The irony in this particular case is the fact that people usually find they need more drive space when they start collecting or creating MP3s and MPEGs, which pushes them to purchase bigger and faster hard drives.
Imagine the disappointment when they buy that bigger, faster hard drive and then find out that none of their files will play because they weren't created on that drive. Which brings up an interesting scenario: What happens if you create all your content on one drive but then move it to another?
For me, book mystique has more to do with the content than it does the physical qualities of the book (though, I do enjoy those as well... another one of my posts in here mentions my liking of slipcases).
The fact that I can hold in my hand a container of knowledge or of great storytelling is a wonderful thing. The fact that it changes a little bit every time I read it (the impact of my own imagination and interpretation) keeps me coming back to it time and time again.
But there are a lot of books that I would just as soon put back on the shelf without a second look. I don't feel any mystique for Dr. Laura's books. I could care less about anything that starts with "Everything I need to know...". The books could be leather-bound, printed on India paper, and come in an embossed slipcase, but the content is rubbish, so the mystique (and the appreciation of it) is gone.
Turn of the century and older texts also hold that mystique for me. When I peruse the local used book shop and find books dating back to the late 1800's, I can't help but appreciate the fact that this object survived the past 100 years and is in my hands, ready to take me farther back in years than I could ever hope to travel. When I read through rare 15th century manuscripts, I love the fact that a philosophy from another age has survived in its original form for me to see with my own eyes.
My own books will be like that some day, if they are kept and cared for. Hundreds of years from now, there might be some book I would have thought common that somebody will treasure, and maybe they'll wonder who owned it before them and how it survived the years. Of course, there's likely to be somebody standing next to them saying, "Why do you care so much about that dirty old thing? It just takes up space. You have to actually look at it to read it? I don't get it." But, that's progress for you.
Now, to get to the question of where this romantic notion of books is originated... I can only say that books have been an important part of my life since early childhood. My mother read to me on a regular basis, and, once I was able to read myself, she made sure that frequent trips to the library kept me busy in books. A book meant that, for the time I was reading it, I would be taken by my imagination to somewhere new. After a while, I guess I simply equated the sensory experience of reading with the fun of triggering that imagination. For other people, this kind of sensory stimulation can come from things like the texture and smell of the leather of a baseball glove, the smell of a fresh baked pie, or the description of any other Rockwellian imagery you care to conjure up.:)
Book mystique is a cumulative thing. It isn't as though I walked into Barnes & Noble one day and said, "Oh, look at the pretty books!" This has been an ongoing thing for me, a deep seated respect for ideas and their preservation (with the exception of the aforementioned Dr. Laura books). The feel and smell of books comforts me on a psychological and emotional level simply because I have treasured them over a long period of time.
I apologize for the lack of an objective, scientific answer (which is what I think you were looking for), but I hope my perspective at least provided some insight. This obviously doesn't apply to everybody. Maybe some people just like books because the books make them appear well-read (this is a popular trend these days and one of the reasons that places like Barnes & Noble are doing so well).
Had I grown up with an e-book reader, I would most certainly feel differently about this subject. As it is, I'm afraid I'm tied to print.
I haven't really heard this idea anywhere, though I may have simply missed it, but...
Wouldn't it be possible to create a hybrid book, one that was not only the physical text but also contained the text in an electronic format? Imagine a chip in the spine or within the hard cover of the book that held the text within it. I have no doubt that it would be possible to create a mechanism by which you place a reader next to the back cover of the book and have it download the text to your reader. This would solve both problems. Those who want their books would have them, but they would have an electronic copy to take wherever they want. Those who want to fight piracy (publishers) would have the e-text now tied to a physical entity (the book itself), thus reducing piracy.
There are possible problems with this idea, though. I'm sure it would be possible to create a reader that would simply transfer the text straight to a waiting terminal to be zipped up and sent over the net, but that still requires that somebody purchased the book. To make this a less inviting option, perhaps the embedded text chip would not hold any illustrations, making the pirating of children's texts absolutely ludicrous and, perhaps, increasing the number of illustrations used in texts (not necessarily a good thing, though).
