Josuah writes "Forbes is reporting that Amazon plans to sell books by the page, so you could purchase only the excerpt you're interested in. What I found more interesting though was the mention of a program called Amazon Upgrade, which will allow you to view books you own from any web browser. Sounds awfully similar to the MP3.com case. I'm guessing Amazon Upgrade also means you need to purchase all your books from Amazon. Interesting value-add proposition."Ads_xl=0;Ads_yl=0;Ads_xp='';Ads_yp='';Ads_xp1='';Ads_yp1='';Ads_par='';Ads_cnturl='';Ads_prf='page=article';Ads_channels='RON_P6_IMU';Ads_wrd='books,internet,yro';Ads_kid=0;Ads_bid=0;Ads_sec=0; Amazon to Sell Books by Page, Display Books You Own Log in/Create an Account | Top | 126 comments | Search Discussion Display Options Threshold: -1: 126 comments 0: 122 comments 1: 104 comments 2: 77 comments 3: 19 comments 4: 10 comments 5: 3 comments Flat Nested No Comments Threaded Oldest First Newest First Highest Scores First Oldest First (Ignore Threads) Newest First (Ignore Threads) The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way. Similar to mp3.com? (Score:2, Insightful) by maverick215 (713433) on Saturday November 05, @09:29AM (#13957316) no... I don't think mp3.com could ever dream of having as much $$ as amazon to fight any potential fight of free use. And I doubt publishers have quite as strong a group as the RIAA to act as the 800lb gorilla. [ Reply to ThisRe:Similar to mp3.com? by Gubbe (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @09:41AMnot at all by eean (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @10:56AM LOTR (Score:3, Funny) by Munta (925134) on Saturday November 05, @09:29AM (#13957317) (http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/) Excellent - I now only need to pay for the first and last page of Lord of The Rings. Saving me money and time! [ Reply to This2 replies beneath your current threshold. The gift that keeps on giving (Score:5, Insightful) by lildogie (54998) on Saturday November 05, @09:29AM (#13957320) So I buy a book as a gift, and give it away, but I get to keep the online copy?Cool for me, rats for the author.Maybe they could do this with music? [ Reply to This Re:The gift that keeps on giving (Score:4, Insightful) by martijnd (148684) on Saturday November 05, @09:49AM (#13957384) (http://www.studydiy.com.tw/) > So I buy a book as a gift, and give it away, but I get to keep the online copy?> Cool for me, rats for the author.So what? What are the changes you keep going back to a book you already finished anyway? You should give away books after you finish them,.. somebody else might enjoy it.If the service allows you to go back it actually good for the auther -- he/she has another opportunity to convince you buy that next episode of the series.I cleaned up my book collection the other day -- nearly all of them I have read about once and then they started gathering dust. Nearly all books out there are read at most once , if they are that lucky. Plenty of books I started to read only to decide half way through that it wasn't worth my time (though that happens most with library books where I tend to pick and choose books beyond my usual favorites ) [ Reply to This | ParentRe:The gift that keeps on giving by Haydn Fenton (Score:3) Saturday November 05, @10:09AMRe:The gift that keeps on giving by shudde (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @11:24AMRe:The gift that keeps on giving by RobotRunAmok (Score:3) Saturday November 05, @12:08PMRe:The gift that keeps on giving by Ratbert42 (Score:1) Saturday November 05, @02:41PMRe:The gift that keeps on giving by blincoln (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @04:42PMRe:The gift that keeps on giving by Bigbutt (Score:3) Saturday November 05, @05:00PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Re:The gift that keeps on giving (Score:4, Insightful) by Spacejock (727523) on Saturday November 05, @10:10AM (#13957452) (http://www.spacejock.com.au/) I'm a published author, and I like the idea. Only a tiny fraction of the public will sit and read an entire book off their screen, but they might read the first chapter if they think they've managed to scab a freebie off someone. (Ill-gotten gains and all that.) If they get hooked you can bet there's a chance they'll buy a paper copy, or perhaps the author's next book.The only sales you might lose are to those people who read a bit and don't like it. On the other hand, those people currently have to pay for the paper to preview it, and if they then decided it sucked they could bad-mouth the book for weeks. They're less likely to moan and whinge about it if they paid nothing. