It was disappointing to see yet another comparison of physical books and ebooks that focused on convenience, style or mere taste (Kindles now look clunky and unhip, G2, 27 April). There are substantive differences that affect the freedom of people who read. For many titles, the only copy you can buy is a printed one. The ebook versions are “licensed”, not sold, and the licence says you agree not to give away or lend “your” copy to anyone else, nor to make and redistribute more copies.

These requirements drive me away from them. My conscience balks at carrying out an agreement to be unhelpful to others; breaking the licence is a lesser evil, but I don’t want to make an agreement I know I would be obliged to break. I therefore refuse to agree to such a licence. Perforce, the books I pay for are printed copies that I truly buy.

Furthermore, ebook sales (or, rather, non-sales) sites generally record who gets what book. This is a violation of readers’ privacy. Privacy of reading is especially important in the UK, where censorship is such that you can be jailed for having the wrong books. I prefer not to tell any state, or any company, what books I have, so I get books exclusively through anonymous channels, such as by paying cash in a store. At present, these have to be printed books, though I wish bookshops would sell (truly sell) ebooks in the same way. Please stand up for freedom by rejecting ebooks if they respect your freedom and privacy any less than printed books.

Dr Richard Stallman

President, Free Software Foundation, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

• My mother loved reading and, in the last 10 years of her life, she moved to reading on a Kindle because she had bone cancer and the reader was so much easier to hold and turn the pages of. After reading them, she used to delete them and store them on her Amazon account. She died last year and now I want to share some of her books. However, it seems that her extensive e-collection died with her. Her will allowed me to inherit everything but, for “security reasons”, Amazon’s rules do not allow me to access her account – another reason to continue to buy physical copies.

Pam Watson

Lincoln

• I read Paula Cocozza’s piece on ebooks with great interest. Though I agree with virtually everything she and others find distasteful about Kindles, it does one thing books cannot do: it can make the font bigger. One of the reasons I was forced to change from books to the Kindle is that books have been printed in smaller and smaller fonts (I assume to save printing costs), and my tired old eyes can’t handle it any more.

Joanne Swenson

Palm Desert, California, USA