This scenario wouldn't have any benefits regarding cost savings, but, honestly, look at the prices for e-books. They cost just as much as their hardcover equivalents.
I apologize if this post rambles a bit, but I have a lot of thoughts on the matter of book vs. e-book...
There are other long-term arguments against e-books, as well as the ones you mentioned. In their current form, e-books (with the exception of the Project Gutenburg texts) are sold in encrypted, proprietary formats. If, for some strange reason, the entire publishing paradigm shifted to electronic distribution and away from print, what would become of these texts in as little as 10 years, when their formats and reading mechanisms pass into the digital void that is obsolescence? If Microsoft or Adobe folds in 10 years, will we all still be able to read the books we purchased way back in 2000?
What happens to our historical record in an age of digital texts? I have recently been doing research for a book and have been calling upon a local university's excellent collection of 15th and 16th century texts (both in their original manuscripts and in microfilm). In 400 years, will libraries need to have a copy of Microsoft Reader handy to access old digital texts?
I realize this argument is a bit farfetched. We would certainly hope that, at some point, the publishers would simply release the text into the public domain in an unencrypted format for archival purposes, but with corporations holding on to their copyrighted properties with two hands and their teeth these days, it seems less and less likely that we'll ever see the resurrection of the concept of public domain.
Do e-books have their place? I certainly believe so. For example, I wouldn't mind seeing e-books being used in schools. The savings on print media would be spectacular, and it would be absolutely acceptable for students to "mark up" their texts any way they see fit. No more year end inspections or backpacks containing 20-30 pounds of books. The best advantage would be the availability of texts updated every year, freeing educators from the need to use 10 year old books in subjects such as science, history, and geography in order to cut costs.
However, I am a bibliophile at heart. My inability to resist purchasing every new iteration of Tolkien's texts is testament to this. I prefer hardcover to paperback, because hardcover just feels better to me. And don't even get me started about slipcases. These are all things I would miss in an e-book world.
What I would miss most, however, is the ability to pass on my love of literature and the physical book to my progeny. If my child insisted on not going to the used book store with me because we can "just download it", I think I'd be heartbroken.
Take a moment to imagine if the Declaration of Independence had been an e-text, digitally signed by the founding fathers of the United States. Would that carry as much awe and inspiration when you visited the Smithsonian to see that document displayed on an e-book device at low resolution?
Print gives us the ability to freeze time and carry it with us. It will always be compatible. It will always be charged. It will be downloaded again and again into the mind of the reader without the need for a transfer protocol. It will, I hope, never be obsolete.
If your sign said, "I will give you a lollipop. Taking this lollipop is a gesture that conveys an agreement to pay me $1,000,000 US," then yeah, that'd be binding. Your example is one of passive interaction, which wouldn't apply.
But this does bring up an interesting topic. Does anyone know of any court cases dealing with license agreement enforcement?
Many of us often regard the License Agreement as "the thing before the install" and just click "Accept" so we can get on with our lives. But, after accepting the agreement, has anybody ever fought it in court and won? In a more relevant case, has anybody ever fought the enforcement of a license agreement they never agreed to?
In the case of the:CueCat, I wonder if DC couldn't argue "implied agreement", that by accepting their hardware, you are accepting their terms. Especially relevant is the idea of both the hardware and software being part of a single package. Just because it didn't arrive in one box doesn't mean they aren't lumped together. In that case, the notification of the existence of a license agreement would be sufficient to cover both pieces. That notification appears on the sleeve for the:CueCat software CD:
Opening this software constitutes acceptance of our License terms contained herein. Copies can also be found at www.digitalconvergence.com/ula.html.
Now, while this does say "opening this software", I imagine they perceive both the hardware and software as one package. The fact that it didn't come in one box with an all encompassing seal may simply be a minor point of argument.
Now, I don't agree with these tactics at all, but I would like to understand just how these things work. I've been in software for a mere 7 years now and have yet to hear anything solid on the validity and enforcibility of license agreements.
