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To: ottbmare

Paper books themselves depend on infrastructure and technology - the electric lights in your house, roads to transport from the publisher, brick & mortar stores, forests to harvest, etc.

All that is happening is that the nature and speed of the infrastructure we take for granted is changing. Now, we see from Egypt’s example that it is possible to shut down the internet, and Apple (or Amazon, or the Nook people) could suddenly invoke some code to erase or modify the e-book. Those are new risks that didn’t exist before with older technology - but remember, the Nazis were still able to burn a whole lot of paper books, too.

So there are definitely things we need to demand safeguards for, but in the meantime we’ll reap the benefits of the far more efficient and dynamic book delivery system.


16 posted on 02/16/2011 12:50:27 PM PST by Yossarian (Heartfelt thanks, Tea Party Patriots! Despite slander and muck, you pulled through!)
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To: Yossarian
So there are definitely things we need to demand safeguards for, but in the meantime we’ll reap the benefits of the far more efficient and dynamic book delivery system.

There are some positive things to the ebooks and the hardware. But "loaning" a book to a friend or reselling and/or trading in the used market has yet to be defined and is important to me. I also don't think that the current prices reflect the greatly reduced cost of production and distribution.

Reading a book on a device is sometimes impossible (power) or more difficult (beach). Most of all, you can drop a book and it will survive!

35 posted on 02/16/2011 2:25:27 PM PST by johncatl (...governs least, governs best.)
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