tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9186118329509553435.post7176499010858805614..comments2024-03-09T15:11:29.350-08:00Comments on Exotic and irrational entertainment: The future of booksPessimisissimohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04223566131580795337noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9186118329509553435.post-12548654569801751592009-10-14T12:04:31.633-07:002009-10-14T12:04:31.633-07:00David, you make good points about the ease of diss...David, you make good points about the ease of dissemination of electronic copies, and how the ability to freely copy texts might affect authors' ability to be fairly compensated for their work.<br /><br />But the way things stand currently isn't fair to readers. Often an e-book purchased in one format isn't compatible with more than one brand of e-book reader, which can make it difficult for even a single reader to access texts that they have purchased. If your Kindle konks out, for example, you can't migrate your purchases to a Sony e-book reader. <br /><br />And currently magazine and newspaper subscriptions purchased for a Kindle don't even carry over to a Kindle 2--in other words, despite having paid for a subscription, a reader loses access to all back issues if they upgrade their Kindle to a newer model. <br /><br />Surely there is a more reasonable compromise that would allow users to make a limited number of copies of purchased electronic content to preserve their access (or yes, to give a copy to a friend).<br /><br />As for the impact of used-book sales on authors' royalties, that's the subject for another post. Suffice to say that used books currently account for fewer than 10% of book purchases. I've also observed a certain inelasticity of demand for both used and new books--that is, many people looking for a used copy of a title will not buy a new copy if a used one isn't available, and (perhaps more surprisingly) vice versa. So every used book purchase does not result in a lost new book sale--far from it. But as I say, that's a discussion for another time.<br /><br />Thanks for your comment!Pessimisissimohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04223566131580795337noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9186118329509553435.post-35330172921016562522009-10-14T10:03:34.886-07:002009-10-14T10:03:34.886-07:00I am responding to the beginning of your post, reg...I am responding to the beginning of your post, regarding fair use and transfer. As as aspiring author, I do not object to the fact that purchasing a copy of a new work electronically doesn't give someone the right to give it away. I was on a college campus from 1998-2001, and then 2004, and saw the massive Napster-ing of the music industry. Someone could download a copy of a favorite song and send it to hundreds of persons on an e-mail list before you could say "Jiminy Cricket." As much as it frustrates me when I do research, I appreciate that Google Books severely limits access to in-print titles - "snippet view." As a bookseller, you probably appreciate the impact that widely available used copies have on an author's royalties - "free" digital copies would have an even greater impact.<br /><br />I think there are legitimate reasons for there to be different fair use policies for electronic versus print copies. A copy of a book can be only given to one person at one time; an electronic copy can be sent to hundreds in an instant. As for your comments about Amazon and Google, you may be right about those.David G. Smithnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9186118329509553435.post-65240771932793607832009-09-25T10:37:45.315-07:002009-09-25T10:37:45.315-07:00Peter, you make some excellent points. E-books are...Peter, you make some excellent points. E-books are obviously here to stay, and they can have some advantages over print--as you point out, you can carry 25 (or more) at a time in a device no bigger than an iPhone, and text searching can be easier than using an index (although text searching has its own pitfalls). Digitization does make vast libraries accessible to anyone with an Internet connection, and (as I say in the post) e-books will undoubtedly improve.<br /><br />But I think you're mistaking my purpose in writing this post. I'm not saying (to paraphrase Orwell's <i>Animal Farm</i>) "Codex good, e-books bad." Instead, I'm pointing out that large corporations are pushing the e-book format for reasons that are in their commercial interests. And chief among those interests is control of content. If we as readers want retain our rights to fair use, resale, privacy, and even ownership in the rush to e-book adoption, and if we want e-books to be more functional than print rather than less, we need to raise awareness of issues both legal and technological.<br /><br />That's why I end the post with the admonition not to mourn some lost, nonexistent paradise of print, but to organize. If you follow the link on that word, you'll see that it leads to the site for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is one of many groups fighting legal battles on behalf of (in their words) "free speech, privacy, innovation, and consumer rights" in the digital realm.<br /><br />Thanks for your comment!Pessimisissimohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04223566131580795337noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9186118329509553435.post-80715854771236259052009-09-25T07:21:22.330-07:002009-09-25T07:21:22.330-07:00Your points are well taken but for the egregious o...Your points are well taken but for the egregious omission of the positive aspects of a conversion to electronic format. Don't get me wrong. I love the codex, and I hope it is with us a long, long time. But I have an e-reader (not a Kindle), and I love it. I am someone who reads 25 books at a time, and with my e-reader I can carry them all (along with hundreds of other books and all of the texts I teach) wherever I go. E-texts are less expensive. They take no space. They are searchable in ways that are far, far more efficient that codices. Cutting and pasting is a wonderful way of taking "notes." Moreover, while the defects of Google books you point out are all defects that can be improved upon, they likely will be. But what is remarkable about Google Books is that there is suddenly available to me on the shores of an inland sea far from what the elite consider cultural centers an enormous store of writing and knowledge I never even knew existed. And now I can read it!<br /><br />Things change. The codex was once a revolutionary medium. So was papyrus. And with every change things are lost, but things are gained too.Peter Friedmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12367214098614734119noreply@blogger.com