Slashdot Mirror
An Acerbic Look At the Future of Reading
theodp writes "Using Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' own words against him, Mark Pilgrim offers his chilling take on The Future of Reading with a mash-up of Bezos' Open Letter to the Authors Guild, the Amazon Kindle Terms of Service, Steven Levy's Newsweek article on the Kindle, 1984, and Richard Stallman's 'The Right to Read.'"
I'll tell you what is happening here. It's the same thing that is happening on other fronts - precisely the same thing.
The constitution was written with the idea of the government serving and protecting the people, watching out for their welfare, arranging things so that this was first and foremost concern in those areas the government operated.
This emphasis on copyright benefiting the business interests any any expense to the citizen's interests is the exact same change in emphasis we have seen for the takings of land, the decreases in freedom of speech, the ridiculous idea that software can and/or should be patentable, the intent to force you to wait through commercials, the powers allowed to the insurance companies to pre-qualify applicants, the insane readings of the commerce clause that allow the government to attack the citizen for any act at all, the outright hijacking of the news outlets by commercially oriented entities — the problem is that it is like the tale of boiling a lobster. It's all annoying, but none of it is annoying enough, by itself, to really get the citizens up in arms.
America is degenerating quickly. If you think your vote counts, you'd better start using it differently at every level. Because the "same-old, same-old" is what got us here.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
They already did this, remember? What was it now? Subscription music? It's all well and good, except that the licenses will expire at random, and then what are you left with? A half-read book that you need to buy to read the rest of. No, people rather own the books than depend on a shaky subscription service. That being said, I'm in love with Yahoo Music Unlimited, and would purchase one of those neato Amazon contraptions if they offered a subscription service... So I'm not against the idea. I just don't feel as many people embrace the concept of consuming as much information as possible as we do. Like I said, Yahoo Music Unlimited and Rhapsody (and napster) share a very small market - and even that is shrinking. I doubt it'll be around for long...
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
I don't need to own, just to rent.
You've never heard of a "public library?" Damn, just when I'm starting to like the 21st century* some bozo reminds me that the mamon worshipers are trying to take away every good thing I've taken for granted all my life.
-mcgrew
*click the sig for explanation
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I'm sure it was part of the agreement to get the books in electronic format in the first place was that you couldn't sell, or re-transfer the license. It's just the publishers wet dream to close up the used book stores/libraries around the world so if you want to read it, you gotta pay full price each time you want it.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
The issue with all electronic media is the ease of duplication. That's what all the DRM stuff is trying to address, and making such a mess of everything in the process.
This is nothing new: there was never any physical impediment to sitting down with a paper book and a Xerox machine, or even writing it out by hand. But it was laborious and time-consuming, sufficiently so that few people bothered. It was easier and cheaper to just buy a copy of the book.
So how you you do it? If I'm going to sit down and write a book I expect to be compensated for my efforts. How can you ensure the author's rights to fair compensation in a world where files are so easy to duplicate? It's clear that there is a business model issue here, so how would you fix it?
...laura
You know, I see this sentiment on Slashdot quite a bit. Apparently a lot of people around here think the printed word is archaic and is in the middle of being phased out as obsolete.
I can assure you, that books in their physical, paper form are nowhere near being obsolete, outmoded, or about to be left to fall by the side. This isn't about abandoning an old file format of a word processor. To many people the actual physical book is still the preferred method of reading. Hell, send me a long enough document, and I'll print the damned thing and keep it on my desk.
I buy a tremendous amount of books, I don't want an electronic reader of any form, and I'm fairly sure that a larger proportion of the populace does their reading against the old-school dead-tree formats than any form of electronic format.
While your assertion that "electronic reading materials and electronic readers are beginning to be more popular", might be somewhat true, they're only more popular than they used to be. They're simply not more popular than paper.
I would say that people who argue that paper books will go away in the short term have their heads so far up the ass of technology as to not really have a clear view of the world any more. I would say it would be years, if not decades, before we actually see electronic formats really supplant paper. And, you can have my physical books when I'm dead and gone -- I don't personally foresee giving them up any time soon. Books have a warmth and tactile feedback that a cold, digital screen will never offer to me.
There will be people who want electronic books, and they're welcome to them. But, I and countless others want real actual honest to goodness books. Don't look to see them fall by the wayside for a long time.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I think the article is overreacting. Being able to change an E-Book is very different from being able to erase all evidence of an event taking place from all media (as was the case in the book "1984").
He seems to draw the conclusion that this capability will lead to such a situation. I think it's got a long way to go before getting there. If the government begins censoring everything *other than* remotely editable E-Books, I'll begin to worry. Until then, there's plenty of media other than that where you can find out what's really happening.
-Vendal Thornheart
So far the reviews for the Kindle are all pretty positive
Among people who were willing to spend $400 for a device that offers few objective benefits over a free public library membership, maybe.
