The Faustian bargain of E-books

[teh603]

Originally Posted by Sregener

I don't think you understand the concept of a Faustian bargain. When consumers choose to "purchase" an eBook rather than a physical one, they are making a Faustian bargain. While technology dazzles us with its promises on the one hand, something else gets taken away that we only come to realize later.

How is downloading a public domain ePub from Gutenberg considered a Faustian act? Especially when the book in question isn't available in any other format?

Or what about having an ebook printed out through a POD kiosk?

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

What am I giving up? I know what they want the Publishers and Amazon think I am giving up but I have made a choice to not give that up.

Naybe in the middle of the bar where it doesn't get covered when you mouse over the toolbar

Still it is fine where it is.

Helen

[Fluribus]

Originally Posted by Sregener

I don't think you understand the concept of a Faustian bargain. When consumers choose to "purchase" an eBook rather than a physical one, they are making a Faustian bargain. While technology dazzles us with its promises on the one hand, something else gets taken away that we only come to realize later.

Whether we end up better off or not will probably remain unclear for quite some time. See Internet:Privacy.

One of the problems with ebooks is the potential for obsolescence. Strip the DRM, however, and theoretically you can use it forever. As long as you can convert to newer formats, it can last longer than the paper would.

A huge upside is that even a toddler can carry an entire library with ease. Most of my paper books are in storage. Finding a specific title would be a nightmare. Unless someone decides to shower me with money, that's not likely to change. I can get to any of my electronic books within minutes.

[Sregener]

Originally Posted by teh603

How is downloading a public domain ePub from Gutenberg considered a Faustian act? Especially when the book in question isn't available in any other format?

Or what about having an ebook printed out through a POD kiosk?

I'm not saying that eBooks are by definition bad, or that they should be avoided. I have a Kindle 4NT myself, for crying out loud! But I give up some things with eBooks that I can't get back.

The way the books are perceived changes with an eBook. The specific pagination of the text is lost (which makes it harder to find things if you can only remember on what part of the page something was located.) The permanence of the book is lost - I wrote some great stuff on my Commodore 64 that I'll never get back. We're dependent on the Internet to stay as it is, open and free, so we can continue to access our libraries. And some ereaders track their users' reading, even on sideloaded content, so you're giving up some privacy there.

It may be a bargain worth making, but nobody should close their eyes and cover their ears and say that technology only gives but never takes away. Because history has shown again and again that with each new technology that was going to make our lives easier or better or both, something was lost.

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by Sregener

I'm not saying that eBooks are by definition bad, or that they should be avoided. I have a Kindle 4NT myself, for crying out loud! But I give up some things with eBooks that I can't get back.

The way the books are perceived changes with an eBook. The specific pagination of the text is lost (which makes it harder to find things if you can only remember on what part of the page something was located.) .

That's what full-text search is for. Something you can't do at all in a dead-tree book.

Originally Posted by Sregener

The permanence of the book is lost - I wrote some great stuff on my Commodore 64 that I'll never get back.

True, but backups are your friend (and regular conversions to a more modern data format).

Originally Posted by Sregener

We're dependent on the Internet to stay as it is, open and free, so we can continue to access our libraries.

Clouds are good. Local backups are better. Never trust anyone else with the only copy of your data.

Originally Posted by Sregener

And some ereaders track their users' reading, even on sideloaded content, so you're giving up some privacy there.

Don't use the WiFi/3G on your reader if that bothers you. You don't need to, convenient as buying books right on your reader is .

Originally Posted by Sregener

It may be a bargain worth making, but nobody should close their eyes and cover their ears and say that technology only gives but never takes away. Because history has shown again and again that with each new technology that was going to make our lives easier or better or both, something was lost.

Maybe so, but ebooks are superior to pbooks in all ways that matter to me. And your arguments don't convince me that I have 'given up' anything...

[ProfCrash]

My ebooks are with Amazon, on drop box, on my hard drive, and on an external hard drive. I am thinking of getting a memory stick for them as well. I hope that will allow me to happily convert the format to what I need, when I need it, and pass on my ebook collection to my son with few headaches.

