How We're All Losing the Right to Read

[AuntShecky]

The question raised in a previous thread: "Who owns literature and reading?" turned out to be about elitism vs. popular literature -- which in itself is a valid discussion topic -- but this thread posted here takes the question literally: "Who owns publishing and reading?"

Someone once said, "Freedom of the Press belongs to the man who owns one," and that may be unfortunately true, given the commercial aspect of publishing, which, let's face it, is a money-making venture like anything else.

But what about our right to read?

You may have heard about a recent incident involving an on-line bookseller who deleted via remote control all of the electronic copies of an old LitNet favorite, George Orwell's 1984, with possible copyright infringement given as the reason for the drastic measure.

As today's article in Slate is careful to point out, most of the present-day censorship cases in the U.S. involve copyright issues, such as J.D. Salinger's litigation against a writer who tried to have published a sequel to Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye.

But, as the article's author mentions, other less "free" cultures censor works for various, non-economic reasons: political, religious, or social, i.e. sexual.

The fear arises, then, that as we move more and more toward a so-called "paperless" society, most if not all of the written word will no longer be in "print" as we know it, but "published" in a downloadable, electronic format.

If that happens in the future, then censorship --for any reason--will be as simple as hitting the "delete" key on a large scale, in which the provider (electronic "publisher") will be able to erase the work from thousands and thousands of devices throughout the world.

In the future there may be no so thing as a "book" as we know it, and the remaining electronic version may have been censored, cleansed, or completely obliterated by some corporation or totalitarian government. This is frightening.

Or is it paranoia? Please read this article:

http://www.slate.com/id/2223214/

and tell me what you think.

[Stargazer86]

It is a frightening idea. It's almost ironic that the book that was completely removed from the internet was 1984 of all things. What was his reasoning behind doing that? Money I'm sure... But literature should be openly available to all.

However, it seems that bookstores and libraries are frequented enough and curling up with a good book is a popular enough pasttime that we are in no danger of losing books any time soon.

Good post, AuntShecky

[Drkshadow03]

I think it works both ways, though. The internet and blogs and such have opened up an independent media and sphere where everyone can be a producer of news, an amateur reporter if you will, where there is a space for far left and far right news airing reports that would never make it on the nightly news in the U.S. mainstream media. You can find amateur literary criticism at a touch of a button. You can find whole communities of politics or interests: anarchists, Fundamentalist Christians, feminists, cooking recipes, book blogs, travel blogs, writing blogs, film blogs, philosophy blogs, Native American cultural blogs, racist blogs, anti-racist blogs, librarian blogs, etc.

So while the internet provides the opportunity for censorship, it also provides a medium where the average person and even the marginalized can share their views with the world, and people can challenge censorship. Think of the protests in Iran. How much footage and information escaped because viral internet mediums that never would've escaped in the old days before the internet, even if the dominating hand of censorship eventually came down. But it allowed for some information to leak out that wouldn't have.

I have a friend though who swears that in a matter of time we will soon being read all our novels on computer screens and paper copies of books won't exist (or at least won't be sold anymore).

[kasie]

Back up anything you think may be lost or damaged. Always back up - let that be a warning to you all. :)

Seriously - do you really think all paper books will disappear? I can't see it happening yet awhile somehow. But if they do, will my collection of well-thumbed paperbacks be worth a small fortune as curios/antiques? Should I tell my grandson to keep them in a safe place - forget the bank account -these are his legacy?

[Paulclem]

We are trying to move towards a paperless classroom in the sector I work in. There are lots of factors that oppose this, so it won't happen as yet, but I thnk it will become more prevalent.

I think Drkshadow is right though - the more companies and Governments try to contain, then the more people will subvert.

[Desolation]

I think that there's some legitimacy to this fear...However, I doubt that we'll see the end of paper books in our lifetimes. Despite the rise of the ipod, there's still a very large market for vinyl...In fact, the vinyl market is seeing a rise as of late, due to it's superior sound quality over CDs. Similarly, although things like the Kindle may be superior for portability, there's something majestic about real books that won't be done away with any time soon.

