(This blog post has been edited from its original published version by the author)
It's hard not to love Amazon's e-book reader, the Kindle; it's light, thin, and disappears in your hands. Load up a good book and you'll soon forget you're reading plastic rather than paper. You'll also wonder how you ever did without it. The Kindle makes buying, storing, and organizing your favorite books and magazines effortless. You can take your entire library with you wherever you go and switch from reading the latest New Yorker to the latest best-seller without rolling out of bed.
This is how Farhad Manjoo defined the Amazon Kindle in a
Feb. 26, 2009 article on slate.com.
I have contemplated purchasing an e-reader, and have leaned toward the Kindle in particular, partially because of definitions such as Manjoo's. However, recent research has led me to rethink purchasing a Kindle based on restrictions the e-reader puts on book owners, and the publishing world in general.
A March 22nd article by Manjoo on slate.com explained that e-readers don't allow you to share your books as you would have done when owning printed copies. The article also touched on how books purchased for an Amazon Kindle can not be resold or read on other e-readers, a luxury that printed books allow. Although companies such as Lendle, BookLending.com, and ebookfling are trying to compromise this by allowing users to borrow books for up to 14 days, these sites are being challenged by Amazon.
Basically we do not truly own the ebooks we purchase as we would own paperback novels or hardcovers. In fact, Amazon has the power to go in and remotely delete titles from a user's e-reader device. A July 20, 2009 article from slate.com, also by Manjoo, explained more about the 2009 incident where certain e-book titles were wiped from user devices. And although refunds were given for the wiped files, it just seems a bit worrisome to know that Amazon can basically monitor their customer's literature even after the initial purchase of the ebooks. The article said that:
In June (of 2009), fans of Ayn Rand suffered the same fate—Amazon removed Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, and The Virtue of Selfishness, with an explanation that it had "recently discovered a problem" with the titles. And some customers have complained of the same experience with Harry Potter books. Amazon says the Kindle versions of all these books were illegal.
Amazon did promise to no longer delete customer's books...but I would still be a little wary because although they promised to never do it again...they still have the technical capabilities to delete user's books. Because of this capability and the always unstable nature of electronics I would say that today individuals who are moving their libraries to the digital age are at risk, at risk for loosing something usually taken for granted...the full ownership of our books, and not just books but music and video collections as well. A person can't even borrow out a book today, unless it's in hard copy format, without worrying about getting in trouble or loosing their book 'file'.
Many, like myself have seen the kindle and other e-readers as the future for books and the publishing world, but could they really be the beginning of digital book banning and media banning future run by large corporations? And what will happen when the e-book world starts to be run by only a few corporations? Or perhaps is all this really trying to help out the publishing world by raising the market through restrictions so that more people have to buy a book rather than just sharing them? So many questions, so few answers...
Throughout all of your posts you have used several links. Not only has there been a large number, they also contain relevant and credible information. The way you cite them is exactly how we have been taught as well. You do have a number of videos, but to me, the more the better. The i-pyramid style is something that I have had a hard time grasping myself. I think that you have done a decent job of it, but you could focus even more on putting the most important facts in the first paragraph.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting aspect of e-readers that I hadn't considered, being remotely monitored by Amazon. I would love to know more about how Amazon's deleting of content or even their ability to see what we all have is interpreted in views of censorship. Sometimes it seems like your posts are a little long, but this might just be layout. I didn't find it in this post, but in previous ones you would occasionally have a bunch of paragraphs that weren't broken up by a supporting picture or video, that gave the illusion of excessive length. I know the vision of just words on a screen seems intimidating for most readers, I don't one them leave your blog without reading it, just becuase of what it looks like. you do have a lot of great things to say!
ReplyDeleteYour links are good, but I'd be careful about their length. For example, your first link on the post (to Amazon's Kindle listing) should be more than just one word.
ReplyDeleteHowever, a few of your links are too long, or too close. Your "A July 20, 2009 article from slate.com, also by Manjoo," link could have just had the up to "article" linked, and more than "Manjoo" should have been linked for the second link. Also, make sure to space out your links - I thought that first one was just one link, not two.
The length of the post was good - just right, and covering the topic well. Good Job!