On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 11:55 AM, Jim Devine <[email protected]> wrote: > raghu wrote: >> It is not certain that you will be able to access the ebook that you >> buy today in say, 10 years time. > > why? I can convert my old WordStar files into Winword format.
All kinds of reasons. More generally digital archiving is fraught with all kinds of difficulties, intellectual property regimes being only one of them. http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0164.pdf Specifically for ebooks I can think of the following list of possible problems. 1) Ebook formats are not open - they are encrypted and you need licenses for each device you plan to read it on. Which entity administers these licenses? Will they be in business 10 years from now? 50 years? 2) Format conversions are never completely loss-less. And every time you do a conversion you lose something more. This is perhaps more of an issue for digital art and multi-media but even for books it is relevant. 3) What happens if you can no longer afford to keep buying the latest fancy ebook reader every few years? 4) If you cannot recharge your ebook e.g. if you are in a place without a reliable power supply, then it is useless. 5) More generally you do not really own an ebook you buy the way you own a copy of a regular book. Your ability to access the ebook is always contingent on the ubiquitous availability of an elaborate technological infrastructure. In that sense it is also environmentally a lot more destructive than the dead tree version. 6) You cannot (easily) share or give your copy of an ebook to someone. etc. -raghu. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