I also think that most people are generally opposed to staring at a piece of technology like they would a book...I for one can't read things for too long on a computer, as it hurts my eyes. Plus, as technology is on the rise, so are technophobes who would not want to see their bookshelves replaced by a hunk of machinery.

Books are safe for atleast several more decades.

[Lynne50]

I did read about Kindle deleting 1984 and one other book too, I think, but I can't remember the title. I don't know the particulars, but it does seem strange since it's not a new title.
I also read where Google is buying up all the out of print books and that would make for one big monopoly. Does anyone have any more information about Google or the Kindle deleting? That can't be good for business.
I guess if our society goes 'paperless', we'll have to have another government agency to oversee it. Librarians unite!!

[Paulclem]

Ten years ago I would have agreed with you. But the techology is moving fast - screens are easier to read - ie the Sony e-book. And see what the kids do nowadays - stare at screens for an inordinately long time. I too watch one at work, and then come home for a leisure surf.

[semi-fly]

Lynne50: The other book Amazon/Kindle deleted was Animal Farm. They claimed that the books were illegal/pirated copies thus justifying deleting the copies off users devices.

I'm not ready to transition to a digital lifestyle when it comes to reading a book, I'm probably in the minority, there is something about holding the book in your hand instead of reading it off of some screen.

As for print media I can't see it going the way of Dodo just yet, but I would really like certain things in print (i.e. secondary, college textbooks) becoming something more than a cash cow for publishers especially when we (students) use these books for nine months at the most and then try to sell them back at a mere fraction of the original cost.

[Lynne50]

ThanksSemi-Fly for the info. I do own a Kindle and love it for traveling. Also my husband uses it alot for magazines. I'm from the old school, too. I need to turn a page and 'feel' the book in my hand. I haven't read many paperbacks because they don't feel right Except, if there the larger 5x7 size.

[Mathor]

We are trying to move towards a paperless classroom in the sector I work in. There are lots of factors that oppose this, so it won't happen as yet, but I thnk it will become more prevalent.

I think Drkshadow is right though - the more companies and Governments try to contain, then the more people will subvert.

A good half of my classes have no transfer of paper (other than paper I provide for notes). I'm also finding that less and less restaurants and grocery stores in my area are accepting paper checks. We live in a world where digital is cheaper, faster, and longer-lasting than anything paper. I wouldn't say it's ruining the world. I appreciate reading paper books, but when the age comes where some sort of palm reader device is required for your Literature class, I do not think that society will really know the difference. And they'll probably read more texts from places like this site, and others. You could downloads thousands of books with the click of a button. I'm sure people will always read real books, though, the same people that prefer vinyl to CD (and I am one of those, though I couldn't really go anywhere without my iPod either), will want paper books.. In that way, I think that paper books will become more an aesthetic luxury than a necessity.

[Mathor]

I think that there's some legitimacy to this fear...However, I doubt that we'll see the end of paper books in our lifetimes. Despite the rise of the ipod, there's still a very large market for vinyl...In fact, the vinyl market is seeing a rise as of late, due to it's superior sound quality over CDs. Similarly, although things like the Kindle may be superior for portability, there's something majestic about real books that won't be done away with any time soon.

I also think that most people are generally opposed to staring at a piece of technology like they would a book...I for one can't read things for too long on a computer, as it hurts my eyes. Plus, as technology is on the rise, so are technophobes who would not want to see their bookshelves replaced by a hunk of machinery.

Books are safe for atleast several more decades.

vinyls do NOT have a superior sound quality. They are just fun! They have around the same quality, however playing a vinyl is aesthetically better. It is putting music back to it's truest format, of a CD with an A and B side (or C and D, on a longer album or traditional CD, nowadays). Today, we can skip through the songs we want to hear, and listen to only one song off an album, then use our ipod to switch around. This has made the 'album' format kind of obselete, and less and less people listen to entire albums. The vinyl movement consists of mainly people that want to make a point of experiencing an entire vinyl side (about 21 minutes). On a CD the quality is better, and there are no 'hisses' or clicks', but that is part of where the charm is lost. Vinyls sound a bit warmer, and have a little bit of fuzz that changes the feel for the album, and it is that sound that people like myself like in vinyl. If I want the clearest and greatest quality sound, I would play a CD. I believe that paper books will be the same way, but they will not read the paper books because they are BETTER. They will read the paper books because they 'feel' better. It's just nicer to page through a book then read something off of a screen, even if it is clearer and easier digitally.

