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An e-book (for electronic book: also eBook, ecoBook) is the digital media equivalent of a conventional printed book. Such documents are either read on personal computers, or on dedicated hardware devices known as e-book readers or e-book devices. Advantages: Text can be searched automatically, and cross-referenced using hyperlinks. This makes e-books an excellent choice of format for works that benefit from search and cross-reference capabilities, such as dictionaries, reference works, and certain kinds of textbooks. Less physical space is required to store e-books. Hundreds (or thousands) may be carried together on one device. Approximately 500 average e-books can be stored on one CD (equivalent to several shelves of print books). Because they take up little space, e-books can be offered indefinitely, with no 'out of print' date, allowing authors to continue to earn royalties indefinitely (copyright law permitting) and allowing readers to find older works by favorite authors. Readers who have difficulty reading conventional books can benefit from the adjustment of text size and font face. Text-to-speech software can be used to automatically convert e-books to spoken books. In addition, e-books may be read in low light or even total darkness, with a back-lit device. An ebook can be much more comfortable to hold because it does not need to be held open like a paperback. It can also be set down and read hands-free. Since there is only one page, there are no problems with the text near the interior margin being obscured or shadowed by another page (as can happen with a paperback). This makes the book easier to see from a variety of angles. The lack of a flexible joint between a book's pages also allows the book to be positioned on its side. It costs almost nothing to replicate an e-book. Copies can be made instantly and in as great a quantity as desired. This makes it easy to retain backups and difficult to eliminate works once they have been distributed. E-books can be published by independent publishing houses, which can lead to greater editorial and authorial freedom and more room for experimentation. From the publisher's point of view, the ease of distributing e-books means that they can be used to stimulate higher sales of printed copies of books.[1] With Internet access becoming ubiquitous in industrial nations, the ease of distributing e-books is a considerable advantage. E-books cost little to transfer, and such an operation occurs quickly. Readers can begin reading as soon as the download completes, or sooner, depending on the e-book formats' capabilities, without the need to visit a bookstore. Errors in texts may be easily and quickly corrected, and may even be pushed to users to update their copies of works in-place, rather than requiring a separate errata. Replicating e-books does not consume the paper, ink, and other resources that are used to produce normal books. E-books do not have to be replaced as a result wear and tear because there is little risk of damage, vandalism, or degradation to their pages. Disadvantages: An e-book requires an electronic device to display it. Many e-book formats require special software to display them, which may not be freely available or compatible with a reader's existing computing device. As an e-book is dependent on equipment to be read, it can be affected by faults in external hardware or software, such as hard disk drive failure. Digital rights management techniques may be used to restrict what the user may do with an e-book. For instance, it may not be possible to transfer ownership of an e-book to another person, though such a transaction is common with physical books. Some can phone home to track readers and reading habits, or restrict printing. This includes restricting the copying and distribution of works in the public domain through the use of "click-wrap" licensing, effectively limiting the rights of the public to freely distribute, sell or use texts in the public domain. Unfortunately most e-book publishers do not warn their customers about the possible consequences of the Digital rights management scheme on their books. Generally they do discuss the fact that Digital rights management is meant to prevent copying of the e-book. However in many cases it is also possible that Digital rights management will result in the complete denial of access by the purchaser to the e-book. With some formats of DRM, the e-book is tied to a specific computer or device. In these cases the DRM will usually let the purchaser move the book a limited number of times, after which they cannot use it on any additional devices. If the purchaser upgrades or replaces their devices, which they will do over time, eventually they will lose access to their purchase. Some forms of Digital rights management depend on the existence of online services to authenticate the purchasers. If the company that provides the service goes out of business or decides to stop providing the service, the purchaser will no longer be able to access the e-book. With Digital rights management, it is more apt to consider the exchange of money for commodity to be a rental or lease rather than a purchase. The restricted book comes with a number of restrictions, and eventually access to the purchase can be removed by a number of different parties involved. These include the publisher of the book, the publisher of the DRM scheme, and the publisher of the reader software. These are all things that are significantly different from the realm of experiences anyone has had with a physical copy of the book. Current e-book devices still offer a lesser reading experience than physical books. Screen resolution and contrast is much lower than paper, and it may not be possible to view such devices in bright sunlight. Many readers prefer paper and print to a computer screen. From a publisher's point of view, e-books can in some cases be hacked, or disseminated without approval from the author or publisher. The ease with which an electronic document may be copied means that a single unprotected document may be used to replicate an unlimited number of perfect copies.