Massive wave of ebook piracy?

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by kacir

30 years ago punch-cards and paper punch ribbons were popular.
Imagine a nice 8 inch floppy disk here with a book saved in a format that was popular 30 years ago. I doubt it will even be ASCII text (it might be in EBCDIC, but I do not know what version ;-) ). How do I open it?
Imagine a well preserved 200MB backup tape. Where do I get tape drive that would read 20 years old tapes?

Recently I had to open an old backup for industrial automation system from a 100MB IOmega zip drive. The only reason I was able to open it is that I am a packrat and I anticipated such situation so I salvaged an old zip drive from a trash when my coworkers were moving to a new office. I also have Jazz drive and Superdisk drive. You do not want to know how my coworkers joked about my boxes of "old junk".

You have obviously never tried to open a file older than a few years. 15 years from now you won't be able to open .lit or .mobi file.
Also bear in mind that the majority of e-books ... aehm ... "sold" today, are in fact licensed to you for limited time and limited number of devices. When they switch off DRM server and your old device dies you won't be able to red ... aehm ... "your" books.

At work I sometimes have to work with old data and old computers (industrial automation). Believe me, 15 years from now not a single computer that is used today will be in use. A new fancy e-ink reader has a lifetime of perhaps 5 years. After that you won't be able to purchase batteries, spare parts or support for it. There will be better and not-quite-100%-backward-compatible devices with better parameters for fraction of price.
On the other hand I have collection of paper books from my grandfather.

Back ups have to be kept up to date with current technology. You can't just put them on a shelf and expect them to keep up on their own. Depending on keeping a legacy device on hand to recover legacy back ups is both inefficient and risky; if either fails, you are S.O.L. (Simply Out of Luck). The same goes for keeping only one back up. A bare minimum would be one onsite and one offsite.

Be careful saying not a single computer used now will be working 15 years from now. I have an old Commodore C64c that still works.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

Be careful saying not a single computer used now will be working 15 years from now. I have an old Commodore C64c that still works.

Care and maintenance makes a difference.
I have an Atari 800 myself.
Even the floppy drive still works after 30 years.
First computer I owned.
(Plus, an XEGS, an ST, and an old Rockwell calculator that uses regular AA batteries. My old Bowmar Brain only died when the NiCads stopped holding a charge and I lost the power brick. I've seen Wang calculators still working after 40+ years, too.)
Solid state electronics, by themselves, are quite robust.

I actually have documents from the early 70's: Originally typewritten, then I scanned them onto PC 360Kb floppies. From there they migrated to Atari floppy, PC 1.44Mb floppy, Atari ST, PC 3.5", CD-ROM, DVD, and currently they reside on a 1 TB HDD with my emails, Gutenberg and Black Mask collections, ripped CDs, and what-not.
On the other hand, my tape backups I just threw away after a few years.

Lately I just copy my data directory from one HDD to the next as I migrate. So far, rtf remains fully readable.

I have several fully functional legacy computers lying around; the early stuff was nicely overgineered and still runs fine. At work we had a first-gen HP Laserjet that we had to get rid of simply because it was too big; it never broke and it was still working fine after 20 years. But it looked out of place next to the 21st century gear.

I also have some vintage paperbacks from the 50s I'm going to have to scan before they turn to dust on me. Those old ACE doubles are hard to find these days if they can be found at all.

Barring the great magnetic superstorm or an asteroid impact properly maintained digital should easily outlast any modern paperback. Of course, nothing outlasts engraved/goldplated titanium but my budget doesn't go that far.

[J. Strnad]

Please preserve those Ace doubles any way you can! Man, I loved those things!

[kacir]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

Back ups have to be kept up to date with current technology.

That was the point. You can't rely on being able to open file saved 20 years ago.

The Zip drive I have used wasn't for reading MY backup. It was more or less a means of communication with a very old PC with DOS installed. The "path of least resistance" for loading that PC with a new version of SCADA/HMI screens was connecting a Zip drive. It already had driver installed on disk so I could save very valuable time. You have to finish work while the production line is being repaired.

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

Be careful saying not a single computer used now will be working 15 years from now. I have an old Commodore C64c that still works.

Well, my C64 is still in working order, now that I think about it. I am not so sure about those cassette tapes with pirated games ;-) They were saved in Turbo mode, so I could load 64kilobyte game under 3 minutes, not like losers that didn't have Turbo and had to spend 15 minutes loading game. Oh, those sweet memories. Even that nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

I was never able to to save enough money to purchase disk drive for my C64. But even 20 years ago it was difficult to get floppy disk that would work in that one-sided 170KB disk drive. Those new-fangled SD and HD 5¼" disks (600 and 1200 KB) didn't work in 1541

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by kacir

That was the point. You can't rely on being able to open file saved 20 years ago.