EDIT: eek, sorry for the double post.

[TheFifthElement]

vinyls do NOT have a superior sound quality.

That's not strictly correct. Vinyl uses analogue recording which captures the entire sound wave, whereas CD's use digital recording which works by sampling, so digital sound doesn't capture the full sound wave. Effectively digital has bits missing, whereas vinyl produces a 'true' representation of the sound. Technically vinyl is the better of the two producing a 'richer' or 'fuller' sound, though it does suffer from crackling/hissing due to either recording quality or contaminants on the disc. You may prefer one over the other but from a technical point of view analogue recording is better.

Putting that into a more bookish context you might say that vinyl gives you the full text whereas digital gives you a text with every 16th word removed. You get the general gist of it but if you want to fully appreciate the text you need to read the unexpurgated book.

MP3 and other forms of compression lose even more sound 'truth' because the digital recording, which is sampled anyway, is further compressed losing even more 'bits' of sound. The more we move down a digital route the less authentic sound recordings become. Most people don't even know what they've lost.

You can read about digital v analogue sound here: http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/question487.htm

Sorry, slightly off topic there :D

[stlukesguild]

...the vinyl market is seeing a rise as of late, due to it's superior sound quality over CDs.

That's just a hallucination. Vinyl junkies continually try to convince us that old LPs sound better than CDs... and while this may have been true of the earliest CDs even that is questionable. But again and again they would have us believe that if we only listened to a LP on a $5000 Rega P9 turntable we'd be convinced. Of course what might a CD sound like on a comparable $5000 disc player (if such a thing actually exists)?

[JBI]

...the vinyl market is seeing a rise as of late, due to it's superior sound quality over CDs.

That's just a hallucination. Vinyl junkies continually try to convince us that old LPs sound better than CDs... and while this may have been true of the earliest CDs even that is questionable. But again and again they would have us believe that if we only listened to a LP on a $5000 Rega P9 turntable we'd be convinced. Of course what might a CD sound like on a comparable $5000 disc player (if such a thing actually exists)?

Not to mention the damage the vinyls take after a few listens - how long do they really last.

Either way, most people are more content to buy a more expensive sound system, and plug their Ipod in, than to bother with the old machines.

[stlukesguild]

That's not strictly correct. Vinyl uses analogue recording which captures the entire sound wave, whereas CD's use digital recording which works by sampling, so digital sound doesn't capture the full sound wave. Effectively digital has bits missing, whereas vinyl produces a 'true' representation of the sound. Technically vinyl is the better of the two producing a 'richer' or 'fuller' sound, though it does suffer from crackling/hissing due to either recording quality or contaminants on the disc. You may prefer one over the other but from a technical point of view analogue recording is better.


That's absolute nonsense. I grew up with vinyl LPs and was a true audiophile investing in expensive turntables, needles, etc... I was anal beyond belief with my albums storing them is anti-static dust-jackets, etc... and there were still the problems with hisses, hums, pops, and scratches. There is no way to avoid this when one considers the technically crude manner in which the turntable converts the analog sound wave etched within the groove on the LP into sound. There was no way whatsoever to avoid the reality that a needle scraping through the groove led to friction which caused wear on the LP and the needle and noise. Certainly the CD uses digital sampling so that the entire sound wave is not reconstructed... just numbers corresponding the the sound vibrations per second. Of course the samples are taken at such a high rate of speed that it is as impossible for the human ear to discern the gaps as it is for the human eye to discern the gaps in a motion picture which was not fluid... but constructed of so many still frames per second (until that was replaced with digital). The very first CDs has an admittedly "brittle" sound in some instances... and in other instances the sound of the LP may sound better due to lazy remastering efforts by record companies in a rush to get recordings out on CD. Of course this problem was an equal plague during the early days of stereo. The Beatles, for example, spent weeks mastering the mono version of recordings for LP and then the record company would create a false stereo by filtering out the high tones on one track and the lows on the second so that the mono LPs sounded better than those in stereo... initially. In no way, however, would I think of going back to the "good old days" of LPs.

