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“The books will stop working.”

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Re: “The books will stop working.”

#131

Post by henryfjordan »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #26
HarryHirsch wrote: post #2

I can still hear my professor of Classics say that "with the introduction of the printing press the loss of books ceased". With all that electronic junk that no one knows how to archive properly that statement needs to be revisited.

> I can still hear my professor of Classics say that "with the introduction of the printing press the loss of books ceased". ...what? Loss of books has pretty much nothing to do with the technology used to produce them. If you stop producing them and lose the existing ones, they're gone. You can lose printing plates just as easily as you can lose a printed book. Actually, losing the plates is much easier -- the point…

I think by "loss of books" he means the extinction of a text. The printing press means more copies of a book can be printed, thus lowering the chance that we lose the text altogether

Re: “The books will stop working.”

#132

Post by peteretep »

ar_lan wrote: post #97

> Remember: Free with DRM is not the same thing as free. I agree with him the whole way that this is weird, but this particular tweet made no sense to me. It seems akin to "Hey, we'll allow you to rent something for some duration for free", and it sounds like he's saying that that situation is also not free .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_libre

Re: “The books will stop working.”

#133

Post by beagle3 »

delecti wrote: post #80
ForHackernews wrote: post #17

Another case of "Stallman was right": https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html

We need someone to be the Carl Sagan for Stallman's philosophy. He's right a lot, but he's also abrasive and doesn't package his arguments in a publicly digestable way.

But Carl Sagan did not have a horde of anti-Sagans from the likes of Microsoft, Amazon etc to ridicule him. Really, this is the crux of the matter.

I have been to several Stallman talks and have had a chance to speak with him privately. He is weird in his manners, to put it lightly, and he is uncompromising in his positions, but he is very clear, very eloquent, very factual, and has a great track record at predicting the future.

You have hundreds of Carl Saganesque people fighting against big tobacco, hardly making a dent. The problem with Stallman is not that he is abrasive, it is that he is outnumbered by people trying to make money.

Re: “The books will stop working.”

#134

Post by marvindanig »

harimau777 wrote: post #122
marvindanig wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, dead tree books aren't a solution. I mean if a tiny library at my home or town burns up, there would be serious loss of a unique collection with that too! IMO, a more robust and resilient solution would be to bring native experience of books on the web. And tie it up with open source and paid model both in two separate states: of a manuscript and that of a book. If a processor of books dies (like in this cas…

Personally I find that I just don't get as much out of digital books. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but the closest I can describe is that it feels like I'm looking through a window at a book rather than actually viewing it directly.

Fair point. I agree that the incumbent digital avatar is more of a file and less of a book, a classic enterprise solution for a consumer category of products.

And yes, experience of relaxed intake with page turns in between does open a portal to another dimension!

Re: “The books will stop working.”

#135

Post by madcow2011 »

carom wrote: post #89
josephorjoe wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Project Gutenberg is really a modern day equivalent and is one of the better things created on the internet.

I prefer Library Genesis.

THANK YOU! I lost the name of the web site and was having trouble Google-ing the right phrase to find it again. Much appreciated.

Re: “The books will stop working.”

#136

Post by docker_up »

satysin wrote: post #88
docker_up wrote: post #13

I have a close friend who published an engineering text book. He worked a couple of years on it and it was well received in his particular field. The book was pirated within months and is freely available on PDF. It's unfair that his hard work is being used globally for free. So yes, having books shut off sucks but so does piracy.

So what you're saying is the mechanism they put in place to prevent your friends book from being pirated failed within months? Yet all those who purchased it legally could one day be left with having their purchase shut off? They might be lucky and get refunds but they still lose access to the book. To me that seems like an utter failure for everyone.

There was no DRM put on the book, it was book-form only. Someone copied it, made a PDF of it, and distributed it for free. His royalties plummeted to almost nothing.

Re: “The books will stop working.”

#137

Post by docker_up »

bunje wrote: post #42
docker_up wrote: post #13

I have a close friend who published an engineering text book. He worked a couple of years on it and it was well received in his particular field. The book was pirated within months and is freely available on PDF. It's unfair that his hard work is being used globally for free. So yes, having books shut off sucks but so does piracy.

I don't understand your comment. So was your friends book not DRM'd or how could people share it illegally?

There was no DRM put on the book, it was book-form only. Someone copied it, made a PDF of it, and distributed it for free. His royalties plummeted to almost nothing.

Re: “The books will stop working.”

#138

Post by docker_up »

na85 wrote: post #43
docker_up wrote: post #13

I have a close friend who published an engineering text book. He worked a couple of years on it and it was well received in his particular field. The book was pirated within months and is freely available on PDF. It's unfair that his hard work is being used globally for free. So yes, having books shut off sucks but so does piracy.

Perhaps he should publish his next book in dead-tree format.

It was in dead-tree format only.

Re: “The books will stop working.”

#140

Post by ekingr »

ar_lan wrote: post #97

> Remember: Free with DRM is not the same thing as free. I agree with him the whole way that this is weird, but this particular tweet made no sense to me. It seems akin to "Hey, we'll allow you to rent something for some duration for free", and it sounds like he's saying that that situation is also not free .

I understand it as two slightly different meanings for the word 'free'.

In French we have separate words for (a) 'free' as something we don't pay for (gratuit) and (b) 'free' as your have the freedom to use it as you wish (libre).

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