Shelfie is shutting down tomorrow, Jan 31 2017

[birdbrainbb]

Just a head's up that Shelfie is shutting down tomorrow on the 31st. If you have any ebooks from them, now's the time to back them up.

From their website:

http://www.shelfie.com/

We regret to inform you that Shelfie will be ceasing operations on January 31, 2017.

What this means for Shelfie users:

Our servers will be shutting down on January 31. You can re-download any DRM-free books between now and then.
You no longer have access to DRM (.acsm) books.
Your app will cease to function in a meaningful way on January 31.
We started Shelfie with the idea of connecting books and readers and we have worked hard over the past four years to make that a reality. We are grateful for the support we have received from amazing readers like you, who have been a part of Shelfie.

Keep reading,

The Shelfie Team

Shelfie was an app where you took pictures of your deadtree book collection and could purchase free or discounted ebook versions. I think there was some social aspect, as well, but I didn't use it very much so I'm not entirely sure!

[MV64]

A useless app. I never found one book I was looking for. And giving people one day to grab and hack all their drm books? Just another example of the dangers of drm and ecosystems.

[gweeks]

Originally Posted by MV64

A useless app. I never found one book I was looking for. And giving people one day to grab and hack all their drm books? Just another example of the dangers of drm and ecosystems.

No, that's one day to download their NON-DRM books. The DRM books are already gone.

Greg

[Dr. Drib]

Never heard of them.

Won't miss them.

Don't need them.

Goodbye.

[JSWolf]

As soon as you purchase an eBook, download it. Don't wait until the shop shuts to then complain about losing your eBooks. You have nobody to blame but yourself.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

Never heard of them.

Won't miss them.

Don't need them.

Goodbye.

This

Originally Posted by JSWolf

As soon as you purchase an eBook, download it. Don't wait until the shop shuts to then complain about losing your eBooks. You have nobody to blame but yourself.

And this.
Apache

[ATimson]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

Never heard of them.

Won't miss them.

Don't need them.

Goodbye.

I disagree entirely. They let me legally digitize a huge chunk of my library for a reasonable price without having to scan stuff myself. And they gave me a way as an ereader to still get books as presents.

They'll very much be missed by me.

[batpuppy]

I got digital versions of a few books and immediately downloaded them. I could never figure out how to even read the ones with DRM in any reader application using ADE so I had to do something else.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

As soon as you purchase an eBook, download it. Don't wait until the shop shuts to then complain about losing your eBooks. You have nobody to blame but yourself.

Well, you can't do that with ebooks from a few companies.

Barnes & Noble with their Nook books used to permit it, but don't now. Your advice would have been great if I had heard it before they changed.

Oh, and as far as I'm aware, B&N didn't give any advance notice, like Shelfie, and some other ebook companies did before going out of business. At B&N, you could download one day, and the next day you couldn't (I know that for a fact, because I had that happen to me).

B&N and Walmart are two of a handful of companies that I hope to see experience a slow, agonizing death. The only tears that I shed will be tears of joy.


ADDENDUM: Sears is a third company.

[4691mls]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

Never heard of them.

Won't miss them.

Don't need them.

Goodbye.

If I had a nickel for every time there's been a thread announcing something I had never even heard of is shutting down....

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

Barnes & Noble with their Nook books used to permit it, but don't now. Your advice would have been great if I had heard it before they changed.

Oh, and as far as I'm aware, B&N didn't give any advance notice, like Shelfie, and some other ebook companies did before going out of business. At B&N, you could download one day, and the next day you couldn't (I know that for a fact, because I had that happen to me).

No, I think it was a post from Library Addict here on MR that brought that terrible B&N policy to peoples attention (nothing from B&N until folks asked them after the fact).

While it's not officially supported by B&N anymore I've been able to download everything I get there using their old Nook PC and Nook Study programs thankfully. I don't generally shop there (never have), but a few times they've sent me $5 promo credits and I'm not one to turn away free $$$ and I have a ton of Fictionwise books there as well.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

No, I think it was a post from Library Addict here on MR that brought that terrible B&N policy to peoples attention (nothing from B&N until folks asked them after the fact).