[JBI]

That's not strictly correct. Vinyl uses analogue recording which captures the entire sound wave, whereas CD's use digital recording which works by sampling, so digital sound doesn't capture the full sound wave. Effectively digital has bits missing, whereas vinyl produces a 'true' representation of the sound. Technically vinyl is the better of the two producing a 'richer' or 'fuller' sound, though it does suffer from crackling/hissing due to either recording quality or contaminants on the disc. You may prefer one over the other but from a technical point of view analogue recording is better.


That's absolute nonsense. I grew up with vinyl LPs and was a true audiophile investing in expensive turntables, needles, etc... I was anal beyond belief with my albums storing them is anti-static dust-jackets, etc... and there were still the problems with hisses, hums, pops, and scratches. There is no way to avoid this when one considers the technically crude manner in which the turntable converts the analog sound wave etched within the groove on the LP into sound. There was no way whatsoever to avoid the reality that a needle scraping through the groove led to friction which caused wear on the LP and the needle and noise. Certainly the CD uses digital sampling so that the entire sound wave is not reconstructed... just numbers corresponding the the sound vibrations per second. Of course the samples are taken at such a high rate of speed that it is as impossible for the human ear to discern the gaps as it is for the human eye to discern the gaps in a motion picture which was not fluid... but constructed of so many still frames per second (until that was replaced with digital). The very first CDs has an admittedly "brittle" sound in some instances... and in other instances the sound of the LP may sound better due to lazy remastering efforts by record companies in a rush to get recordings out on CD. In no way, however, would I think of going back to the "good old days" of LPs.
Cds are becoming obsolete now too, so I think to be a Vinyl Junkie one needs to really be ancient.

[stlukesguild]

Of course the problem faced by the purely digital has been the slight glitches between tracks that run together (as in some classical music, opera... or even an LP like the Beatles' Abbey Road) when these recordings are compressed for down-load. Then one is also confronted by the fact that the price between down-load and purchasing the CD (if one knows how to price around) is not so great to make it worth while for the more serious music collector when you consider that you get no booklet with information/lyrics/libretto/art-work, etc... you have no hard-copy as a back up. I've stopped purchasing any music downloads for the time being until the record companies deal with the lack of information/lyrics/libretto (which certainly can be done) and the glitches in sound. A recent purchase of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring so infuriated me that I went out and immediately purchased the disc and wrote to the on-line company with my complaints.

[mayneverhave]

I've stopped purchasing any music downloads for the time being until the record companies deal with the lack of information/lyrics/libretto (which certainly can be done) and the glitches in sound. A recent purchase of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring so infuriated me that I went out and immediately purchased the disc and wrote to the on-line company with my complaints.

Purchasing music downloads? :lol:

[stlukesguild]

Well... when your taste runs toward music not necessarily frequented by teenagers you can't always find it for free. Also... I do like my computer virus free.

[Jozanny]

Reading is not a right, but a learned skill, so I think what Aunt is worried about is control of content and access to it, which is older than the hills. The Catholic Church once killed people for copying and translating the Bible, so I am not too worried about those who control the servers turning their users into sheep. Human rights and education have been continually progressive through the latter end of the 20th century.

[Mathor]

Not to mention the damage the vinyls take after a few listens - how long do they really last.

Either way, most people are more content to buy a more expensive sound system, and plug their Ipod in, than to bother with the old machines.

Well vinyls actually last a lot longer than CD's (vinyl wears away, but CD's are fragile, and within 5 years your cd is usually mostly not worth listening to with all the scratches, whereas vinyl can sit in the sleeves for 30 or more years and play nearly perfectly), but the point of this whole thing is that digital media (iPod) does not lose quality over time. And that's the good argument behind digital books.

[mayneverhave]

Well... when your taste runs toward music not necessarily frequented by teenagers you can't always find it for free. Also... I do like my computer virus free.

