always do not, there's a wealth of genuinely free information competing with it. Why would I steal (yes I used that word) a copy of someone's book? I can show what I think of the price by just not using the book, and using something that's already freely available.
I'm going to check through the list of books, and maybe pick up something if I decide it's worthwhile.
(Score: 1) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday December 02 2014, @04:15PM
I'm an avid reader, and I download a lot of books for free. But what I do is, I send the money directly to the authors when I'm done reading a book (the amount the book sells for in paper format in bookshops) because:
1 - When I use an electronic copy of a book, there are no publishing costs. Amazon and the likes are just leeches. Fuck them and let the author - the person who did all the work - have all the money
2 - Cracked books are DRM-free. DRM is only there to enforce the aforementioned leeches' business model. I don't need DRM.
3 - If the author is dead, I don't pay because I see no reason for their offsprings to profit from mom or dad's work. *They* didn't work to earn that money, so they won't get any of mine.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Tuesday December 02 2014, @05:33PM
There aren't 'publishing' costs as such, but there is editing, formatting, storage, perhaps advertising, etc. I do like the idea of sending the money directly to the author though, especially after my female-unit was punished for legally buying a book for her e-reader this week. The DRM would not let her install it on her older model reader.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Leebert on Tuesday December 02 2014, @05:43PM
I'm curious... How do you do this? Do you mail them a check? Hunt down their e-mail address and send them money via PayPal?
(Score: 1) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday December 02 2014, @10:52PM
I snail-mail them cash in aluminum foil. Not very modern, but time-tested.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday December 02 2014, @04:16PM
Most everyone agrees that authors deserve compensation for good work. What we don't agree on is how to pay. Many of us do not wish to use the traditional method of paying for a paper copy. We sure don't want that method carried over into the digital world. We are keenly aware that the traditional way is very inefficient, slow, wasteful, and much less useful as it is not practical to have a computer search through it, and that most of the money spent on that way goes to overheard, not authors. At the very least, we demand that some of the savings of digital publishing and distribution be passed on to us. Demonizing users of superior methods as pirates and thieves is not working and will never work, and moreover is simply not true as you ought to know very well. Moralize all you like, this clock will never be turned back, this genie will never go back into the bottle.
Trying to maintain a lock on all copying is what really deserves severe censure. The copyright extremists have repeatedly revealed themselves as stupid profiteering hypocrites who cheat authors the most. Their vision of hoarding knowledge as if it's not only material but solid gold, and dribbling it out piecemeal in exchange for ransom money is unworkable, anti-social, and profoundly wrong.
(Score: 2) by aclarke on Tuesday December 02 2014, @06:01PM
WTF?
Who owns the intellectual property behind a book? I'd argue that in most cases it belongs in bulk to the author. If the author decides to publish their work through O'Reilly, and sell it through O'Reilly, they are the ones who are deciding to use the "traditional way". I've on quite a few occasions bought music and books directly from the creator as opposed to Amazon/O'Reilly/whomever, and that's the way I prefer to do it when I "have to" pay for something. However, if the author isn't selling directly, that's their choice and for you to essentially make that choice for them is probably you trying to make a moral justification for doing whatever you want to without regard for the people who actually have the right to make those decisions.
This article isn't about "copyright extremists". It's about a publisher that provides DRM-FREE books and is currently offering those books at 50% of the regular price.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday December 03 2014, @12:25AM
The point I'm trying to make is that the concept of "intellectual property" is flawed. You're talking as if I accept the basic premise that copyright should continue, and I should be happy and grateful that O'Reilly is being so generous with this unprecedented offer. No. That's like being asked to be grateful that a patronizing jerk is selling fish at 50% off, as if I can't catch one myself, when I know very well that I could if that jerk hadn't helped outlaw fishing.
We do not need copyright in order to compensate artists. That's all copyright is supposed to be, a means "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". Now we have seen that "intellectual property" does not do a good job of compensating artists or encouraging the creation of art, and indeed often has the opposite effect. Therefore we should seriously consider significant changes. Perhaps we should reform it, or abolish it and replace it with something else, or flat out abolish it and not set up any replacement system. If copyrights and patents were abolished, artists and inventors could and would be paid through other means. They wouldn't vanish or starve, and we would not be facing a loss of new art and invention.
So, no, I am not much impressed with O'Reilly's offer. For so long as they wish to be a traditional publisher, let them lose business. If they go out of business, it will serve them right. What O'Reilly should do is start their own crowdfunding service to create technical books that once written will be totally free, no DRM, no price, no hooks of any sort. Release them under Creative Commons kinds of licenses. They can keep something like 5% of the crowdfunding funds, to compensate them for their editorial and management services. They should not idly sit by while Kickstarter, indiegogo, and the like get all that business.
They can also run a printing press to make a little profit from selling paper copies to those who want them. It works for classic books that are out of copyright. Somehow printers are able to profit from printing new editions of Shakespeare, or Sherlock Holmes, or any number of other classics, without any need of copyright.
(Score: 2) by aclarke on Wednesday December 03 2014, @03:10PM
Here's the basic premise that I propose you accept. I'll put it as a little story.
I write a little book about some kids who discover a dinosaur in their back yard. Then I sit around thinking about what I'm going to do with this masterpiece I created. Should I post it on my blog? Should I sell it as a print-on-demand book? Should I try to sell the PDF for some amount? Should I just read it to my own kids one night and consider that to be the reward for my effort? Should I attempt to get it published?