The rest of us are quite happy reading the ink-and-paper volumes that have been the standard for millenia.
It's way to much for something that has no physical presence, that you can't share, give away, or resell. It's a money grab. The publishing industry needs to learn from the music industry. You cannot charge an insane amount of money just for the content. At least with a printed book there is a recognizable investment in printing plant, paper, ink, and distribution. With an ebook there's just distribution. Amazon has a significant infrastructure for distribution already in place so adding ebook distribution is really only maximizing use of their existing assets.
Publisher formats the manuscript then sends it to Amazon for distribution. That's a one time expense for them.
Amazon's distribution costs...well how much does is cost to send 100k of data over a network? Storage costs? A 200GB hard drive will hold approximately 400K books given each book is 500k in size (which is insanely generous for essentially a text file with no compression.)
Let's see, refunds for unsold books? None. Expenses for additional print runs? None. Sales lost because a book is out of print? None.
$10 for the e-version when even the paperback isn't that expensive? Get real. Everyone loves to hate on Apple, but thanks to them I don't have to spend $20 to buy one track anymore. $1 gets me just the song I want, legally.
Kindle will do more to kill print media than help it. $5 for new releases I would consider. $2 once it's in paperback I would do. But only if you scrap the DRM, and don't charge me for web sites or loading my own content. If they did that then the only thing that would still keep me from buying it is the absolutely horrible industrial design. Hello platinum colored speak and spell...no thanks.
"The avalanch has already started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote." -Kosh
Tell me something, then. DRM (Digital RIGHTS management) is managing exactly what rights?
C'mon, Bob, ten seconds, The question is, what's your name? Eight seconds Bob, you can do it... you know this one, Bob... [ a nod to Cheech and Chong ]Oh. I see. You think slashdot moderation works, therefore you think that posts are designed for the approval of these moderators. Well, sadly, slashdot moderation does not work, and never will, until or unless it provides for (a1) recovery of posts lost to bad mods, or (a2) stops downgrading good posts (moderator accountability is key here), and (b) actually uplifts all the posts worth reading. In the meantime, all savvy slashdot readers read at -1 so they don't miss all the great posts that the manifestly broken slashdot moderation lets fall by the wayside. So, no, not posted for any reason to do with "karma." Bzzzt.
And try not to be so homophobic, eh? I know it's tough, but you can probably manage it if you try. Because being homophobic is boilerplate for declaring one's self an unvarnished idiot.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
When you buy a book or, say, a video game, 90% of what you pay is the license.
That is *not* what you buy.
You purchase a copy. That copy is yours. You don't "use up" a license. You use a copy.
The whole idea of copyright is simple: allow the creator of a work to provide limited licenses on *copying.* The only rights the author has is the right to control copying of the creation. That's why it's called a "copy right."
This whole idea of licensing copyrighted works is from the software industry. It involves the *license* to create copies of the work. Of course, in most cases, the work is useless without copying onto a hard drive, so it kinda makes sense, in a strange way.
However, when you purchase a book, you are not making a copy. You are purchasing a copy, and that copy belongs to *you*. You may sell it, lend it, and even copy small sections for purposes of academia or research or review (SEE fair use). You can do anything you want, as long as you don't make a copy, because only the author has the right to authorize ("license") copies.
Please resist the urge to voluntarily give up your rights. Don't let them convince you that sharing is bad. It isn't. That book is yours. That console game is yours. You can sell them, lend them, or do anything else you can do with a physical object. Those are your *rights.*
At least, those are your rights in the United States, and in many other nations. Check with your local government to be sure.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
I'd argue that the Founders probably didn't mean 95-120 years as the "limited time" they had in mind when they wrote that. In fact, I think it's pretty clear that they meant for copyright terms to be considerably less than the life of the author. Today, copyright terms seem to start with the assumption that it should be for the entire life of the author, and then for a few more generations, apparently so their kin can avoid gainful employment thanks to granddad's novel/song/whatever.
Pity we don't have a Supreme Court with a backbone.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
that all major politicians in all major parties are whores of a corporatocracy
how truthful that cynicism is or not, i can defeat your point of view with an even more cynical observation: if a third party appeared, killing off the republican or the democrats, that party would merely replicate the previous party's level of degeneration and corruption
so the issue is structural: a law must be passed that must seal off the involvement of money in politics. anyone who gets enough signatures gets a pool of money to spend, that's it
then, any spending of any money in any case, no matter how peripheral, is punished. that owuld be easy to enforce, considering the spotlight that politicians labor under
but to get that law made, you need an issue-oriented candidate, of ANY PARTY
who would ride a wave to public office based on this issue and this issue alone, then his popularity must be big enough to muscle the change through
it has nothing to do with party politics
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it