If it’s a really important book, I’m going to buy a hard copy and preserve anyway. Otherwise, there is just a lot of stuff I read for fun and will never read again.

entagor on July 20, 2009 at 8:19 AM

You said it better, but I’ll spout off too.

I’m also concerned about the apparent ability to edit, without your knowledge, books that you’ve bought. Sure, it would be nice to be able to fix typos, but who’s to say that they wouldn’t remove an “offensive” paragraph or line of dialog from a classic novel?

Printed books provide us with a record of who we were, where we came from, what we’ve gained and what we’ve lost. We can’t afford to loose that. This is a bit melodramatic, but I tend to get that way over our society’s lack of appreciation for history.

I happen to have all 10 volumes of the 1927 edition of The Standard History of the World, subtitled “A narrative of political events and a record of civilization from the earliest historical period to the present, embracing a general survey of human progress and achievement, civil government, religion, literature, science and art.” It concludes with formation of the League of Nations. You have to know that has things in it that some would wish to edit today.

Straying a bit from the topic, what calculators did to math education, search engines have done to history.

It just would not have happened.

Oh, they might have sent out letters requesting, perhaps even “demanding” their return. But more likely, they would have worked out some formula for damages to the copyright owner based on copies improperly sold — depending, of course, on how persistently the copyright owner persued the matter.

But in this case, Amazon over-reacted because . . . well, they could.

I sense they felt compelled to follow completely through once the focus was on them. And even though they no doubt had thought it through — in the sense that they knew it was trouble — they still acted.

They had to have been focused so exclusively on avoiding any possibility of a further economic comeback by the copyright owner, that they acted even though they may have only marginally underestimated the public relations disaster it would cause them. Their choice came down to their own economic protection. And they felt justified because they convinced themselves they were legally in the right. And that overrode all else.

Reminded me a little bit of another Orwellian tale, a short story that I hadn’t read in years . . . “Shooting An Elephant.”

Thanks for the general link to the Project Gutenberg Australia, Dr Evil on July 19, 2009 at 9:03 AM.

Anyone can pick up the link to the short story there.

Wherever you come down on this issue, remember this. Amazon revealed something very important. They can promise all they want to never do it again, but they have the power to do it, any time they want to

Feedie on July 19, 2009 at 2:09 AM

I am not saying they can, but what if –

they could pull a part of a text anytime?

Who would miss small deletions, subtle changes in nuance, or progressive re writes?

This is happening in Bible translation, and is little publicized, as Bible publishing houses substitute words for more ‘meaningful’ words unbeknownst in some cases to the readers

Seems to me we are approaching a point where the purchase of print may become no guarantee of the content

For those of you who are still skeptical about ereaders, they are much better than you might imagine. For one thing, the screen is not a standard LCD display – they have worked on the technology to make it easy on the eye. The Sony screen is more like an etch-a-sketch display than a regular monitor screen.

It is also surprisingly easy to get used to the ereader format. You just don’t notice it after a while, as if you are using a book.

There are some gripes: it can read PDF documents so I’ve uploaded all my music software manuals onto it (Cubase 5, Native Instruments Komplete 5 etc.), but the small display struggles with making them readable. You can zoom in, but it rearranges the format and you sometimes lose images when you do. So PDF is not perfect.

Would I buy a Kindle after their deletion strategy? Of course. The whole point is that the books you buy are all essentially dependent on DRM, and DRM can be made obselete very quickly. Its quite possible the books you download today will not be readable in a few years because the DRM format will have changed. Its a risk you take with anything digital.

To be fair, books do decay and get grotty too if you don’t look after them. And if you read them a lot they do get worn. Digital doesn’t – the format just winks out of existence.

Go and get one if you don’t have one already. It’s renewed my love for reading. Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment beckons as I write. Just don’t buy anything important on digital format – keep your essential documents on paper.

BrideOfRove on July 19, 2009 at 10:47 AM

Very informative and amusing!

Wherever you come down on this issue, remember this. Amazon revealed something very important. They can promise all they want to never do it again, but they have the power to do it, any time they want to.… Feedie on July 19, 2009 at 2:09 AM

Bullseye!

Reminds me of “Prodigy”‘s heavy handed practices back in the day. How did that venture turn out for IBM/Sears?

As for Amazon they’d better do some bowing and scraping to the offended customers – starting with a gift certificate for a years worth of FREE top-shelf book downloads! Also, a public lynching of the exec(bigbrother) that ordered the snatch would be an enjoyable youtube production… Last, an ironclad/boilerplate legal committment to never play that “memory hole” trick again would be in order!

“Let’s Roll”

WAKE UP PEOPLE, LOOK AT THE TITLES OF THE BOOKS???
HAVE YOU EVER READ 1984???
SOMEONE DOESNT WANT THESE BOOKS SOLD AT ALL, AND CERTAINLY NOT IN A ELECTRNIC MEDIA FORMAT.
GO DOWN TO THE BOOK STORE AND BUY THESE BOOKS AND READ THEM, THEN LOOK AT THE WAY OUR GREAT COUNTRY IS HEADED

Exit question: Is this a dealbreaker for would-be Kindle purchasers?

What would-be Kindle purchasers?

Geministorm on July 19, 2009 at 3:30 PM

Safari

Worth every dime.

Is this a dealbreaker for would-be Kindle purchasers?

The deal-breaker for me is an electronic book. Paper for me, thanks.

Otherwise, who reads more than one book at a time…

SilverStar830 on July 19, 2009 at 12:12 AM

Me. I’m currently reading 4 books, 3 for reading enjoyment, one for work/professional. Only the technical book is paper, the others are all on my iPhone, which I’m reading with Stanza. I got rid of my 46″ DLP TV a few months ago, since then reading books has become more of an obsession than any time since I graduated. I used to have more books than I could shelf (even after I would go out and buy more 8′x4′ book cases), and I would find that I had accumulated box upon box of books that weigh a ton. Moving those books out of the way to reach the Christmas paraphenalia this last year is what convinced me to finally go digital. Right now I’ve got 157 books downloaded and able to be read at my leisure. When I’m sitting in an airport, on the plane, in a hotel room, at a restaurant if I’m alone, late at night when the kids and wife are asleep but I’m not, when I’m in the “library” (a guy’s favorite reading place), etc. Having the book(s) you’re reading handy whenever you want to read…I have to say that eBooks are even more awesome than Pandora/mp3s for me.

Anyway, many moons ago I used to use a palm IIIc as an eBook. Not like the modern ones, but not bad either. PDAs, tablets, etc… and none of them single-purpose consumer devices that cost too much for what they do.

In the epilogue in the paperback edition he tells of how Lexus went overboard during their first recall to make their customers happy. What could have been a PR disaster was, instead, a non-event.

Amazon needs to think of a way to emulate that.

Otherwise, who reads more than one book at a time…

SilverStar830 on July 19, 2009 at 12:12 AM

Me. I have a book on the nightstand for my night reading. A book in the car to read when I am waiting to pick up the spouse. A book on my desk to read while I am waiting during slow internet times. A book on the coffee table to read while I am “watching” a show the spouse has chosen. And a book in my backpack that I carry with me in case I have to wait at a doctor’s office or some such.

But I still don’t want a Kindle.