[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by Bob Russell

Sorry, didn't mean to go on and on. But it's a big big topic, and I think we're only getting started on all of the discussion. In fact, if Sony succeeds at moving e-books into the mainstream public, the discussion should really explode. Lots of fun in store!

You're pretty well excused Bob, and welcomed, the pertinence of your comment is always judicious.

By the way it was fun to read John again. I have not done so since the "Mac User" days when he was my favorite Apple iconoclast.

Now back to the thread. I'd like with this little analogy about today's image of Sony. If Sony were a car manufacturer, It would have bought up a quarter of the country's highways and made them "pay to use". Then the vehicles It makes would only be usable on It's roads, nowhere else, and these would consume only It's proprietary fuel. Now, how can that be realistic in the world we are accustomed to live in? I wonder if there is someone in the company who has ever compiled a calculation of what ifs, like; what if we had made all our products with a universal standard in mind? What if we had made our products open? What if we had helped to simplify all our clients lives? How much more profit and how much more satisfaction would we have gained?

Luckily they have made a little exception to their way of doing things, by the way the reader will be implemented. They allowed us SD, PDF, RTF, and TXT. That is a big concession to our way of life. This is the main reason why I'll buy this reader instead of not buying it. I wonder if they'll keep this or if they'll impose limits . I surely will not buy books there.

DRM is a disguised way to transform the longest lasting knowledge repository, mainly the book, into a refuse of this throwaway culture's way. This is a great ploy, that has started with music, movies and every art form I can remember of, to transform what we use and care for dearly, and to adapt everything to a manageable unidirectional profit sheme. In my mind the book was the last place strong enough to resist this expendable trash culture. Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that using a book is more practical in an e-form, but a physical state is important to preserve It. I would rather have a book in both It's forms.

Let's go back to the begininngs of digital photography, it was so practical to delete the badly composed or out of focus pictures, to keep just what we liked. Of all the pictures we took, just a few remained, stashed on a disquette somewhere, unprinted. How long will that diquette last? Those we did print have faded away and were thrown to the dumpster with the rest of our culture. More of them were destroyed with an unbacked up failing hard disk, or were so low res. that we couln't stand them and erased them. If we had used an ordinary film camera, these pictures would be in a box somewhere, in perfect condition. A historian in my surroundings told me that the most important pictures they use to reconstruct part of a point in time, are the bad ones that were "missed" and discarded. When all pictures were printed, the best ones were kept, put in scrapbooks and used at family gatherings and whatever happenings, and with time degraded by wear and tear until they were faded and thrown out. Those that were not in favor were stashed in a box or a drawer, and after generations of being handed down with inheritances, survived in very good condition. I know this, because many pictures I took have disappeared. I forcibly learned to have everything printed by experts with no exceptions.

It is important to remember the nature of e-data. It is a temporary state of code and must not remain so. Every attempt to maintain data in an other format than It's document of origin, will be made to fail, for profit, by corporate entities.[I] Print your data. Pictures, text, everything.

What we do now with the written word, the way we use it with internet, will not survive. That does not scare me because it is an intended parallel world, which we know is expendable, although I wish it was'nt. But if this ephemerical state propagates to the printed book, I'm afraid that a great part of the details of our present history will not remain. DRM is a great factor in this deterioration because it does not permit the longevity of a book beyond the central storage in a caretaker's mainframes. By rendering the use of cultural media a disposable produce, Sony is one of many entities responsible that might not be remembered for the disappearance of the Book in our culture. I do not blame Sony for this. I blame us. We have decided for ourselves that this will be the way of things. Our kids have been thrown into this. It's a shame that in a few generations the perception of physical media existence will be irrelevant.

What I believe will affect Sony's image the most is the fact that it has too many interests that are in conflict. A good hardware maker should never be involved in content. Period. This is a Godly act, unforgiveable in any culture. Why? The ownership of both markets creates a finite universe, unexpansible, trapping a user. Unless this bubble is big enough, no one can be comfortable enough to remain there. And if the powers that be decide to limit the life of this bubble, all those entrapped will react negatively with urgency. This is the reason and explains why Apple is successful with the Ipod / Itunes combo. They do not own any content and they use a universal music format like MP3. So users can decide what they listen to and buy wherever. Sony has finally learned, but can they resist the temptation to play God again like they did with movies?
Following John's words I'll add that Sony looks half on the right track with this reader!

I'll finish with these questions. The reader will be sold only in the US. Why? Will it not be sold in Japan? Where is it made? What is the main thought behind this unconventional approach?