I've never frequented music, but I guess I understand what you're saying.

It's relatively hard to find a good classical preformance without buying it in stores or ordering it.

[JBI]

Well vinyls actually last a lot longer than CD's (vinyl wears away, but CD's are fragile, and within 5 years your cd is usually mostly not worth listening to with all the scratches, whereas vinyl can sit in the sleeves for 30 or more years and play nearly perfectly), but the point of this whole thing is that digital media (iPod) does not lose quality over time. And that's the good argument behind digital books.

Your Cds - I've had mine since... well, I inherited a nice stack that date back to the early 90s, and they still are scratchless.

[JBI]

Well... when your taste runs toward music not necessarily frequented by teenagers you can't always find it for free. Also... I do like my computer virus free.

That's a lie - you can find all classical music, pretty much, online, if you know where to look. Of course, if you want specific editions it is more challenging, though I often get pretty damn good recordings anyway. And they come with scans of the libretti and covers.

[Desolation]

vinyls do NOT have a superior sound quality. They are just fun!
I've taken enough music and recording classes to know that the better sound quality of vinyl is (largely) a myth. In fact, in my electronic music class in high school our teacher gave us a 3 day lecture explaining why current artists that believe they'll achieve a "purer" sound by recording on analogue instead of digital are idiots. That still doesn't change my point, which is that in recent years the vinyl market has substantially increased because people believe that they're getting better sound quality...And because vinyls are more fun than CDs, of course.

[TheFifthElement]

That's absolute nonsense.
Ah, as ever I am bowled over by the unerringly dignified, courteous and respectful debating manner present at Lit-net.

I respectfully reiterate my link: http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/question487.htm

[AuntShecky]

Reading is not a right, but a learned skill, so I think what Aunt is worried about is control of content and access to it, which is older than the hills. The Catholic Church once killed people for copying and translating the Bible, so I am not too worried about those who control the servers turning their users into sheep. Human rights and education have been continually progressive through the latter end of the 20th century.


Thank you for stating this and getting the thread back on point. (That is not an indictment, however, against the replies about the relative merits of vinyl, CDs, and MP3 players, but I do think that topic should be in a separate thread.)

[Mathor]

post deleted, as it was off-topic, and this thread is not about audio quality.

[LMK]

I started at the beginning of this thread but confess have not read each and every post. I simply wanted to add my two cents worth with regard to, and yes it is important, the distinction between intellectual property (that which is created by someone), publishing rights and the right to read.

To begin with the last, if a thing is written in a language I can understand, and I have access to it, I don't think there is a doubt in anyone's mind (who knows me) that I will read it. Of course if the material were classified and a matter of safety or security were breached by my doing so, I could understand ramifications might be incurred. Otherwise, and now that I think about it even in this situation, if I had access to it then by the fact that school, in this country is compulsory for certain ages AND one of the things taught is reading, we would go back to the argument in Sir Thomas More's, Utopia...albeit I’m paraphrasing out on a limb, "If the government required that I learned to read and reading materials were made available, then how could the reading of such materials be punishable or even deterred?"

Secondly, we might be seeing the last of the “middle men” of publishing houses and recording studios, because until now it has been cost prohibitive to publish on one’s own; music or literature. And while it is still considered somewhat amateurish to self publish I see a time in the near future when it might seem ostentatious or just unnecessary to do otherwise. Yes, I might be older than dirt, but I too at one time took care of my LP’s and one of the things that became advisable (after cassette tapes, recorders and players were widely available), was to play it only one time and make a cassette tape, then play the tape (using the original one could make several generations, not for pirating, but for clarity and preservation). This is not unlike modern technologies crying foul and pretending that this is a new trend. Additionally, how many (my hand is raised) ever recorded to cassette from the radio, without holding the microphone to the radio speaker?

