No matter how much I try I can't seem to embrace the idea of eReaders and eBooks. I can scarcely think of a more obvious scam. Those looking to buy as eBook will likely pay about as much as a paper back edition of the book they're interested in simply for the right to access the content only? You don't get a copy of the file, and the company selling the books can simply flick a switch at any moment and deny you access to content you've payed for, which has already happened in the past, I might add, when Amazon flicked a switch and thousands of people saw their "copies" of Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell simply vanish from their Kindles. For those who are well read I don't think I have to point out the irony of the fact that it was these two stories that people had removed from their eReaders.
Can nobody see what this is? It is a deliberate effort to remove the opportunity for you to actually own a hard copy of a medium. What will be next? Movies? Is the day approaching in which we will no longer be able to purchase latest DVD or Blu-Ray of our favourite movies? Will we have simply only be able to purchase access to the films we love through the internet or our televisions? And if that is the case, will we be forces to pay every time we wish to view the content, or will we only have to pay for the content once only and be able to watch it as many times as you want? Ask yourself wish is most likely.
Buy the physical book, folks, otherwise, in 20 years, who bloody well knows if there will be any new physical books left for you to buy even if you wish to do so. And even if there is, there is no guarantee you will be able to buy them at a reasonable price. If a day when eBooks sales become the overwhelming majority of book sales comes, I think it likely that to buy a physical copy of a book will become no more than a novelty and will become grossly overpriced. Almost as buying your favourite band's latest album on vinyl has become.
The publishers want to be able to have complete control over the written word. They want to be able to take it away from you and they want to be able to make sure nobody can view it unless they buy it, after all, how many people are going to lend their eReaders to somebody so they can read a book? Not many. It is nothing more or less a scam by big publishing in hopes that you will all fall for it, that you will completely put control of the written word in their hands to giveth and taketh away as they see fit. And there is another danger. As a society we have come to recognise book burning and everything it represents as a truly despicable act. If our society comes to completely embrace eBooks, who's to say that "digital book burning", so to speak, won't become as easy as somebody saying: "Publisher, turn those books off."?
The publishers want to be able to have complete control over the written word. They want to be able to take it away from you and they want to be able to make sure nobody can view it unless they buy it, after all, how many people are going to lend their eReaders to somebody so they can read a book? Not many. It is nothing more or less a scam by big publishing in hopes that you will all fall for it, that you will completely put control of the written word in their hands to giveth and taketh away as they see fit. And there is another danger. As a society we have come to recognise book burning and everything it represents as a truly despicable act. If our society comes to completely embrace eBooks, who's to say that "digital book burning", so to speak, won't become as easy as somebody saying: "Publisher, turn those books off."?
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