These decisions are all ones that the author might justifiably choose. My premise is that it is the author's right to choose. If an author chooses to release their book in a copyright-encumbered format, I suggest to you that it is your ethical right to choose to avoid using that work. Note that I'm speaking of a living author and a newly-released, original production.
Your ideas are getting conflated into one another. Shakespeare has been dead for almost 400 years. Printers are able to profit from Shakespeare at this point because they don't have to pay Shakespeare anything! If you propose living authors of recently created works should adopt this model ... well, surely you must see the problem here.
I'm not arguing with you that the copyright system is horribly broken. The publishing industry has its problems too. Crowdfunding a book is a fine way to do things. However, if someone takes the risk of writing a book, and a publisher takes the risk of paying someone to edit and produce the book (still has to happen for electronic versions), they are doing this with the hope that the book may make them some profit to cover the risk. As I said before, it's their right to work in this manner, and it's your right to show your opinion of it by boycotting them.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday December 03 2014, @11:32PM
The author's right to choose ends at the rights and interests of the public. Everyone accepts that authors have no right to silence critics. Nor can they stop others from creating parodies. We have also established that format and time shifting is allowed, though some publishers still try to deny it, try to tell people that's not allowed. We can also share copies among ourselves, and that is the primary purpose of libraries and used book and record stores. Libraries have existed for centuries.
The right in doubt is the right to copy and share on the Internet. No one should have to borrow a paper copy from a library building, when it could be done digitally at a fraction of the cost, effort and risk. No more lost or damaged books, returns, or late fees. No more unavailable items because all copies are currently checked out. No more having to carry physical media back and forth to a central location. Why can't we have our fully digital public library? Huge, huge savings for us all. And most of all, all the things that can be done with digital copies. Simple searches are only the start. Serious data mining becomes possible. Copyright in its current form is not worth foregoing the digital public library. Authors must bow to this future, and accept that they will have to use other means to earn money for their efforts. Other means will likely prove better than copyright.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Tuesday December 02 2014, @03:38PM
Don't get me wrong, I've read my own fair share of O'Reilly books in the past. And while I was happy, it is difficult to get overly excited for a programming book.
Does anyone have any particular favourites? Like the good enough to recommend to people of other industries?
(Score: 2) by skullz on Tuesday December 02 2014, @03:57PM
In general I've stopped reading tech books with the exceptions of books that describe concepts, processes, and "best practices". I've found that the programming language books go stale as soon as the author finishes them and then they are very stale in the months it takes the books to get to me. Framework books go out even faster. There are some really good ideas but I can get the ideas elsewhere and get more up to date references.
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Tuesday December 02 2014, @05:14PM
You're right about tech books. I used to invest in a programming book each month to make myself more valuable in the 90s. Now - who cares? Languages, platforms, and frameworks change so fast that I just ignore them and learn the bare minimum I need to know at any given moment. The best investment is the least investment since knowledge has a nonexistent shelf life. All that time I spent in the 90s learning stuff was largely wasted, since almost nothing is relevant today. Even from one release of an OS to another everything seems to change to the point what you used to know isn't worth much.
Books also might be good tutorials, but they have very little real-world information on how to do something. For example, I've read several Android books, but have evolved my own way of handling things the books never even mention. Starter books can get you oriented in a new technology, but they sure don't take you very far.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 02 2014, @05:43PM
The wisdom of a true programming veteran!
You can't really master the new stuff at the rate it is being pushed at us. All you can hope for is to not use it stupidly.
Truly the IT industry has completed its metamorphosis into the fashion industry for geeks and gadget lovers. Or maybe it's just pushed us from craftsmen/professionals to day laborers who clap together crappily-made components they picked up at Home Depot...
(Score: 1) by forkazoo on Thursday December 04 2014, @06:08AM
Similarly, I've mostly stopped reading tech books because I seem to have become incredibly lazy when it comes to long text. I've been completely spoiled by googling for answers as they come up on a project. It always seems like whenever I get a book, I finish whatever inspired me to get the book before I actually finish reading it, and then I just sort of give up and move on to something else. Sometimes I wish the Internet had never been invented. I might still have an attention span longer than a stackoverflow answer...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 02 2014, @06:42PM
Before you rush to spend your hard earned money, you might want to read this
http://www.thebaffler.com/past/the_meme_hustler [thebaffler.com]
(Score: 2) by francois.barbier on Tuesday December 02 2014, @06:53PM
Is it limited to the USA? There's no mention of geographic restriction.
(Score: 1) by stroucki on Tuesday December 02 2014, @09:21PM
They regularly have deep discounts on their e-books, and I wait for those times to buy. I don't care much for Soyvertisements, but I was rather happy to see that the 60% discount kicked in on $100 pre-discount value of the books.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday December 03 2014, @12:00AM
You bring up the other aspect of O'Reilly books, they are ALL over priced, perhaps because the market is so small for most of them, or perhaps as a tactic to give them more gravitas.
I only buy them on discount. Usually in paperback form.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by stroucki on Wednesday December 03 2014, @12:55AM
Technical and academic books do tend to be pricy, they really aren't mass market products.
There's also the possibility of third world imports - The Bloch Java book lists for $37 on one site; my Chinese edition was 50 CNY (~6$).