The restrictions that are in place are in place if people agree to keep them there. I do not pirate ebooks but I do not trust the powers that be with my ebook collection. There is no reason to not save your ebooks even if you are not going to strip DRM. It is best to have them on hand so that you have choices if something does go wrong.

There are plenty of folks who turn on the wifi once to register, turn it off and sideload all of their books. You can buy books from Amazon and download them to your desktop for sideloading. Easy Peasy.

[Sregener]

Originally Posted by mbovenka

Maybe so, but ebooks are superior to pbooks in all ways that matter to me. And your arguments don't convince me that I have 'given up' anything...

The science on this is all very new. I'm sure when movies came out, nobody saw the end of Vaudeville. When television came out, it was hailed as the greatest educational tool in history. When the Internet came out, nobody predicted that one day privacy would be difficult to maintain on it - after all, on the Internet nobody knows you're a dog.

What we don't know is if reading on an ereader is understood and remembered as well as on paper. We don't know if reading speeds are the same. We don't know if there is long-term impacts on vision. And we don't know if ereaders, by making it easy for everyone to publish, will destroy the traditional publishing model or make it stronger as people decide that the gatekeepers were actually doing a good job.

There's no going back, though. The genie is out of the bottle and now we have to wait and see what the impacts are. It could turn out to be well worth the price. Gutenberg's invention was a pretty good one on the whole. But we still gave up the ability for people to remember word-for-word what they heard (why remember when it can be written down.) And the proliferation of books and reading led to a new era in eyeglass manufacturing as people spent far more time focusing closely, leading to widespread myopia. Technology gives on the one hand, but it takes away on the other, and it is far too soon to say whether the net effect of the ebook revolution will be a positive one.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

What am I giving up? I know what they want the Publishers and Amazon think I am giving up but I have made a choice to not give that up.

You're giving up the ability to resell it, or pass it on to someone else. Of course, if (like me) you never do that anyway, it's no loss.

[ProfCrash]

I rarely passed on books, I share my account with the people I would normally share books with, and I guarentee you my books can be passed on to someone if something should happen to me.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

I rarely passed on books, I share my account with the people I would normally share books with, and I guarentee you my books can be passed on to someone if something should happen to me.

Not legally, unless there's been a recent ruling I'm unaware of which has invalidated the licence terms of ebook stores?

[DiapDealer]

So you're agreeing, then, that there is (at this point) no real evidence to support the idea that a Faustian Bargain has been made? Only vague "we don't yet know what we don't yet know" claims that have gone hand in hand with technological advances since the beginning of time. None of which supports the idea that society would be "better off" without the advances. Ebooks aren't anything special in that regard. Was paper a Faustian Bargain?

[ProfCrash]

I'll let my son worry about if he is breaking the law reading my e-books when I am dead.

[HarryT]

I think we're talking in this thread about what can legally be done with ebooks, not what can technically be done with them. It's certainly true to say that ebooks do impose rights restrictions upon the licensee which don't exist with paper books; the only real question is whether or not those restrictions matter to you personally. To me they don't matter.

[ProfCrash]

The dilemma only exists if the legality matters to you. You are locked in if you allow yourself to be locked in. There is no dilemma for me because I am fine with removing the DRM so that I can read my books on any device or using any application. There is no dilemma.

I don't think that Amazon is going to sue me for breech of contract because I am not pirating the work and I doubt that they know that I have removed the DRM. Is it possible that an author here might see my post and try and find out who I am and sue me? Sure, but I have a sneaking suspicion that they need more then a post or 100 on a message board to get a warrant.

I only use DRMed works on my Kindle and Kindle for IPad app so it would be hard for Amazon to know that I had removed DRM unless they are reading this board. (shrugs)

[HarryT]

I entirely agree that you're vanishingly unlikely to get into legal trouble for removing DRM for personal use. I was thinking more of the "giving your books to someone else" thing. Unless you're doing it by a method sanctioned by the bookstore (eg sharing an Amazon or an ADE account), that's rather more problematic, and might well amount to copyright infringement.