Ebooks: The Economist ain't fooled

[andygates]

"[Booksellers] wish you to engage in two separate hallucinations. First, that their limited licence to read a work on a device or within software of their choosing is equivalent to the purchase of a physical item. Second, that the vast majority of e-books are persistent objects rather than disposable culture."

The point is not that this attempt at reality-engineering is harming ebooks, so much as that it is being blithely and routinely ignored. 

The article goes on to miss its footing in discussing potential for ebook resale or lending, which fails to see that readers will fill with once-read trash and forgotten tomes just as your iTunes folder has that Shania Twain album and the Sibelius thing you got because of that movie.  Storage is cheap tending to free (for ebooks, especially so, as ebooks are tiny little files: a regular novel is under a meg - that would fit on a floppy disk). 

There is no market for selling the clutter off your virtual bookshelves, because you have the TARDIS's library.  It only runs out of space if you move the swimming pool into it.

Comments

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

that Sibelius thing you got once because of that movie

Have you been poking round my media libraries?

When I was tangling with Smashwords, I noticed they had a suggested disclaimer which goes This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

To which I thought, you bought the damn thing, you can lend it, sell it second-hand or give it to your Gran for Christmas as far as I'm concerned. But maybe that's just me seeing ebooks as little digital paperbacks rather than being open to new etiquettes that come with new media. :p

[andygates.livejournal.com]

You've never read the licence pages in paperbacks? The old American ones were especially hilarious, back before First Sale doctrine got nailed in place. But, yeah, way to bark at people like an angry dawg.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

I remember various 'if you purchase this book without a cover, you are probably SUPPORTING CRIMINALS' disclaimers in the front of old Misty Lackeys, now you come to mention it. Though I think I mostly remembered those because for some reason the covers of those paperbacks came unglued like there was no tomorrow. The spine generally held integrity, but it was like the cover never got bent into shape properly and wanted to spring flat again as soon as possible.

[kimble.livejournal.com]

There is no market for selling the clutter off your virtual bookshelves, because you have the TARDIS's library. It only runs out of space if you move the swimming pool into it.

I finally got round to watching the latest series earlier this evening, just in time to get this reference.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Good, isn't he?