Are eBooks Moving to the Clouds (and Will Google Dominate)?

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by Mikewolf

First - Not sure why DawnFalcon resorts to insults. I'd like to see your well-designed blog before you start hurling those around. Please include a link in your response.

On the your more relevant comment - the cloud movement isn't being pushed due to some dark conspiracy to take away your rights. Cloud computing is, quite simply, a large-scale shift of computing away from desktop and single-server centric to abstracting the compute towards multiple, virtualized instances that is an order of magnitude more efficient than the way computing has worked in the past.

From a consumer standpoint, pervasive broadband has allowed more content to be stored in the cloud, and the move to HTML5 enables offline caching so you aren't cut off from your content when, if by chance, you're cut off to your broadband. Read up on HTML5 (better yet - if you used Google Gears, which is being replaced by HTML5 by Google for their offline caching), and you'll see you aren't "required to be online to read".

Again, much better deal, something most consumers would agree with.

Dark conspiracy theories aside, pushing content into the cloud the future, might as well embrace it.

Dark conspiracy theories tend to be a wee bit exaggerated. My problem with most cloud applications is I'm not always where I'll have access to the internet or the access will not be cost effective for me (yeah, I'm cheap).

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

Mike;

I don't know if you're a paid shill or not...right there.

One thing I've noticed about these forums is whenever someone presents an argument someone else doesn't like, accusations of being a "paid shill" or "astroturfer" suddenly start flying around. Curious.

Post edit: Add "spam" and "parrot" to the list. Really creative.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

...Your blog's been reported as spam...

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

One thing I've noticed about these forums is whenever someone presents an argument someone else doesn't like, accusations of being a "paid shill" or "astroturfer" suddenly start flying around. Curious.

Yea, very curious. It's amazing how many of them don't bother changing the wording from the RIAA/MPAA/associated astroturfing documents, really.

Do you think people don't CHECK?

Your defence of it is noted, mind you.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

Except you can make ePub's of less popular books. And it's less accessible, internet connection required DRM in other areas of media has failed miserably in the marketplace. You're talking about the reasons ePub are better, so far.


Lady Fitzgerald - "Ripping a CD you own so you can use your media on a different device isn't the same as piracy. Piracy is taking something that the owner will never be paid for; in other words, stealing."

Under UK law, again, it IS identical. Millions of people in the UK steal every day under your definition of the term. We need more jails! (Oh hey, an American wanting to criminalise everyone - what a surprise!)

I get it perfectly - theft is a specific crime. Unauthorised copying does not meet the definition. That's there there is to it, you're simply lying every time you make your claim. You wouldn't be arrested for theft (arrested perhaps, but for other crimes) for riding on a bus without paying, in the same way there is a specific crime - TWoC - for temporarily taking a car, because it doesn't meet the definition of theft.

"(and someone always is, whether you have the brains to realize it or not)"

Really? So someone who wouldn't of purchased the content is hurting someone? Get real. This is a civil issue, and profit is what is important. I say that as a creator - your attitude is damaging to IP, you're driving the agenda of the private copy exemption zealots with your own raving fanaticism.

And you yourself admit, you're not even being paid to act as a parrot...

First, I was referring to the US where media change is legal. Second, if you disagree without resorting to childish insults, please stay on your side of the pond; we don't need you here.

[DawnFalcon]

First, and? I was discussing UK law.
Second, the childish insults are yours, along with the xenophobia it appears.
Third, more sarcasm secret sauce plzkthx

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

First, and? I was discussing UK law.
Second, the childish insults are yours, along with the xenophobia it appears.
Third, more sarcasm secret sauce plzkthx

You are the one slinging out the insults. Xenophobia doesn't apply here because I'm referring to your hateful, childish personality. I couldn't care less where you are from, I just don't want you here.

[DawnFalcon]

Add paranoia, water, and mix.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

Add paranoia, water, and mix.

[GeoffC]

Is it not possible to take a deep breath and discuss things calmly ?

[Fbone]

DawnFalcon appears to have been banned.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

Quite apart from it being a new account punting for another sub-standard, badly designed blog, this nonsense is getting old. The "cloud" movement being pushed to take away even our current minimal rights by a certain sub-section of the corporatist movement is foundering, and rightly, on users wanting at least some degree of control over their purchases.

It's just the latest buzz-word nonsense that gets attention from bloggers looking for site traffic. Next up... cloud 2.0! Now with "silver lining (tm)" technology.

[m-reader]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

It's just the latest buzz-word nonsense that gets attention from bloggers looking for site traffic. Next up... cloud 2.0! Now with "silver lining (tm)" technology.

Sure is. It's been all the rage these last few moons. I'm in the IT - I mean big Enterprise wide, mission critical systems and stuff. IBM's and such have been waving the Cloud flag and selling concepts like nobody's business.
It's funny though how the whole concept fails when you start asking the hard-hitting questions such as: Who controls my data? Who's responsible for outages? Who do I fire when things go wrong? Security? You are willing to sign the dotted line guaranteeing security? (Ah, didn't think so!)
Interestingly, most of these concerns are applicable to e-books or your music being stored in a "cloud". It's an ok concept, the same way online backups are. However, I still like to have a choice of keeping my own data on my own 5.25" floppy disk if that's what I fancied.