An Acerbic Look At the Future of Reading

theodp writes "Using Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' own words against him, Mark Pilgrim offers his chilling take on The Future of Reading with a mash-up of Bezos' Open Letter to the Authors Guild, the Amazon Kindle Terms of Service, Steven Levy's Newsweek article on the Kindle, 1984, and Richard Stallman's 'The Right to Read.'"

Support CC authors and related publishers.

[palegray.net]

Support authors who publish their content using Creative Commons [creativecommons.org] style licenses. What little writing I do is published using CC licenses, Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] is moving to CC, and I never would have even heard of Cory Doctorow [craphound.com] years ago (still one of my favorites) if not for CC.

I'm considering licensing the majority of the content on my educational resources site under a CC license. Seriously, support these kinds of effort at (1) making high-quality published works accessible to a broader audience, and (2) supporting authors who are willing to try new business models to earn a living.

Re:What the constitution actually says

[fyngyrz]

There's no irony in it at all. You see that "limited time" clause? That's what is changing to the public's detriment. I would know - I own a literary agency.

What I said was "emphasis on copyright benefiting the business interests any any expense to the citizen's interests is the exact same change in emphasis" which is not the same thing as blaming copyright for problems. I don't think copyright, per se, is a bad thing at all. What I think is specifically a bad thing are the changes in copyright law that provide rights far beyond the period where most material will be germane to the culture that has evolved since the material was produced. If the material is no longer germane, it is, by definition, no longer promoting the "useful arts."

Re:Heh

[timster]

The reviews linked on Amazon are "all pretty positive". Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal says it sucks.

http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20071129/amazons-kindle-makes-buying-e-books-easy-reading-them-hard/ [allthingsd.com]

Re:Fair compensation in a digital world

[GryMor]

Perhaps we could start with trusting and respecting people? Thankfully, Baen [baen.com] has seen fit to try this revolutionary practice of trust. A few other publishers are dipping their toes in the water, as you can see on WebScription [webscription.net], and with luck, this practice will spread to the rest of the industry.

Re:WTF? That's incredibly stupid!

[Bastard of Subhumani]

O'Reilly used to do something like that. Safari, I think it was called. No idea if it's still going.

The Kindle

[suitti]

As far as i know, the Kindle can be used to read non-DRM books, just as an iPod can play non-DRM mp3's. One can, for example, format Gutenberg books for free, load them onto a Kindle, and read them. There are also DRM works available, but not, for example, Harry Potter. I can't think of another book i'd read under DRM.

So for me, the Kindle should be judged as an electronic reader. Like the Sony, it has a large format, high res, gray scale screen (no color). There's a pause displaying a new screen, but once there, power drain is minimal to keep it there. The batteries last a long time. Books can be text, PDF or web pages. It does WiFi and USB. It can play audio, but at the expense of consuming the batteries. You don't have to play audio. It can display images, but, they are gray scale.

On the down side, it doesn't scroll well (there's that pause). It's larger than a shirt pocket. I prefer the Palm form factor. Portability is important. The Kindle is something like $400, which i consider outrageous.

My old Handspring Visor Platinum has an LCD screen, works well in direct sunlight, ambient room light, and darkness (with backlight), runs more than 20 hours on 2 AAA batteries (10 with backlight), spares can be carried for more endurance, does USB, turns pages quickly, has two font sizes to optimize readability with it's small screen, fits in a shirt pocket, was $110 new (closeout), and can run other apps, like a calendar, memopad, planetarium, and games. There are DRM readers available. I happen to like weasel better. 8 MB RAM/file store allows apps and at least a couple Bible sized books on line. On the downside, it doesn't display images, and it is no longer available. For long battery life in black and white, LCDs rock.

I'm now using a Nokia 770. It fits in a shirt pocket, has stunning color but it is weakest in direct sunlight, does PDF, and web, the text reader: FBReader offers fonts, sizes, and colors, runs 5 hours on a charge, a spare battery can be purchased, was $150 new (closeout), can run other apps including a Palm emulator, does WiFi, Bluetooth and USB. It runs Linux. It comes with a 64 MB flash card, for huge libraries online. A 2 GB flash card allows audio and video, or this stuff can be streamed over WiFi.

Re:Reading free books on these things?

[automag]

Not true. You can load as much content as you want onto the Kindle for free via a USB cable. The only time you pay to get your own content on your Kindle is if you have Amazon download it to your Kindle wirelessly. For that, they charge 10 cents per download. Currently .pdf support is a bit sketchy (it doesn't format complicated .pdf files especially well), but the folks at Amazon are working on changing that. It does support .doc, .txt files, or whatever... Which look just fine on mine when I load them.

Re:WTF? That's incredibly stupid!

[not-admin]

I live in a small suburb (25,000 people or so), and I have to disagree with everything you said.

My local library has received a lot of funding and local attention recently. A recent grant from the state has allowed them to tear down our old, worn-out library and build a new facility to allow an expansion of the library's collection. Before the renovation, there was an overflow and books had to be stored in boxes in the back as new ones (and I mean new as in recent best sellers) were cycled in.

As of now, there is sufficient space for many more books, and the staff there are working hard to fill it as fast as possible. I personally volunteered there last summer, the first one in the new library, and the librarians there are very interested in catering to the patrons, conducting regular surveys to determine which types of books they are lacking and trying to focus on those areas. There is a "New Materials" section in the front that is continuously cycled as new books come in and old ones go to their places, and it's not surprising to see a book released within the past month sitting on the shelf. These books can only be taken out for a week, in order to allow the greatest number of patrons to enjoy them.

Also, and this is probably the most important part, every single one of them is available to people in other towns nearby through an interlibrary loan system, run by the local library consortium (the Merrimack Valley Library Consortium). Most books can be shipped to another library within two or three days, sometimes only one. With this system a patron at the library has access to an expansive selection of books in their hometown. Remember, this is only a group of smaller libraries - imagine the resources available to a city such as Boston or New York.

In addition, the books on "obscure subjects" may be useful to some people, if not yourself - imagine how useful it would be to have a book available when you're trying to do some research on the Cold War, for example. Maybe a more indigenous perspective could be useful?

As for the timing issue, my local library is open from 8:00 in the morning to 9:00 at night - pretty reasonable for most people in this area. If you have a different situation, there's really not much I can do to help you. Maybe you should see if your library card gives you access to any of the libraries on your drive home, as mine does.

Re:WTF? That's incredibly stupid!

[Sax Maniac]

I have three kids and know what you're going through, but really, the Internet and interlibrary loan has fixed libraries. You don't actually go to the library to find books, you just pick them up there. I don't think I've borrowed a single book that actually lived at my local library since I was a kid. For me, it goes like this:

1. Decide what to read (maybe based on good /. recommendations).
2. Log onto library's website, and find the book on the interlibrary loan network.
3. Request it, and have it dropped off any place convenient. I can pick from 100 or so town libraries, chances are about 100% I or my wife will be near one at some point in the future.
4. Pick it up whenever I happen pass it.
5. Keep it as long as I want because fines are forgiven on Fridays.

That's it. Zero extra time, it merely is a stop on the way to somewhere else.