Their license agreement might have been amended since this all started happening, but here's the relevant text on their website:
The:CueCat reader is only on loan to you from Digital:Convergence and may be recalled at any time. Without limiting the foregoing, your possession or control of the:CueCat reader does not transfer any right, title or interest to you in the:CueCat reader.
In other words, the claims of "I can do what I want with what I own" are countered with the fact that, according to the license, you don't own it at all. It's just on loan to you. I wish I had noticed that before I sent mail to DC about telling me what to do with equipment I owned.:)
Shortly after that, they offer this bit of enlightenment:
Except as expressly permitted in this License, you may not reverse engineer, disassemble, modify, rent, lease, loan, sublicense, or distribute the:CueCat reader.
I assume that this includes all data pumped out by the reader, which then conveniently covers the translation of said data into a format usable with something other than DC's software. It continues:
In any event, you will notify Digital:Convergence of any information derived from reverse engineering or such other activities, and the results thereof will constitute the confidential information of Digital:Convergence that may be used only in connection with the Software and:CueCat reader.
Here, they cover their ass some more by saying, "If you figure it out, you have to tell us. And, by the way, don't use that info with anything but our software." This is completely in line with the above response from their CEO. He's saying the exact same thing.
So, according to this license agreement, anybody who posted the code to circumvent their data encryption and tagging is in violation. There remain some questions as to whether or not the license is activated by simply using the:CueCat (they state that it does). Most seem to think that the license isn't agreed to until you break the seal on the software. As I have absolutely no knowledge of how exactly that applies, I'll skip my speculation on that point.
It seems, though, that unless you intend to use the:CueCat with only the DC software, you are in violation of the agreement. For this reason, I am returning my:CueCat to Radio Shack tomorrow and letting them know why I'm doing it. I'm also going to make sure that my Parade-readin' redneck relatives know that the:Cat is a "bad thing". Note: I admit I read vos Savant's column, but that's it... really.
Will this make a dent in their marketing? No way in hell, but it's the principle of the thing, y'know?
The CEO and his pal had a number of grammar errors in their official response. They should have spent the past five years increasing their communication skills.
In the spirit of hacktivism, what would happen if somebody got into one of the web sites of an MPAA member organization and placed a copy of DeCSS there? Then, everybody else could just link to the file and let the MPAA have fun suing... itself.
I don't know if that logic would apply (for example, just because a trebuchet was used long before an F-18 doesn't make the trebuchet shiny), but the idea is that the Star Wars galaxy was an elegant place before the Empire came into power. Obi-Wan mentions this briefly in episode IV in reference to the light saber being a weapon from a more elegant age (not exact quote, but close enough).
When I saw the ships in episode I, this made sense, that we were seeing this more elegant age in motion.
As we witness the creation and spread of the Empire, I'm sure we'll see the desire for elegance give way to the practicality of necessity, where oppressed masses are worried more with getting the job done than making it look pretty.
But it will still suck that R2 will be CG. Just think, had he been CG all along, it would have looked absolutely stupid when Luke tried to clean him (actor looking in wrong direction, tool not really digging into metal).
Anyway... not much can be said or done about this. George is on his holy rampage to go completely CGI. George, if I can suggest something... Maybe you should have tried it with a completely new property instead of transitioning Star Wars into your director's Utopia.
... from the Gutenberg e-texts. Everything else is copyrighted and will be hard fought by the publishers to keep them off your nanotech hairpin library.
That's the only problem with the "all the books in the world" utopian stance. There's no way you'd get the rights to do it.
1. Cat, not mouse. Stinkin' animal controllers.
2. Upon further experimentation, I have found that the CRQ software does recognize the string coming from the scanner, even if it doesn't have focus. Don't know why this wasn't working for me before, but it's working now.
Can you say FakeAHotMailAccount? I set up my activation code today using an e-mail account that I'll just ignore from now on. It didn't take much time.
Now that I have the software running, I must say that it's kind of a pain in the butt. You have to give focus to their interface before it recognizes that you are scanning. I guess I expected it to just watch the keyboard input for it's ID string and go from there.
