Posted on 09/14/2010 4:09:05 AM PDT by mattstat
We have already discussed how eBooks will hasten the end of what we called long-form reading, i.e. book reading, by the majority. We have speculated that eBooks will lead to a vast reduction in traditional publishing, mainly because with eBooks there are no used books to sell, which excludes a major pathway by which readers discover new authors.
And it now appears that, if a certain court ruling holds, eBook publishers will be able to legally forbid the reselling of eBooks. Thus, if you buy a Kindle or iPad from another citizen upon which are titles not in the public domain, the publishers of those titles will soon have the right to erase those titles from the device. If the owner of the device or devices is a library, then if the library changes hands, its collection disappears.
Both The Consumerist and Wired are reporting a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal about the so-called first-sale doctrine as it applies to software, and possibly to any copyrighted works such as eBooks, and even printed books.
As l have long stressed, when you buy an eBook you are not buying a book, but purchasing a license to read certain materials at a company's pleasure. Once this company ceases finding pleasure in your activity, the company can forbid you to continue reading the material. As has already happened when Amazon whacked copies of 1984 from some Kindles.
The 9th Circuit Court---in case you do not recall---is in San Francisco, and this ruling confirms the sad fact that judge and district shopping in the States can be a ingenious way to bypass the will of the citizens (leftists head to California, conservatives to Texas). ...
(Excerpt) Read more at wmbriggs.com ...
I’ll buy books with my last penny.
If someone compiled a book of articles written about the death of books, they’d need a forest’s worth of paper to print up one copy.
I think pennies are going away too.
A kindle cannot beat holding a real book. The publishers decision to license the copy vs sell is why I will not buy.
That has great idea written all ov
eReaders will kill books in the same way that laser printers led to a “paperless” society.
I demand exact change!
The “paperless society” was predicted eons ago and it still hasn't happened. It won't happen with books either.
Control freaks. So, I can sell, or even give away, my books in a garage sale, or to a used book store, but can't do the same with the electronic version I pay the same money for? GTH publishers. I'll never buy another copyrighted e-book again (I've purchased 2, I believe...all others are public domain titles).
The only place the Kindle doesn't beat holding a real book is in the bath tub. I wouldn't want to damage my Kindle by dropping it in the drink. Plus, its cheaper than buying paper books. I will stick to the new papyrus and if it pleases you, keep hammering away on those stone tablets.
However, it doesn't replace the feel of a real book. I still buy a lot of “dead tree” books, but not as many.
Getting back to the article, book sellers have for years wanted to limit or get rid of second hand shops. The publishers don't get any money after that first sale.
I like regular books. I have not tried a Kindle, but can assure you I wouldn’t care for one. Real books do not need batteries, they don’t need charging and are not subject to anything like deletion, etc, unless you throw it away or burn it or something. I wouldn’t like looking at yet another computer like screen — too hard on my eyes.
Publishers want to do the same with second hand book stores. There was a great little shop near by that I used to love to go to. The owners retired some time ago, but the husband said that he was already getting flack from some publishers. So far, case law is for the second hand shops, but as we have seen that doesn’t mean much.
So, we’ll begin to see this with used cars? Used appliances? Anything refurbished? I can see the jumping on the bandwagon effect, should law go their way. Idiotic. And all it will do is create a black market to cover the demand.
A closer example would be the old chestnut that the use of computers would lead to a paperless office.
I've been a court reporter for 30+ years. On average, our office puts out approximately 100,000 pages of ORIGINAL transcript per year, which, when you add in the fact that there are usually massive numbers of pages of documentary exhibits and allied papers, all compiled in four or five copies of each record of trial, means that we have an output of probably several million pieces of paper per year. And that's just here at Fort Hood. The numbers, in higher or lower amounts, are mirrored around other military installations and civilian court jurisdictions PER YEAR.
When we started using computers many years ago, we were told then that we were just a short time away from producing our records of trial digitally and without any paper. Several billion (if not tens of billions) pieces of paper later, it's still a distant .. and probably impossible .. fantasy.
eReaders, in certain circumstances, can be handy pieces of hardware. It's easier to go on vacation with an eReader filled with books than carrying the dozen or so books that I presently carry with me when I travel. But, on the whole, I can't see me cuddling up on the couch with my wife every evening, each of us with a good eReader. Nope, there's nothing like a good physical book at those times.
Fahrenheit 451 did the job of a world without books so well, I don’t think anyone wants to approach it.
There are endless sf books about the government taking over the means of communication and, uh, ‘editing’ the contents to suit them.
Incidentally, it goes on that the Kindle “will provide Amazon with data about your” Kindle, including notes, bookmarks, and so on. So if you’re underlying the juicy parts don’t expect privacy.
I did not know that, but should not have surprised me.
On a positive note about e-books. Project Gutenberg is not tied to Kindle and there are 100,000 titles in ePub, Kindle, HTML and simple text formats which are fee downloads.
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