Now, with regard to intellectual property, I do have respect and can fully appreciate that what is created by someone belongs to them; however, there are surely circumstances when a character, such as Cinderella who has been My Fair Lady, Pretty Woman, among others can be useful literary tools. Why not resurrect characters whose author’s have forsaken them? I do not advocate this nor do I think it would encourage readership, and is the precise reason Agatha Christy killed off her biggest sleuths posthumously. Gone with the Wind’s sequel wasn’t too bad, but I had to rewrite parts of it in my head, the thought of Scarlett with a feral child Cat was a bit too much. So, here I sit on the fence, yes the author’s are due their pay for our right to read their material, but after something has been made available in the library, is there really a difference between that and the internet? Really?

My nickel’s...sorry, went over the two cents worth.

~L

[Jozanny]

You are welcome Aunt, though I am not sure how much I would have to add on the basis of what we have debated before. I do, of course, have my own worries about corporate control, and probably resent it because I have earned less each year since I really started playing the publishing for money game since late 99. My personal circumstances in 09 have been horrendous, so I have to chalk up the entire year to a net negative--but Rowling is interesting because she is more franchise than author now, at least in my opinion, but the value of my access to her fiction matters less to me than the value of my access to information. How does one really get at the truth? I think this is an increasingly problematic issue.

[Virgil]

The question raised in a previous thread: "Who owns literature and reading?" turned out to be about elitism vs. popular literature -- which in itself is a valid discussion topic -- but this thread posted here takes the question literally: "Who owns publishing and reading?"

Someone once said, "Freedom of the Press belongs to the man who owns one," and that may be unfortunately true, given the commercial aspect of publishing, which, let's face it, is a money-making venture like anything else.

But what about our right to read?

You may have heard about a recent incident involving an on-line bookseller who deleted via remote control all of the electronic copies of an old LitNet favorite, George Orwell's 1984, with possible copyright infringement given as the reason for the drastic measure.

As today's article in Slate is careful to point out, most of the present-day censorship cases in the U.S. involve copyright issues, such as J.D. Salinger's litigation against a writer who tried to have published a sequel to Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye.

But, as the article's author mentions, other less "free" cultures censor works for various, non-economic reasons: political, religious, or social, i.e. sexual.

The fear arises, then, that as we move more and more toward a so-called "paperless" society, most if not all of the written word will no longer be in "print" as we know it, but "published" in a downloadable, electronic format.

If that happens in the future, then censorship --for any reason--will be as simple as hitting the "delete" key on a large scale, in which the provider (electronic "publisher") will be able to erase the work from thousands and thousands of devices throughout the world.

In the future there may be no so thing as a "book" as we know it, and the remaining electronic version may have been censored, cleansed, or completely obliterated by some corporation or totalitarian government. This is frightening.

Or is it paranoia? Please read this article:

http://www.slate.com/id/2223214/

and tell me what you think.
I have not read through this thread, just this opening post. So forgive me if this has been covered.

First of all, you may have a right to read, but you don't have a right to expect a free book. Someone has to cut the tree down and process the paper and ink and put the book together. That costs money, so you'll have to pay for it.

Frankly Auntie, i find this whole argument on the silly side. Books have never been cheaper, and electronic books are essentially free if they have passed the copywrite criteria. If there is a market for hard copy books, then it will exist. If the overwhelming majority of people want electronic books, then the few that insist on paper copies may be out of luck. Except that you can print an electronic copy off your printer. So, I frankly don't understand why there would be a problem.

[HipHopAvenger]

Here. I must say that to make a book is not very easy and cheap. In these days everything costs many, and that is why money are circulating around the world like flashes of light. I am a graduated bookseller and publisher and therefore I can say that in the nearest ten years e-books do not defeat books from the paper. E-books have a great way before them yet. :)

[Jozanny]

Aunt, I normally pass up on Manjoo when I read Slate, but this is one of his better tech critiques--however, the problem lies as much in the foggy bottom of copyright law and intellectual property. I buy the book, but as a legal matter, I do not own the text, just the book; the publisher owns the text to the extent that it doesn't revert back to the author, until such time as it converts to the public domain.

If Amazon was violating copyright law, even inadvertently, then they were exposed to liability.

My second red flag with this piece is about digital itself. I don't care how many multiple cloud universes Google invents-- I cannot imagine that hard copies and printing technology before Google will vanish entirely, even in my grand nephew's generation.