Also, of the items at my desk, only the codes from a Wiley publishers book, the Radio Shack catalog, and the paper insert that came with the mouse actually resolve (well, the books go to an invalid page, but they are actually trying to go to catalog.wiley.com). None of my CDs were in there, my cans of Whoop Ass soda came up blank (don't worry, I submitted their info for the database), and darnit, it couldn't recognize the bar code from my package of Muscat Gummy Candy from Kasugai Seika Co. out of Nagoya, Japan.:)
So, apparently, they're just waiting for us to dump data in there. Believe you me, if this thing catches any kind of momentum with Joe Sixpack, Digital:Convergence will have marketing info out the wazzoo to sell to the highest bidders. Give people a toy, ask them for some demographics, and let them have fun giving you data at no expense to D:C.
It's a tidy little package, but, if it weren't for/., I wouldn't have even known the things existed.
Whis is better: the casual ad reader remembering the product so they can eventually remember to maybe purchase it or having a mechanism that takes them right to a page that says 'Buy me now!'?
The scanner allows the fulfillment of the impulse mentality. Scan, click, buy.
Send it my way, then. The first thing I thought of when I picked up the CueCat today was to use it in conjunction with my Quake 3 Linux server.
Print out a template containing common commands needed to run a Q3 game and then just scan them in instead of using a keyboard. You could create bar codes for login, game launch, map changes, frag limits, et cetera.
If I need to do anything more complex than that, I could just telnet in. Otherwise, it's a nice bit of cool factor.
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Imagine the disappointment when they buy that bigger, faster hard drive and then find out that none of their files will play because they weren't created on that drive. Which brings up an interesting scenario: What happens if you create all your content on one drive but then move it to another?
The fact that I can hold in my hand a container of knowledge or of great storytelling is a wonderful thing. The fact that it changes a little bit every time I read it (the impact of my own imagination and interpretation) keeps me coming back to it time and time again.
But there are a lot of books that I would just as soon put back on the shelf without a second look. I don't feel any mystique for Dr. Laura's books. I could care less about anything that starts with "Everything I need to know...". The books could be leather-bound, printed on India paper, and come in an embossed slipcase, but the content is rubbish, so the mystique (and the appreciation of it) is gone.
Turn of the century and older texts also hold that mystique for me. When I peruse the local used book shop and find books dating back to the late 1800's, I can't help but appreciate the fact that this object survived the past 100 years and is in my hands, ready to take me farther back in years than I could ever hope to travel. When I read through rare 15th century manuscripts, I love the fact that a philosophy from another age has survived in its original form for me to see with my own eyes.
My own books will be like that some day, if they are kept and cared for. Hundreds of years from now, there might be some book I would have thought common that somebody will treasure, and maybe they'll wonder who owned it before them and how it survived the years. Of course, there's likely to be somebody standing next to them saying, "Why do you care so much about that dirty old thing? It just takes up space. You have to actually look at it to read it? I don't get it." But, that's progress for you.
Now, to get to the question of where this romantic notion of books is originated... I can only say that books have been an important part of my life since early childhood. My mother read to me on a regular basis, and, once I was able to read myself, she made sure that frequent trips to the library kept me busy in books. A book meant that, for the time I was reading it, I would be taken by my imagination to somewhere new. After a while, I guess I simply equated the sensory experience of reading with the fun of triggering that imagination. For other people, this kind of sensory stimulation can come from things like the texture and smell of the leather of a baseball glove, the smell of a fresh baked pie, or the description of any other Rockwellian imagery you care to conjure up. :)
Book mystique is a cumulative thing. It isn't as though I walked into Barnes & Noble one day and said, "Oh, look at the pretty books!" This has been an ongoing thing for me, a deep seated respect for ideas and their preservation (with the exception of the aforementioned Dr. Laura books). The feel and smell of books comforts me on a psychological and emotional level simply because I have treasured them over a long period of time.
