Last night while struggling with a screwed up circadian clock, I came across this article on the tech blog Gizmodo. It got me thinking about what it means to own something. The article talks about a traveler who had his books deleted from his iPad when he traveled to Singapore. It seems that Google Books is not allowed to operate there so the books were removed automatically.
When you buy a book from Amazon or Google, you have purchased a license to access that text. When you buy a physical book from a store, you have purchased a copy of that text and you own that object (usually a codex with the text printed in it). It is much harder to track and remove a book from someone's bookcase than it is to remove it from someone's e-reader, and revoking a license is easier that repossessing a book.
This sparks a very terrifying scenario in my mind. It wasn't that long ago that the Nazi party ran around burning books and Stalin had books re-written to match his ideology. Not to leave out my own country that blacklisted books, authors, and artists to protect against the "communist threat." If a similar totalitarian government were to come to pass in the future, the removal of "objectionable" material would be much easier. In a world where books are controlled by major corporations and can be edited or deleted in real-time, the existence of those books is at the pleasure of those corporations and the governments within which they operate.
Before you calm me a paranoid alarmist, consider the rampant censorship of the internet that happens in China. Google actually took down google.cn and redirected traffic to google.com.hk over the restrictions the government was imposing, but that did not solve the problem as China has blocked Google in different ways for different reasons. Facebook is outright banned there.
I had a few friends over a couple of weeks ago and when one of them saw all the bookshelves covering am entire wall in my bedroom he commented "nice antique collection" and stated proudly that he has gone all digital. In a country that not long ago banned books and blacklisted authors and artists, in a world where you can have your license to a song or a book revoked without realizing to is happening, I am happy to hold on to my hundreds of antiques.
When you buy a book from Amazon or Google, you have purchased a license to access that text. When you buy a physical book from a store, you have purchased a copy of that text and you own that object (usually a codex with the text printed in it). It is much harder to track and remove a book from someone's bookcase than it is to remove it from someone's e-reader, and revoking a license is easier that repossessing a book.
This sparks a very terrifying scenario in my mind. It wasn't that long ago that the Nazi party ran around burning books and Stalin had books re-written to match his ideology. Not to leave out my own country that blacklisted books, authors, and artists to protect against the "communist threat." If a similar totalitarian government were to come to pass in the future, the removal of "objectionable" material would be much easier. In a world where books are controlled by major corporations and can be edited or deleted in real-time, the existence of those books is at the pleasure of those corporations and the governments within which they operate.
Before you calm me a paranoid alarmist, consider the rampant censorship of the internet that happens in China. Google actually took down google.cn and redirected traffic to google.com.hk over the restrictions the government was imposing, but that did not solve the problem as China has blocked Google in different ways for different reasons. Facebook is outright banned there.
I had a few friends over a couple of weeks ago and when one of them saw all the bookshelves covering am entire wall in my bedroom he commented "nice antique collection" and stated proudly that he has gone all digital. In a country that not long ago banned books and blacklisted authors and artists, in a world where you can have your license to a song or a book revoked without realizing to is happening, I am happy to hold on to my hundreds of antiques.
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