I may have written in a confusing way. I never meant to say or imply that I was the first one to learn of the problem.

I don't know who first brought up news about the change--it seems like I may have seen it reported on the News or Discussion thread. I'm pretty sure that people discussed it on a thread like the Freebies, Bargains and Resources thread, too. I know that I spewed quite a bit of vitriol about it somewhere in this E-book General forum--maybe more than once or twice.

My memory, which certainly may be faulty, is that I found out the problem more or less simultaneously as Library Addict, or whoever, on this forum. I specifically remember making a rather long post, in this forum, about how a B&N customer service person gave me the runaround when I tried to get a straight answer about why I was no longer able to download the books in my library and whether or not the policy had changed, etc. Or, it might be that Library Addict or someone else mentioned it, and then I did some checking of my Nook library on my own. I just don't remember.

And, frankly, I don't care who brought it up first. It doesn't matter one iota to me. I don't care who gets credit for the discovering the beginning of "that terrible B&N policy." And, again, I never meant to imply that I was the one who did.

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

While it's not officially supported by B&N anymore I've been able to download everything I get there using their old Nook PC and Nook Study programs thankfully. I don't generally shop there (never have), but a few times they've sent me $5 promo credits and I'm not one to turn away free $$$ and I have a ton of Fictionwise books there as well.

Yeah, I'm familiar with workarounds, tricks, hacks, tips, etc. to download them anyway. I just don't want to take the time to do all of that work right now (I'm still planning "one of these days" to convert all of my video tapes to DVD's. ha). And, I don't have the equipment to do it, I'd have to buy it.

I'm just crossing my fingers that nothing will cause the books to just disappear one of these days. I don't know if B&N could legally let that happen or not. But a bankruptcy would let you get by with a lot of stuff that you otherwise wouldn't be allowed to do. I didn't learn until maybe a year and a half ago that when we "buy" ebooks, we technically don't own them like we would buying a dead-tree book--we only buy a license or some such thing. It's all a crock if you ask me.

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

Well, you can't do that with ebooks from a few companies.

Barnes & Noble with their Nook books used to permit it, but don't now. Your advice would have been great if I had heard it before they changed.

I think you're being a bit unfair to B&N. When they shut down Fictionwise and EReader.com (or whatever the sister site was), they gave advanced warning, and transferred most of the ebooks over to B&N, albeit imperfectly, and never fixed the errors (at least in my experience). They discontinued the ability to download ebooks from their website via a browser without warning. They stopped supporting the PC Nook applications for Windows 7 and earlier, without warning, but the last time I checked, you can still download the app from B&N if you know where to look, and it will still download ebooks to your PC (sometimes) and you can read them within the app. You can download ebooks to Windows 8 and Windows 10 with the app from the Windows Store. I don't know about the Nook and Mac OS. Within the last 6 months, I installed the Windows 7 app and downloaded all of my B&N ebooks to a new PC automatically, although I usually use the Windows 8.1 app to download a couple of ebooks, because I usually have to do something like delete all my books and reinstall the windows 7 app to get it to work.

You can't download Kindle books from the Amazon website from the browser either. You have to do that from their Kindle app. I don't see many people whining about that, except when they get bitten by a new Kindle version with a new DRM implementation. Kobo lets you download your books from the browser, but it's quite a pain to download hundreds of books.

[slex]

You can actually download books from Amazon within the browser. But you still need to have a Kindle or at least a device ID registered to this account.

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

You can't download Kindle books from the Amazon website from the browser either. You have to do that from their Kindle app. I don't see many people whining about that, except when they get bitten by a new Kindle version with a new DRM implementation. Kobo lets you download your books from the browser, but it's quite a pain to download hundreds of books.

You can download Kindle ebooks from the Amazon website, via Manage Your Contents and Devices/Books page.