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:The gift that keeps on giving by oncehour (Score:1) Saturday November 05, @05:19PMRe:The gift that keeps on giving by D'Sphitz (Score:1) Saturday November 05, @10:57AM So basically (Score:4, Insightful) by TheNationalist (908193) on Saturday November 05, @09:31AM (#13957325) (http://www.pornladder.com/) They're going to make you pay for what you would otherwise do for free at a bookstore (read parts of the book before you buy). [ Reply to This Re:So basically (Score:5, Insightful) by Mac Degger (576336) on Saturday November 05, @09:49AM (#13957383) (Last Journal: Wednesday March 05, @05:56PM) It gets even better: "...so you could purchase only the excerpt you're interested in." [from the blurb].Basically, they're selling you what fair use already allows you to do! [ Reply to This | ParentCatch22 by Haydn Fenton (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @10:13AMRe:So basically by grumbel (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @11:23AMRe:So basically by hardpack (Score:1) Saturday November 05, @11:29AMRe:So basically by aminorex (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @01:27PMRe:So basically by krunk4ever (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @05:38PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:So basically by moviepig.com (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @10:12AMRe:So basically by MightyMartian (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @11:43AMRe:So basically by moviepig.com (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @11:55AMRe:So basically by darkmeridian (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @10:32AM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Hmmm... (Score:1) by iamelgringo000 (928665) on Saturday November 05, @09:31AM (#13957328) Yeah, but will I have the option to buy the pages used? [ Reply to ThisRe:Hmmm... by xigxag (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @09:37AMEconomics of Amazon used books by DavidNWelton (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @10:18AM Question... (Score:4, Insightful) by fullcircleflight (883189) on Saturday November 05, @09:37AM (#13957350) How will you know which page to buy if you can't see it until you buy it? [ Reply to ThisRe:Question... by Ireneo Funes (Score:1) Saturday November 05, @09:52AMRe:Question... by hardpack (Score:1) Saturday November 05, @11:26AMAnswer: online databases by pario (Score:1) Saturday November 05, @12:40PMRe:Question... by fcichy (Score:1) Saturday November 05, @08:26PM2 replies beneath your current threshold. textbooks (Score:5, Interesting) by TedCheshireAcad (311748) <`ude.tir.cf' `ta' `det'> on Saturday November 05, @09:40AM (#13957359) (http://slashdot.org/) This would be a very useful service if textbooks were included. I, along with many other students, know the pain of buying a $120 textbook and only using the first 2 chapters, then selling it back to the book store for $20 and a Hershey's bar.Of course, this was before I figured out their racket and started buying international textbooks.... [ Reply to ThisRe:textbooks by Tink2000 (Score:3) Saturday November 05, @09:54AMRe:textbooks by TedCheshireAcad (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @10:12AMRe:textbooks by krbvroc1 (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @10:49AMRe:textbooks by Tink2000 (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @11:09AMRe:textbooks by ceejayoz (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @11:19AMOr ... by Tink2000 (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @11:23AMRe:Or ... by aminorex (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @01:30PMTextbook adoption by Create an Account (Score:3) Saturday November 05, @10:55AMRe:textbooks by pyite (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @11:00AMRe:textbooks by CastrTroy (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @10:51AMRe:textbooks by Tink2000 (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @11:20AMRe:textbooks by CastrTroy (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @11:06PMSome textbook companies already do this by Rescate (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @01:18PMRe:Some textbook companies already do this by Tink2000 (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @01:52PMRe:Some textbook companies already do this by Rescate (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @02:37PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Cor Blimey (Score:1) by LiquidCoooled (634315) on Saturday November 05, @09:42AM (#13957366) MP3 singles I can deal with since they are already sold seperately anyway, but why in the hell would anyone want to buy a single page?It would get awful messy even if you used the examples given in the article, a recipe on a specific page - it would be a bummer if it then said "gather the same utensils as for the cake on the previous recipe" or something.silly silly silly. [ Reply to ThisRe:Cor Blimey by Eric604 (Score:1) Saturday November 05, @10:02AMRe:Cor Blimey by jmanforever (Score:1) Saturday November 05, @01:01PM typo (Score:2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 05, @09:43AM (#13957372) Interesting value-add proposition. Damn Slashdot editors. Mispelled vendor lock-in. [ Reply to This "Free" books (Score:2) by lewiz (33370) <purple@l e w i z.net> on Saturday November 05, @09:44AM (#13957373) (http://www.lewiz.org/) Sounds like a bit of "buy book, sell book, read book" could be going on in the future, if they go ahead with this online version of the book. [ Reply to ThisRe:"Free" books by uncadonna (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @10:51AM Handy Stop-gap (Score:1) by Threni (635302) on Saturday November 05, @09:50AM (#13957386) (http://poldie.fotopic.net/) This'll do before content providers (music, movies, books, games) finally evolve into a pay-per-byte model - perhaps with a small monthly charge to allow you to search for free, take small `free` samples etc. For some books it makes sense to