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Are We About To Enter The Age of Book Piracy?
theodp writes "The speed with which the 4MB e-mail hoax purporting to be the new cookbook from the Naked Chef streaked across the Internet suggests to Slate that a new, disquieting era for the publishing world may be in sight. Indeed, the latest Harry Potter tale made the rounds on the Web just hours after the book went on sale, its 870 pages apparently scanned in and distributed by rabid fans. The old argument that no one likes reading on a computer has pretty much eroded. Just because publishing people can't conceive of book piracy doesn't mean it can't happen."
reading converted fiction ebooks on handhelds is better than reading them on paper.
Lots of advantages like being able to read on the go or in bed with the lights out and than being awoken by the Handheld in the morning...
In the 16th and 17th century actors and stenographers would conspire to rush off unlicenced copies of popular plays. The most famous example of this is the 'Bad Quarto' of Hamlet. This appeared in print several years before the authorised edition, and was based on the memory of two or three of the principal actors, with much filling from other popular works.
In the 19th century the USA was the piracy centre of the English speaking world -- bootleg editions of every popular British work would be printed, with no money getting back to the original British writers. You can read many complaints from English authors of the time about this situation.
Even if we restrict ourselves to illegal distribution through the internet, this is not a new phenomenon. The alt.binaries.ebook newsgroup has been around for many years -- the only thing which has changed is the mass availabilty of scanners which would have cost thousands only ten years ago. So, instead of having to manually type a book to copy it, we can now scan and OCR.
Just as with music distribution, we need to emphasise that there is an incredible amount of *legal* book distribution on the internet. The standard bearer is Project Gutenberg -- creating free electronic copies of out of copyright texts since 1971.
-- Help Digitise the Public Domain at DP.
It's just not popular, coz...as a society we don't read nearly as much as we watch movies or play games.
Everybody watches movies and plays games more often than they read - I could agree with that. However, I don't think it's a scapegoat. I don't think it's as simple as, "That's why nobody cares."
Quite frankly, I think it's a pain in the ass to have to scroll through each page of text - turning a page becomes some wild swipe of the arm rather than a flick of the wrist. Unless you have the scrolly thing (the technical term, I'm sure), but hey I have one and I think it sucks too.
IMHO, books just aren't suited for computers. At least, not in the formats that seem to be popular (*points at PDF*). Yes, sometimes there's an index which is all groovy for click-and-view goodness, but even then - once you arrive - it's a case of the whole-arm-swipe (or reach-out-of-arm-chair-and-wiggle-scrolly-thing).
That's another thing, too. The comfort factor. You can read books anywhere. In bed, on the bus, in the bath, in the shower if you're a raving fuck. There's no reaching out to command some virtual arrow-like avatar just so you can see the next line of text.
Don't get me wrong, e-books rock, but paper is just convenient. E-books are good for reference texts but I can't imagine sitting down to read a novel in front of the PC.
On the other hand, I think everyone could tell the difference between reading the original book and a pirated version on paper from a laser printer!
- PS. This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R where eliminated.
What is actually being referred to is a reprint or collection book, no matter what size and type of cover. As we're talking about the previous issues of a comic, we're also not talking about the special stories which are only released in book form. ...and with some comics, you have to figure out which universe's story you want to begin with.
About a year ago I started downloading books to my Handspring and carrying them around with me. It took a few days to get used to the constant scrolling, but once you get past that you've got a small device which you always have with you that you can read from at a moment's notice. No more sitting around on the train doing nothing... I just pop out the Handspring and I'm reading Harry Potter V, or Michael Chricton's Prey, or Ender's Game or older books like Fahrenheit 451 or Brave New World or 1984. They're all available online and the list is growing. Publishing is in for the same thing the music world is already fighting... as soon as people become accustomed to reading digital books the industry is in trouble.
--
RumorsDaily
Actually, trade paperback is the generic name given in the comic industry for the bound issues.
/.'rs than spend much time around a comic convention or even a comic forum...folks discussing how the story line just isn't real -- but DAMN that was awesome that the Hulk could throw that tank 500 Meters -- and not see the irony in it).
A few years after being published (though I know a few that will issues theirs within months of a story arc), these companies will issue a 'trade paperback' with these stories.
Again, this is the common term for it in comics. If you go into any big book store and ask for trade paperback comics, they will know what you are talking about. If we cannot use the common terms in the realm you are wishing to peruse, maybe thats why folks can't seem to understand this stuff is already out there.
And with most products, its nice to do some research on this stuff before you buy. That doesn't mean stealing the product wholesale as an excuse to find what you need. There are the Amazon customer comments and the product descriptions, as well as many many comic resources (trust me, I WOULD rather hang out with
You have the resources at hand...and most bookstores have seats. I don't know how many times I've gone in to just look for some research and ended up reading a chapter of something else. Heck, a lot of these places have cafes where they ENCOURAGE you to read their products. You read the stuff and after investing an hour in it, you are likely to walk out of the store with it. Download the first 200 issues, and you might buy the next several dozen issues -- but any artist / writer that is no longer with the project just got ripped. The new guys will be happy and so will the publisher -- but the actual content writers will be left in the lurch.
It's pretty clear that you have never actually read a book on a PDA. You should try it.
Personally I have gotten to the point where I am not interested in reading books by authors I am unfamiliar with unless I can read the book on my PDA.
First of all, the tiny screen on a PDA is not a problem. Small pages would be a problem in a book because it takes two hands to turn the pages. With a PDA turning the pages is a one-handed affair, and it is as simple as pressing a button. Most readers will even autoscroll for you if you so desire. Even using the largest bold font on my Visor Handspring I am still able to blaze through books with ease. In fact, if you read up about page layout you would find that narrow text columns make it easy for your eyes to find the next line.
Secondly, the coarse DPI only matters if you are using a font that is designed for paper. I, for one, don't care if the font is jaggy as long as it is perfectly clear what the letter is. It's when you start anti-aliasing the fonts that they start to be problematic.
Thirdly, my Visor Handspring didn't cost $300, it cost $80. Combined with a $30 CF springboard attachment and a cheap CF card I can comfortably carry around hundreds of books. My Visor is lighter than a paperback, and I can read it in the dark. Heck, the gizmo even helps me make sure I don't miss any meetings. Batteries aren't a problem as the Visor I have takes AAA batteries. I currently use rechargeables, but I have used standard batteries in a pinch. Even reading 3 books a week I still usually get a couple weeks worth of juice out of standard AAA batteries.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Gilad.