Comment

Comment by John Casper on July 26, 2009 at 2:27am

Yep. The Church demanded every person read it, but they also demand that they handle the copying and distribution. The world consists of checks and balances. I cannot deny that. But by putting one person, entity, or corporation in charge of it all is insane. It destroys all purposes of said checks and balances. "The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind." Thomas Paine. Idiots now control (for the most part (F*ck the controllers)) what we say, do, distribute, and see. p2p is just a tool of the trade.

Comment by John Casper on July 25, 2009 at 11:35pm

LOL TubeJay, I could not agree more with what you just said. It helps noone, actually. The 'potential customer' is turned away because of said restrictions. The artist or authur is charged for the security, and penalized because of the rise in p2p.. I bought the Orange Box a year ago, and my key did not work. It said key was in use. I called Steam, and they said they could do nothing. I have the DVDs. I bought them. I have a receipt. But I cannot play the game? Sounds like p2p wins again.. But they still got my money. w00t.

Comment by John Casper on July 25, 2009 at 11:17pm

I believe if you buy it, you should be able to access it via any medium you desire.. Whether it be home pc, mobile phone, iTouch, or some other weird form. Physical books are getting old.. They 'waste trees', are subject to wear and tear, and all in all weigh too much. I'm waiting for the digital book revolution with great anticipation. Will there be a DRM that only allows access on one device per purchase? Will it be appealing to those who are not electronically 'smart'? Will it save time and resources? Will it have the ability to help the student if the student does not understand the text as it is (re-iterate)? That's the questions I'm interested in.

Comment by Lincoln on July 23, 2009 at 6:41pm

The new book smell will be around for a long time. I expect it will become a niche product sold at high prices to book aficionados, like me.

Digital rights, or lack of them, is the big issue with the 1984 recall. Publishers often talk about selling a license to digital items while most people feel that they own it. Hopefully we'll get a solution that does not involve the Ministry of Truth!

Comment by Kristin Marshall on July 23, 2009 at 4:21pm

@Gregory

Apparently with the Amazon fiasco, the titles were just ironic. They found out that the source's copy of the title that was distributed wasn't obtained legally by them, so they recalled it from all the customers. This brings up a few interesting red flags in my mind:

1. Amazon should keep up with how legit an e-book publishers titles are before distributing them, to avoid the scenario.
2. The item was purchased from Amazon by consumers, trusting that it would be a final purchase, so to say. It's like if you bought a book at Barnes & Noble, their execs find out the printer did not publish the books legally, come into everyone's houses to take the books back and leave a check on the counter. Amazon’s published terms of service agreement for the Kindle does not appear to give the company the right to delete purchases after they have been made. It says Amazon grants customers the right to keep a “permanent copy of the applicable digital content.” Although they stated that they're changing their systems so that in the future they will not remove books from customers’ devices in these circumstances. Still makes you think about our digital rights. I heard that one kid lost his annotations for a school project on the book because of the recall.

I agree with you that books will move to complete electronic delivery at some point, but there is a lot to still overcome. It makes me a bit sad though... where will I get that "new book" smell? :(

Comment by Gregory F. March on July 23, 2009 at 9:51am

Re: Dr. Bruce Hoag: Except that Betamax was the early bird. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videotape_format_war

"Home VCRs first became available in the early 1970s — such as a Philips VCR model, released in 1972. The first system to be successful with consumers was Sony's Betamax in 1975. This was quickly followed by the competing VHS (Video Home System) format from JVC, and later by Video 2000 from Philips. Subsequently, the Betamax-VHS format war began in earnest. Other competitors, such as Sanyo's V-Cord and Quasar's "Great Time Machine" quickly disappeared."

While Amazon is Big Brotherish in many ways, I wonder if they were trying to send a message with the choice of titles they decided to recall? Obviously, they don't want to recall any titles - they had to have been pressured into it. Recalling 1984 was a classic move on their part to bring attention to the issue.

It is inevitable that all books will be delivered electronically in the future. It's just the initial hurdle that is sometimes hard to jump. I think this was a great, preemptive strike on Amazon's part.

That said, I agree that Amazon needs competition to improve their service / cost / product. Hopefully the eReader will help in that regard...

Comment by Al Karel on July 23, 2009 at 9:35am

KIndle NEEDS this competition. I have both the original and the Kindle 2 and they STILL do not have any sort of book management system. I can't sort my books by: read/not read, fiction/non-fiction, School/Non-School, etc. etc. etc.

Amazon has been completely braindead on this and continues.

So we all very much hope that Plastic Logic sweeps in and does great. Maybe
Amazon will take up and start to support its readers instead of thowing out
models and marketing, marketing, etc. instead of making them better and more
useful.

Comment by Lincoln on July 23, 2009 at 8:12am

I know it's technically possible to run these devices on our cell networks in Canada but I have not seen any signs of that happening in the near future. And when they do, the device makers will probably want a huge price premium, that seems to be the way it goes for anything with services here. That is a drawback of living in a large country with low population density and a sometimes wishy washy government.

I'm not sure that traditional publishers would suffer that much by increasing their focus on digital copies. They can reduce the production and transportation costs. They would not have the liability of book stores returning unsold books. And if they have an unexpected hit, there is virtually no cost to supply a greater than expected demand.

However, if the music industry is any indication, publishers think they should get almost the same amount for a digital copy as a physical copy. The cost is simply far too high and doesn't get them where they need to be to maximize revenues.

Comment by Kristin Marshall on July 23, 2009 at 7:42am

@Lincoln

Well, it's designed to run on a GSM cellular network, so it has the ability to be used internationally, and whether or not a carrier outside the US will provide access eventually, who knows.

Thing is, with the pricing, it seems like selling them for less is the goal, but e-book carriers (at least Barnes & Noble) is being mindful that they should not gouge traditional publishers. I think in an ideal world, we'd all go for the less resource intensive option, but it's about business and money for traditional publishers. Yes, the demand for e-books would be extremely high if the price were lowered, but traditional publishers would suffer then, I think. The print world is suffering as it is.

Comment by Lincoln on July 23, 2009 at 7:19am

AT&T? So this is going to be another US only device, I suspect, and not available to me in Canada.

Until they start selling non-DRM books, I think I will stay far away even though I love the concept.

As for pricing, the publishers are looking at it the wrong way. The cost of a digital copy is virtually nothing while physical books are very resource intensive. So why should the cost to the consumer be almost the same? Or worse than physical books after the device cost has been factored in?

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