only grab a couple of chapters, while for reference books you really want it all on hand all the time. [ Reply to This SPOILER WARNING!!! (Score:2, Funny) by BushCheney08 (917605) on Saturday November 05, @09:51AM (#13957391) I bought the last page of a bunch of books. Hope I don't get sued for posting them here. Here goes...Ready?THE END [ Reply to This Whats the Point? (Score:2, Insightful) by p0 (740290) on Saturday November 05, @10:08AM (#13957440) (http://primary0.blogspot.com/) Why would you pay for just a page from a book? What exactly could it be worth? Isn't the whole point of buying books is to, well, have the entire book and not just a few paragraphs of it (probably the same content/information you can get from somewhere else for free). [ Reply to ThisRe:Whats the Point? by ceejayoz (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @11:23AM No good for speed readers... (Score:2) by creimer (824291) on Saturday November 05, @10:12AM (#13957462) (http://www.creimer.ws/ | Last Journal: Sunday July 31, @11:45PM) I want the whole thing to read. I can read 20 pages in two minutes. If I want to read in tiny bits, I would get the newspaper or a magazine. [ Reply to ThisBULLSHIT. by Elad Alon (Score:1) Saturday November 05, @11:50AMRe:BULLSHIT. by creimer (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @02:43PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:No good for speed readers... by Hitman_Frost (Score:1) Saturday November 05, @01:02PM2 replies beneath your current threshold. Hah (Score:2) by gunpowda (825571) on Saturday November 05, @10:18AM (#13957485) I doubt this idea will go through as planned. It seems to me that many people that cite things haven't actually read the relevant work in its entirety and have just skimmed through snippets. (A general point about academia, here, feel free to enlighten me.) I'm sure this would affect sales.Also, who'd want to pay by the page when you can read extracts on-line free with Google Print? [ Reply to This terrific idea for academics (Score:4, Insightful) by gonerill (139660) on Saturday November 05, @10:19AM (#13957486) (http://slashdot.org/) Issues of lock-in and implementation aside, this is a brilliant proposition for academics and researchers (like me). I'd pay money to be able to do full-text searches on my library: I can't tell you how common (and frustrating) it is to chase after a half-remembered quote or reference amongst your books. On the Mac, Tiger/Spotlight already makes searching your PDF copies of journal articles much easier. Books would be a great addition. Amazon should do this retroactively, as they know all the books I've bought from them. Ideally, it would also be available via their API, so that beautiful but basically useless applications like Delicious Library [delicious-monster.com] would aquire real functionality. [ Reply to This Nothing to do with mp3.com (Score:4, Informative) by DeepRedux (601768) on Saturday November 05, @10:26AM (#13957528) This has nothing to do with mp3.com, because Amazon is getting permission from the copyright owners unlike mp3.com.From CNET: [com.com]As with Amazon's existing "Search Inside the Book" feature, only books in the public domain or whose copyright holders have granted permission will be included in the new digital book programs, he [Jeff Bezos] said. That will help the company avoid the copyright concerns Google's project has sparked.This is more like iTunes than mp3.com. [ Reply to This Hmm (Score:2) by value_added (719364) on Saturday November 05, @10:30AM (#13957545) Forbes is reporting that Amazon plans to sell books by the page, so you could purchase only the excerpt you're interested in.Well, we read only a page a time, so I guess that would work.What I found more interesting though was the mention of a program called Amazon Upgrade, which will allow you to view books you own from any web browser.What I'd find interesting is having free access to O'Reilly's on-line versions of printed books I've already bought and paid for. Or even better, have the good folks at O'Reilly send me a bound and printed copy of whatever it is I'm paying for the privilege of reading on their pricey website [safaribooksonline.com], or previously bought as an electronic version. Or maybe they'll just start including an electronic version on CD gratis with every book they sell, and save me all this head scratching? Or maybe someone else will come up with a Netflix version of a Monthly Book Club and confuse the hell out of everyone.So many options. so little time.Interesting value-add proposition.Indeed. I consider myself a cliche. [ Reply to This But It's Not The Same (Score:1) by bigdavesmith (928732) on Saturday November 05, @10:31AM (#13957549) Something I have yet to hear mentioned is that some people still have little or no interest in reading a book online (or printing the online content out). I personally enjoy the weight of a book and the feel of the pages. If Amazon does make all the content of all the books I've ever bought from them (many) available online to me, I probably will not use this feature.I won't deny that it has applications (I bought a textbook, left it at home, need it at school, or simply don't want to carry it), but it is not something that would generally sway me to buy from Amazon. [ Reply to This Libraries, anyone? (Score:2) by dreamchaser (49529) on Saturday November 05, @10:32AM (#13957554) (http://www.sportcompactracing.