The Zip drive I have used wasn't for reading MY backup. It was more or less a means of communication with a very old PC with DOS installed. The "path of least resistance" for loading that PC with a new version of SCADA/HMI screens was connecting a Zip drive. It already had driver installed on disk so I could save very valuable time. You have to finish work while the production line is being repaired.

Well, my C64 is still in working order, now that I think about it. I am not so sure about those cassette tapes with pirated games ;-) They were saved in Turbo mode, so I could load 64kilobyte game under 3 minutes, not like losers that didn't have Turbo and had to spend 15 minutes loading game. Oh, those sweet memories. Even that nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

I was never able to to save enough money to purchase disk drive for my C64. But even 20 years ago it was difficult to get floppy disk that would work in that one-sided 170KB disk drive. Those new-fangled SD and HD 5¼" disks (600 and 1200 KB) didn't work in 1541

I started out with the 1541 but when the 3.5" 1581s came out, I glommed onto a pair of them. I used one for my programs and the other for data. It was almost like having a hard drive after the 1541. I had to keep the 1541 because disk magazines and new software still used the 8 1/4" disks. Moving all that to the 3.5" drives was...ah...challenging at times due to early "DRM." I decided to let most of the data I had on the 3.5" disks go since it was no longer relevant to me (the few documents that were, I printed and scanned for the current generations of computers).

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by ficbot

What they need to do is either decide they are selling a single-use rental and price it accordingly, or continue selling ebooks as a sale but bring the prices more in line with what readers are willing to pay. If I am paying full hardback price, I expect to keep my privileges. But if I only had to pay $3-4 and the book expired after 30 days, I would be fine with that.

If the book expired in 30 days, or even after six months, I'd expect to be paying only $0.50 or less.

I've read 139 books so far this year. My average book cost has been $3.28.

I'm very reluctant to pay more than $6 for an ebook. My most expensive reads this year have been two by Alexander McCall smith and one by Steig Larsson, each of which cost $8.50.

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by kacir

That was the point. You can't rely on being able to open file saved 20 years ago.

You are, of course, right... if the file was left on permanent medium, buried in time capsule and said time capsule is opened 20 years later.

In reality, the changes of the backup medium, and format conversions, are handled at the time when the move to the new technology/format is made.

I still have some data that made transition from being stored on VAX/VMS tapes, to PC 5.25" diskettes, then to 3 1/2" floppies, then to CD, then to DVD's, then ended up on my (redundant) hard disks that serve as backup media today. More recently, I have converted all .lit books to ePub, and I expect to be able to read those books 20 years from now, should I live to see that day.

[ManosHandsOfFate]

I'm a slowly reforming scofflaw.

I was at a friend's house this weekend looking at his books. I saw a book I've been meaning to read for a long time. I thought about asking to borrow the book. Then I thought "Why not save us both the trouble and I'll just find the torrent. He can keep it safely on his shelf while I still 'borrow' it. I'll delete it when I'm done."

Sounds reasonable, n'est pas?

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by ManosHandsOfFate

I'm a slowly reforming scofflaw.

I was at a friend's house this weekend looking at his books. I saw a book I've been meaning to read for a long time. I thought about asking to borrow the book. Then I thought "Why not save us both the trouble and I'll just find the torrent. He can keep it safely on his shelf while I still 'borrow' it. I'll delete it when I'm done."

Sounds reasonable, n'est pas?

Here we go with the rationalizations again. We've had this argument already.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by Ankh

...In reality, the changes of the backup medium, and format conversions, are handled at the time when the move to the new technology/format is made...

You would think people would be bright enough to do so but in the real reality, there are many who do not. When 3.5" floppies were no longer included in new computers, many people complained they could no longer read files they had stored on those disks. Surprisingly, corporations are the worst offenders merely because upgrading stored media is expensive.

[vaughnmr]

Deleted. I'd better not comment on this one...

[ManosHandsOfFate]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

Here we go with the rationalizations again. We've had this argument already.

I know, I know. We could point to a dozen or so interesting and long threads in which this is discussed. And you'll be in every one of those threads tossing around the R word like it's going out of style.

However, in keeping with the topic of the original posting my point was more along the lines of "This is the way people think. Publishers had better come to grips with it."

[vaughnmr]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

Here we go with the rationalizations again. We've had this argument already.

Ok, I'm going to bite... It's ok to borrow the book, but not ok to torrent the ebook as a substitute? I'm having a real hard time getting my mind around this one... This is one case where he had the physical media, and was going to "fair use" the torrent? Why not?

[kennyc]

Cause it is illegal.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Cause it is illegal.

Legality isn't really something many people care about. It is what is easiest for them that counts.