[Emil Miller]

...the vinyl market is seeing a rise as of late, due to it's superior sound quality over CDs.

That's just a hallucination. Vinyl junkies continually try to convince us that old LPs sound better than CDs... and while this may have been true of the earliest CDs even that is questionable. But again and again they would have us believe that if we only listened to a LP on a $5000 Rega P9 turntable we'd be convinced. Of course what might a CD sound like on a comparable $5000 disc player (if such a thing actually exists)?

The comparison is erroneous because it was always possible to improve the sound quality using analogue by upgrading the equipment, but the most expensive CD player in the world will be no different to the cheapest because the sound is transmitted via a laser beam and one beam is the same as any other. The same applies to modern day quartz watches, the most expensive bejewelled watch will keep no better time than a micky mouse plastic one because quartz resonates at exactly the same speed regardless of the casing.

[TheFifthElement]

My second red flag with this piece is about digital itself. I don't care how many multiple cloud universes Google invents-- I cannot imagine that hard copies and printing technology before Google will vanish entirely, even in my grand nephew's generation.

Jozy, I'm inclined to agree with you though I have no basis on which that judgement is made other than it feels so. I enjoy reading books, I haven't moved to a digital reader and doubt that I will. Will a future generation do so? I don't know, perhaps.

Whether this will adversely or otherwise affect the availability of books is hard to say. There has always been a natural falling off of availability due to lack of readership, only a small proportion of books in a period survive to be read in the next period and the next. Whilst a printed book enables the passing on of knowledge from one generation to another indiscriminantly, books are fragile and eventually become too fragile to be read. But digital technology will also change and there can be no assumption that a book produced on one sort of technology now will be compatible with future technologies, and unless demand prevails those books will disappear too.

So I guess regardless of the medium our access to books and reading is always tenuous. Maybe we just need to appreciate that more?

[Taliesin]

I have not read through this thread, just this opening post. So forgive me if this has been covered.

First of all, you may have a right to read, but you don't have a right to expect a free book. Someone has to cut the tree down and process the paper and ink and put the book together. That costs money, so you'll have to pay for it.

Frankly Auntie, i find this whole argument on the silly side. Books have never been cheaper, and electronic books are essentially free if they have passed the copywrite criteria. If there is a market for hard copy books, then it will exist. If the overwhelming majority of people want electronic books, then the few that insist on paper copies may be out of luck. Except that you can print an electronic copy off your printer. So, I frankly don't understand why there would be a problem.

Virgil, I think the problem noted was that it would be easy to censor and delete electronic books.
However, while I don't know much about Kindle, if a phase comes when most of the books would be electronic, I think that there would be a number of alternatives and probably on some of them the books would be safe and not so easily deletable (or could be made safe, you don't have to get all your software from companies after all).
So I also think that the problem can be avoided.

[Jozanny]

Jozy, I'm inclined to agree with you though I have no basis on which that judgement is made other than it feels so. I enjoy reading books, I haven't moved to a digital reader and doubt that I will. Will a future generation do so? I don't know, perhaps.

Whether this will adversely or otherwise affect the availability of books is hard to say. There has always been a natural falling off of availability due to lack of readership, only a small proportion of books in a period survive to be read in the next period and the next. Whilst a printed book enables the passing on of knowledge from one generation to another indiscriminantly, books are fragile and eventually become too fragile to be read. But digital technology will also change and there can be no assumption that a book produced on one sort of technology now will be compatible with future technologies, and unless demand prevails those books will disappear too.

So I guess regardless of the medium our access to books and reading is always tenuous. Maybe we just need to appreciate that more?

Good point Fifth--but let me add an indirect parable. When I was 28 I had absolutely no concept of a search engine. I thought my Corona electronic word processor was a marvel, and I still use it even though the disk drive died with the purchase of my first computer.

Now I can't write, and my life is badly affected without a pc and online access. How bad or good that is may come down to a matter of perspective, but what I've been through since April, deprived of a life which since 97 has been habitual, hasn't been lost on me.

I wonder if I was better off when it was just my typewriter, me, and whatever research I was willing to visit the library for.