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April

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2 Total Votes

More on DRM and Piracy | 19 comments (19 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback

books are dying by sasquatchan (2.00 / 0) #1 Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 10:15:30 AM EST

because people don't read.

What was the number, some 25% folks surveyed didn't read ONE book last year. Holy Ignorance!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20381678/
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-08-21-reading_N.htm

In 2004, a National Endowment for the Arts report titled “Reading at Risk” found only 57 percent of American adults had read a book in 2002

DRM has, IMO, nothing to do with the decline of book publishing.

Is it really ignorance? by wiredog (2.00 / 0) #5 Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 10:37:45 AM EST

Sure, we read fewer books than we did, say, 30 years ago. But 30 years ago we didn't have the internet providing us with so much more information. I spend an hour or so a day online. That's an hour I'm not reading a book.

30 years ago we didn't have our choice of national and international news channels on cable. No CNN, FoxNews, BBC America. No MSNBC. Heck, when I was growing up in the 70's and 80's we didn't have cable TV. I think cable TV changed the culture far more than the internet has.

Earth First!
_{(We can strip mine the rest later.)}
[ Parent ]

maybe not ignorance.. by sasquatchan (2.00 / 0) #8 Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 10:49:51 AM EST

Since I read probably 75% fiction. I enjoy reading books because I think they expand the mind, expose you to ideas, etc.

Sure, folks read the internet, but I don't equate the two. There is information available, but I don't equate that either with reading. Or, look at most blogs, kos, freepers, k5, do any of those shrill echo chambers really broaden the mind ?

[ Parent ]

: neither do 95% of the books i read by alprazolam (2.00 / 0) #16 Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 01:21:46 PM EST

reading is overrated. it's an addiction that sucks time and energy and distracts people from things that are Important. yet they teach it to kids in school! if you want to expose kids to things and broaden their minds, you should teach them drugs and keep them off books.

[ Parent ]

Reading? by Herring (4.00 / 1) #12 Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 11:20:36 AM EST

I thought Americans only bought books for burning.

You can't outlaw rabbits! They'll just go underground - Milton Jones
[ Parent ]

Gmail's best april fool's by blixco (2.00 / 0) #2 Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 10:25:37 AM EST

will be when they are no longer Beta.
---------------------------------
"You bring the weasel, I'll bring the whiskey." - kellnerin

: I dunno by wiredog (4.00 / 1) #4 Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 10:33:12 AM EST

Could the InterTubes stand the strain of a Google product leaving beta?

Earth First!
_{(We can strip mine the rest later.)}
[ Parent ]

DRM and Copyright by anonimouse (2.00 / 0) #3 Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 10:33:03 AM EST

I notice that The Pirate Bay has moved out of Europe to Egypt due to copy right laws.

_{April Fool}

Girls come and go but a mortgage is for 25 years -- JtL

Other content by dark nowhere (2.00 / 0) #6 Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 10:44:14 AM EST

I was going dust off on other things as well, but it would have been difficult to write effectively as a monolithic entry. I might write another one later.

Books... I think sasquatchan is likely right. I can't imagine a lot of book piracy being a problem. It's painful to read books on most electronic devices. I've a lot of ebooks and have read almost none of them in that form. The convenience of paper pretty much rules out the risk of offering up ebooks for free as try-before-you-buy. The Kindle could change that, but it's not popular enough to really do much damage I think. Ubiquity of tools is important for the proper piracy pandemic. I even bought the Baroque Cycle.

Sponsored content is a scary idea. How much getting used to it can account for the fact that it's really not what anybody wants? The medium is the message is the medium. I.e. if you compromise the message, you've changed mediums: "I was paying for entertainment and now you're trying to sell me an after school special."

I am not your dupe account.

The Kindle is almost there. by wiredog (2.00 / 0) #9 Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 10:53:29 AM EST

For that matter, the iPhone is almost there. And once they're there, people will start sharing the content. And then sponsored content will become inevitable.

Freedom of the Press only applies to those who own one.

Earth First!
_{(We can strip mine the rest later.)}
[ Parent ]

There? by dark nowhere (2.00 / 0) #10 Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 11:10:16 AM EST

In what sense? Ubiquity? I don't know anyone with a Kindle. Maybe it's just a bad sample. Functionality? The iPhone will have to get significantly larger first. If its current size were enough I'd actually use the DS ebook apps I have.

I am not your dupe account.
[ Parent ]

There as in Good Enough by wiredog (2.00 / 0) #11 Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 11:14:39 AM EST

The Kindle screen needs to flip the pages faster, and the design of the buttons needs work. There needs to be a hardened version for beachgoing and other extreme environments. The cost could be lower, too.

Once that's taken care of it's a viable replacement for the paperback book.

Earth First!
_{(We can strip mine the rest later.)}
[ Parent ]

: Viable, by dark nowhere (2.00 / 0) #19 Wed Apr 02, 2008 at 01:46:19 AM EST

but not common enough. People are pirating books left and right I know, but who reads them? I know a lot of people that read books, but none of them (that I know of) have read pirated books. OTOH, I know nobody who's not listened to pirated music and only a few who haven't done the pirating themselves.
I've been wanting something just like the Kindle since the '90s and I still don't have one. I think it partly has to do with it being a $400 book that isn't quite as good as a book. I really don't think the book market fits into this yet. Maybe some day, but certainly not now.

I am not your dupe account.
[ Parent ]

DRM Blows by duxup (2.00 / 0) #7 Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 10:49:36 AM EST

I don't know if piracy has to be the end of everything as we know it. I pay Amazon for MP3s and I'm happy to do it. I think when it comes to music it just seems that way as the folks running the music industry are total morons trying to hang on to the past.

Anyway there was an article on the BBC's website recently where they talked about how Chinese artists make money in light of the insane amount of piracy. Mostly yeah it is sponsored music events. Although I wonder how well that really works...

I know a lot of music fanatics love concerts and would promote that idea but I personally don't care to see anyone in concert. I wonder how many other folks like me there are.
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Sponsored concerts cause other deaths by ad hoc (4.00 / 1) #13 Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 11:23:49 AM EST

Clearchannel, for example, sponsors lots of tours (music as well as traveling plays, &c). They also have a condition saying you either play all Clearchannel-owned theatres or none. That's why the Boston Opera House is booked solid and the Wilber, Shubert, and Wang theatres are sorely hurting. The Colonial is doing surviving as it handles everything that's not Clearchannel, but the others are in desperate shape.
--
The three things that make a diamond also make a waffle.
[ Parent ]

Yeah by duxup (4.00 / 1) #14 Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 11:42:40 AM EST

But is that a change in the market or just the result of a stupid monopoly?
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[ Parent ]

I'm not sure I get your point. by ad hoc (2.00 / 0) #15 Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 12:17:16 PM EST

--
The three things that make a diamond also make a waffle.
[ Parent ]

Sponsors by duxup (2.00 / 0) #17 Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 02:14:28 PM EST

My point being sponsored concerts don't have to involve that bad side (killing off some theaters) that you're talking about there. It's just that in that case there's a stupid monopoly controlling that market.
____
[ Parent ]

: OIC by ad hoc (2.00 / 0) #18 Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 08:18:03 PM EST

Probably less of an issue in that case. Still, however, a sponsored (play more than a concert) is less likely to do anything controversial which sort of means everything will end up being written by Andrew Lloyd Webber or Disney.
--
The three things that make a diamond also make a waffle.
[ Parent ]

More on DRM and Piracy | 19 comments (19 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback


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