I apologize for the lack of an objective, scientific answer (which is what I think you were looking for), but I hope my perspective at least provided some insight. This obviously doesn't apply to everybody. Maybe some people just like books because the books make them appear well-read (this is a popular trend these days and one of the reasons that places like Barnes & Noble are doing so well).
Had I grown up with an e-book reader, I would most certainly feel differently about this subject. As it is, I'm afraid I'm tied to print.
Wouldn't it be possible to create a hybrid book, one that was not only the physical text but also contained the text in an electronic format? Imagine a chip in the spine or within the hard cover of the book that held the text within it. I have no doubt that it would be possible to create a mechanism by which you place a reader next to the back cover of the book and have it download the text to your reader. This would solve both problems. Those who want their books would have them, but they would have an electronic copy to take wherever they want. Those who want to fight piracy (publishers) would have the e-text now tied to a physical entity (the book itself), thus reducing piracy.
There are possible problems with this idea, though. I'm sure it would be possible to create a reader that would simply transfer the text straight to a waiting terminal to be zipped up and sent over the net, but that still requires that somebody purchased the book. To make this a less inviting option, perhaps the embedded text chip would not hold any illustrations, making the pirating of children's texts absolutely ludicrous and, perhaps, increasing the number of illustrations used in texts (not necessarily a good thing, though).
This scenario wouldn't have any benefits regarding cost savings, but, honestly, look at the prices for e-books. They cost just as much as their hardcover equivalents.
What happens to our historical record in an age of digital texts? I have recently been doing research for a book and have been calling upon a local university's excellent collection of 15th and 16th century texts (both in their original manuscripts and in microfilm). In 400 years, will libraries need to have a copy of Microsoft Reader handy to access old digital texts?
I realize this argument is a bit farfetched. We would certainly hope that, at some point, the publishers would simply release the text into the public domain in an unencrypted format for archival purposes, but with corporations holding on to their copyrighted properties with two hands and their teeth these days, it seems less and less likely that we'll ever see the resurrection of the concept of public domain.
Do e-books have their place? I certainly believe so. For example, I wouldn't mind seeing e-books being used in schools. The savings on print media would be spectacular, and it would be absolutely acceptable for students to "mark up" their texts any way they see fit. No more year end inspections or backpacks containing 20-30 pounds of books. The best advantage would be the availability of texts updated every year, freeing educators from the need to use 10 year old books in subjects such as science, history, and geography in order to cut costs.
However, I am a bibliophile at heart. My inability to resist purchasing every new iteration of Tolkien's texts is testament to this. I prefer hardcover to paperback, because hardcover just feels better to me. And don't even get me started about slipcases. These are all things I would miss in an e-book world.
What I would miss most, however, is the ability to pass on my love of literature and the physical book to my progeny. If my child insisted on not going to the used book store with me because we can "just download it", I think I'd be heartbroken.
Take a moment to imagine if the Declaration of Independence had been an e-text, digitally signed by the founding fathers of the United States. Would that carry as much awe and inspiration when you visited the Smithsonian to see that document displayed on an e-book device at low resolution?
Print gives us the ability to freeze time and carry it with us. It will always be compatible. It will always be charged. It will be downloaded again and again into the mind of the reader without the need for a transfer protocol. It will, I hope, never be obsolete.
But this does bring up an interesting topic. Does anyone know of any court cases dealing with license agreement enforcement?
Many of us often regard the License Agreement as "the thing before the install" and just click "Accept" so we can get on with our lives. But, after accepting the agreement, has anybody ever fought it in court and won? In a more relevant case, has anybody ever fought the enforcement of a license agreement they never agreed to?
In the case of the :CueCat, I wonder if DC couldn't argue "implied agreement", that by accepting their hardware, you are accepting their terms. Especially relevant is the idea of both the hardware and software being part of a single package. Just because it didn't arrive in one box doesn't mean they aren't lumped together. In that case, the notification of the existence of a license agreement would be sufficient to cover both pieces. That notification appears on the sleeve for the :CueCat software CD:
Now, while this does say "opening this software", I imagine they perceive both the hardware and software as one package. The fact that it didn't come in one box with an all encompassing seal may simply be a minor point of argument.Now, I don't agree with these tactics at all, but I would like to understand just how these things work. I've been in software for a mere 7 years now and have yet to hear anything solid on the validity and enforcibility of license agreements.