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday April 22, @12:58PM) 1) Go to library2) Find quote(s) you are interested in3) Photocopy said pages under fair use, or take notes the old fashioned way4) ...5) Save money (profit?) [ Reply to ThisRe:Libraries, anyone? by interiot (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @10:53AMRe:Not necessairly the best idea by technoextreme (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @01:57PM I don't see how this is going to work (Score:1) by SilverJets (131916) on Saturday November 05, @10:39AM (#13957589) (http://slashdot.org/) How am I going to know what pages to buy? Am I going to be allowed to read through the book online and only buy the pages I want? Wouldn't that then mean I could just read the entire book online and not buy anything? Or do I need to already have access to a copy of the book and then buy the pages I want? So, why would I then buy from Amazon, since I already have access to a copy of the book?This business plan makes no sense. [ Reply to This A Brainless Assault on Google and Fair Use. (Score:4, Insightful) by twitter (104583) on Saturday November 05, @10:40AM (#13957598) (Last Journal: Thursday January 27, @08:41PM) Buy a page? How stupid. How on earth would I know I want the page before I read it? Why would a particular page come up to begin with? I can think of few instances I'd want to look at a single page of a book but none of them would separate me from my money. Google's print service and book reviews spring to mind.Google searches text and gives you relevant quotes. The page itself might be available if it looked like the thing was related to what you were interested in to begin with. This service is mostly useful for finding books that might help your research, like a very good card catalog. If the book's copyright is expired, Google will save you the trip to the library, but not always yet. In my last search, I found a 2004 reprint of a book originally published in 1918. Gutenberg [gutenberg.org] had the text.The only other case I can think of is that someone might reference a book or a passage of a recent book. That might make me want to look at the book. Hopefully, the author would simply quote enough of the book to get their point across. If I really wanted more I'd go to the library.Oh wait, these same greed heads have already assaulted the libraries. See here [slashdot.org]. It's always amazing how greedy and stupid people can be. RMS was right again [gnu.org]. How else can you get people deep into debt over school books besides charging per word? [ Reply to ThisRe:A Brainless Assault on Google and Fair Use. by Txiasaeia (Score:2) Saturday November 05, @12:46PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. What Format? (Score:2) by diakka (2281) on Saturday November 05, @10:42AM (#13957603) What kind of format would the pages be in i wonder? PDF? Html? Graphic Images? It wasn't apparent from the article. [ Reply to This Sold by the page? (Score:2, Funny) by trollable (928694) on Saturday November 05, @10:42AM (#13957606) (http://www.milliondollarscreenshot.com/) Come on! Why should I buy a full page when I'm interested only by a sentence or two? No, that won't work. [ Reply to This1 reply beneath your current threshold. Pay per page view (Score:1) by VincenzoRomano (881055) on Saturday November 05, @10:46AM (#13957622) Seems a not-so-smart thing, at least at first glance.For users: they will spend more money by printing the pages at home, unless they will read only by screen. Very unconfortable if you like to read while in the bathroom ... in the bathtub I mean :-)For the company: I see people trading the book pages in order to gather the whole book and paying just few pages ... if any.Later I can also see the rise of issues with the DRM [wikipedia.org] for books and magazines.Finally, a lot more of wasted paper and empty ink cartridges (and dead trees) for badly printed books.Let's revert to the old faithful printed books. At least at the moment. [ Reply to This Digital Nickels and Dimes (Score:2) by Sundroid (777083) on Saturday November 05, @11:01AM (#13957688) (http://sunandfun.blogspot.com/) Buying books by the pages and chapters is not a new idea. Iactually wrote about it way back in 2003. Random House, themega publisher, is obviously giving its approval to Amazon's proposalby coming out with its own idea of micro-payment model -- charging 5cents a page, with 4 of that going to the authors and the publishers,as reported here [blogspot.com].<br><br>These days, Johny and Susie Happy-Clickers gladly "click topurchase" 99-cents songs, so it seems like a natural progression toclick to buy a page here, a chapter there. [ Reply to This Wake me when ... (Score:2) by SengirV (203400) on Saturday November 05, @11:03AM (#13957699) ... Cable companies start to offer something like this. I only watch about 10 channels, so why am I paying for the 120 others?Believe me, I won't be holding my breath for this to actually happen. [ Reply to ThisRe:Wake me when ... by cnerd2025 (Score:1) Saturday November 05, @11:18AM This could hurt conference proceeding (Score:3, Insightful) by mbone (558574) on Saturday November 05, @11:15AM (#13957764) This could really hurt conference proceedings, which may only have one or two really worthwhile new papers.