[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

In 20 years we may be ABSORBING books from brain devices and reading with our eyes may be totally unnecessary. Our eBooks and stored collections of today may be like the Commodore PC and /or the TRS 80 of 1978- and all their related files and software.

If books of the future were beamed into our brains, then that gives all the more reason to preserve existing books in text format. The ability to beam books into our brains does not mean that we are REQUIRED to beam books into our brains. We can still read text if we wish. And even if we do opt to have books beamed into our brains, we could simply beam into our brains the books that we have backed up. Text is text.

Those programs for the Commodore or the TRS-80 are still available. People still run them in emulators. They can still be run only because people backed them up.

Our large collections of DRM stripped eBooks will be like papyrus books - so much dust without any value.

Actually, ancient books written on papyrus would be highly valuable, they would sell for quite a lot of money on the antiquities market. And people still read works that were written on those papyri. Should Gilgamesh not have been preserved because clay tablets are not obsolete? That the format becomes obsolete is a strong reason to create backups that will be usable in a new format. Earlier, you mentioned a copy of the Bible you own: you only have it because it has been copied and preserved for thousands of years. If being a backup makes it worthless, then burn it. I'm not saying that you should, because I am not saying it is worthless. But if it isn't worthless for being a backup, what makes other books worthless. That you find one worthless and the other valuable doesn't matter, what is valuable to you doesn't determine what is valuable to others.

The other reason NOT to collect eBook files is that in 40 years most of us here today will be DEAD.

How is that a reason?

I still remember folks in 1930 collecting 78 RPM's for the miracle of that year: the RCA VICTROLA. All those 78 RPM's and the Victrolas are DUST today and ALL the collectors I knew then are all gone and forgotten. Today I stream my music from a PC to a radio in another room. In 1930 no one would have believed that would ever be possible. Even Sci-Fi books then did not IMAGINE it.

The Victrola was not the miracle of that year. Far from it. The last Victrola was made in 1929. Recording on a disc was not new technology then. There are still people who collect 78 records and who collect Victrolas: they are NOT all dust. People can and do still listen to 78's. Or they can take their 78's and back them up onto MP3. Then they can stream them from their PC all they want.

I don't know whether or not science fiction writers in 1930 could imagine music on demand similar to streaming. I imagine someone could find a story featuring similar technology. But neither the existence of such technology nor the alleged failure to imagine this technology doesn't in any way invalidate making backups. We can still listen to backups on MP3 of recordings that were previously recorded on 78, but only if they were backed up. We can read the the Iliad, Sophocles, Plato or the Bible only because people backed them up.

There exists no complete recording of the first Super Bowl, it wasn't preserved. There are episodes of Doctor Who that only exist because people made private recordings. You might consider these to be unimportant. But just because it is unimportant to you doesn't mean it isn't important to others.