Shortly after that, they offer this bit of enlightenment:
I assume that this includes all data pumped out by the reader, which then conveniently covers the translation of said data into a format usable with something other than DC's software. It continues:Here, they cover their ass some more by saying, "If you figure it out, you have to tell us. And, by the way, don't use that info with anything but our software." This is completely in line with the above response from their CEO. He's saying the exact same thing.So, according to this license agreement, anybody who posted the code to circumvent their data encryption and tagging is in violation. There remain some questions as to whether or not the license is activated by simply using the :CueCat (they state that it does). Most seem to think that the license isn't agreed to until you break the seal on the software. As I have absolutely no knowledge of how exactly that applies, I'll skip my speculation on that point.
It seems, though, that unless you intend to use the :CueCat with only the DC software, you are in violation of the agreement. For this reason, I am returning my :CueCat to Radio Shack tomorrow and letting them know why I'm doing it. I'm also going to make sure that my Parade-readin' redneck relatives know that the :Cat is a "bad thing". Note: I admit I read vos Savant's column, but that's it... really.
Will this make a dent in their marketing? No way in hell, but it's the principle of the thing, y'know?
The CEO and his pal had a number of grammar errors in their official response. They should have spent the past five years increasing their communication skills.
In the spirit of hacktivism, what would happen if somebody got into one of the web sites of an MPAA member organization and placed a copy of DeCSS there? Then, everybody else could just link to the file and let the MPAA have fun suing... itself.
When I saw the ships in episode I, this made sense, that we were seeing this more elegant age in motion.
As we witness the creation and spread of the Empire, I'm sure we'll see the desire for elegance give way to the practicality of necessity, where oppressed masses are worried more with getting the job done than making it look pretty.
But it will still suck that R2 will be CG. Just think, had he been CG all along, it would have looked absolutely stupid when Luke tried to clean him (actor looking in wrong direction, tool not really digging into metal).
Anyway... not much can be said or done about this. George is on his holy rampage to go completely CGI. George, if I can suggest something... Maybe you should have tried it with a completely new property instead of transitioning Star Wars into your director's Utopia.
That's the only problem with the "all the books in the world" utopian stance. There's no way you'd get the rights to do it.
1. Cat, not mouse. Stinkin' animal controllers.
2. Upon further experimentation, I have found that the CRQ software does recognize the string coming from the scanner, even if it doesn't have focus. Don't know why this wasn't working for me before, but it's working now.
Now that I have the software running, I must say that it's kind of a pain in the butt. You have to give focus to their interface before it recognizes that you are scanning. I guess I expected it to just watch the keyboard input for it's ID string and go from there.
Also, of the items at my desk, only the codes from a Wiley publishers book, the Radio Shack catalog, and the paper insert that came with the mouse actually resolve (well, the books go to an invalid page, but they are actually trying to go to catalog.wiley.com). None of my CDs were in there, my cans of Whoop Ass soda came up blank (don't worry, I submitted their info for the database), and darnit, it couldn't recognize the bar code from my package of Muscat Gummy Candy from Kasugai Seika Co. out of Nagoya, Japan. :)
So, apparently, they're just waiting for us to dump data in there. Believe you me, if this thing catches any kind of momentum with Joe Sixpack, Digital:Convergence will have marketing info out the wazzoo to sell to the highest bidders. Give people a toy, ask them for some demographics, and let them have fun giving you data at no expense to D:C.
It's a tidy little package, but, if it weren't for /., I wouldn't have even known the things existed.
The scanner allows the fulfillment of the impulse mentality. Scan, click, buy.
Print out a template containing common commands needed to run a Q3 game and then just scan them in instead of using a keyboard. You could create bar codes for login, game launch, map changes, frag limits, et cetera.
If I need to do anything more complex than that, I could just telnet in. Otherwise, it's a nice bit of cool factor.