Comments on: Scan those books!

By: The Earl of Slander

The Earl of Slander — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 11:10:20 +0000

The copyright is an obsolete concept, and they struggle to keep it alive only for the sake of gaining a little more coin.

But dark times await those who don’t know how to adapt..:)

By: Romerican

Romerican — Fri, 19 May 2006 08:51:05 +0000

With the advent of e-paper, magazines will continue on in a televized format for quite a long time, I think.

Books will stick around a bit as well. Those readers just don’t mimic the experience anywhere as well. But, then, subscribing to a Book of the Month Club delivered to your Amazon eBook made with ePaper could effectively work.

You’ve caused me to go seeking out libraries here. It’s just occurred to me, as I ponder why it is Romanians seem to buy almost no books, that I’ve never seen a library in Romania. Surely, the university, but anywhere else? I shall find out.

If Romania continues to develop its BSD and Linux roots (as I see happening) then it could, indeed, emerge as a leader of the pack. Like the Internet itself, F/OSS is a remarkable cultural shift.

In the meantime, I’m waiting for your post describing what it’s like in journalist circles to *know* (finally, no more tinfoil hat jokes) the government is actively targeting you. Do they even care? I get the impression most of them don’t care “enough.”

By: admin

admin — Thu, 18 May 2006 17:52:39 +0000

What’s interesting is that in the US this is ceratinly a fight about the maintaining of an oligarchy. It may be less so in other countries — Romania included — where copyright is an obscure concept, which as Gorgeoux pointed out, is easy to sidestep.

So you could argue Romania is among the leaders of the pack in the anti-copyright movement Or is that the ripping and stealing movement?

I believe paper worldwide has a good few decades to go before it might really be threatened. I agree that printed media such as newspapers are in trouble (and I could go on forever on this topic), but I think magazines, books and other printed artifacts still have a serious life-span ahead of them.

By: Romerican

Romerican — Thu, 18 May 2006 06:58:12 +0000

You’re right to point out that paper is a technology. It’s been a precious one heavily guarded in Europe’s violent, repressive past. People literally died for centuries over the technology of paper and the product of books. Only of late has it reached a state of free-ishness.

The argument isn’t about paper versus digital, of course. Paper is most definitely on it’s way out. Last legs and falling over. The knives have been drawn over the element of control. How much wiggle room for the free-ishness of these works will there be?

You can certainly bet the lazy cartel of publishers who rake in obscene amounts of money from their domination of distribution will not go quietly into the night. They will fight tooth and nail to obstruct any new forms of distribution which might exclude them, give more leverage to authors, and/or generally increase free-ishness.

That’s all this really is about. The maintenance of a fat oligarchy.

By: gorgeoux

gorgeoux — Thu, 18 May 2006 01:26:12 +0000

It really is about technology mainly, in my view. Whether we like it or not, paper still is… technology. Meanwhile, the past centuries would indicate that technology prevails.

Another view: printed media have ‘readership’ in a way more acknowledged and monitored manner than books. All under their respective copyright. A change of technology will not bring about a change in behavior, portability and, thus, readership. As a Romanian, I know quite well that it all is about human interest, that I will get my hands on the object of desire, copyrighted as it may have been; I say Romanian because we are somewhat notorious for finding our way towards ‘free’ resources.

By: Romerican

Romerican — Wed, 17 May 2006 13:43:27 +0000

I suppose a goodly number of those folks support an alternative to free-ishness of information that might include DRM, heavy handed criminal penalties and something like a "Trusted Computing" model for the prevention of copyright infringement. Some folks are opposed to the various schemes loosely based on the original American time-limited protection of copyright and patents for only 14 years because the founding fathers believed that overly-protective barriers stifle innovation and hamstring society as a whole. Contrast that today with corporations who bilk fortunes without any work by merely buying Congressmen to extend copyright to 70 years after the death of the author or propose of ever-increasing patent terms... I absolutely agree it's a fascinating time to have these sorts of discussions. For my nickel, SlashDot provides a near endless supply of logical (and funny) arguments both for and against various artificial protection rackets. Bias? Not I...