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+1. The Danger of E-Books {#the-danger-of-e-books .chapter}
+========================
+
+In an age where business dominates our governments and writes our laws,
+every technological advance offers business an opportunity to impose new
+restrictions on the public. Technologies that could have empowered us
+are used to chain us instead.
+
+With printed books,
+
+-   You can buy one with cash, anonymously.
+-   Then you own it.
+-   You are not required to sign a license that restricts your use
+    of it.
+-   The format is known, and no proprietary technology is needed to read
+    the book.
+-   You can give, lend or sell the book to another.
+-   You can, physically, scan and copy the book, and it’s sometimes
+    lawful under copyright.
+-   Nobody has the power to destroy your book.
+
+Contrast that with Amazon e-books (fairly typical):
+
+-   Amazon requires users to identify themselves to get an e-book.
+-   In some countries, including the US, Amazon says the user cannot own
+    the e-book.
+-   Amazon requires the user to accept a restrictive license on use of
+    the e-book.
+-   The format is secret, and only proprietary user-restricting software
+    can read it at all.
+-   An ersatz “lending” is allowed for some books, for a limited time,
+    but only by specifying by name another user of the same system. No
+    giving or selling.
+-   To copy the e-book is impossible due to Digital Restrictions
+    Management[(1)](#FOOT1) in the player and prohibited by the license,
+    which is more restrictive than copyright law.
+-   Amazon can remotely delete the e-book using a back door. It used
+    this back door in 2009 to delete thousands of copies of George
+    Orwell’s 1984.
+
+@firstcopyingnotice{{@footnoterule @smallskip Copyright © 2011, 2014
+Richard Stallman\
+ {This version of this essay is part of @fsfsthreecite}
+
+Even one of these infringements makes e-books a step backward from
+printed books. We must reject e-books until they respect our freedom.
+
+The e-book companies say denying our traditional freedoms is necessary
+to continue to pay authors. The current copyright system supports those
+companies handsomely and most authors badly. We can support authors
+better in other ways that don’t require curtailing our freedom, and even
+legalize sharing. Two methods I’ve suggested are:
+
+-   To distribute tax funds to authors based on the cube root of each
+    author’s popularity.[(2)](#FOOT2)
+-   To design players so users can send authors anonymous
+    voluntary payments.
+
+E-books need not attack our freedom (Project Gutenberg’s e-books don’t),
+but they will if companies get to decide. It’s up to us to stop them.
+
+Join the fight: sign up at <http://DefectiveByDesign.org/ebooks.html>.
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+### Footnotes
+
+### [(1)](#DOCF1)
+
+@raggedright See “The Right to Read” (@pageref{Right to Read}) for more
+on this. @end raggedright
+
+### [(2)](#DOCF2)
+
+@raggedright See both “Copyright vs. Community in the Age of Computer
+Networks” (@pageref{Copyright vs. Community}) and my 2012 open letter to
+the President of the Brazilian Senate, Senator José Sarney, at
+<https://stallman.org/articles/internet-sharing-license.en.html>, for
+more on this. @end raggedright
+
+</div>
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+This document was generated by *tonghuix* on *March 25, 2016* using
+[*texi2html 1.82*](http://www.nongnu.org/texi2html/).\