Quote:
Originally Posted by BionicGecko
One point not mentioned here though is the fact that those purchases are not transferrable to your progeny after death. As far as I know, typical DRM laws allow a person to remove DRM for their own usage only; descendants reading e-books de-DRMed by their parents are effectively committing piracy.
Physical books (or compact discs or DVDs) remain in the family. As we are moving towards a completely digital media landscape, we are depriving our children not only from potentially worthy assets, but also from the sheer pleasure of re-discovering works which, at least, entertained their parents, but also possibly had a major impact on shaping their identities. This is a pretty hefty price to pay for adjustable font sizes and the like.
|
I think the reality is that nearly all of those books accumulated by parents in their lifetimes end up in the dumpster at death, and those are the few that survived moves and general pruning over time. In short, this is a sentimental take on physical books that doesn't reflect the reality. Books are heavy, bulky and deteriorate and as anyone's who's tried knows, no place wants them when you want to get rid of them. And seriously, what percentage of anyone's library consists of absolute gems compared to the dross of everyday reading?
It's like baseball cards; they're only valuable because Mom threw most of them out when the kid went off to college.