I just read an article about the plummeting price of ebooks. Why is this price change occurring? Is it strictly economical? Does the price difference account for the change in price due to printing fees?
Top books at low prices
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Category Archives: Course Stuff
Social Norms
In my sociology class we are reading a book called “Taken for Grantedness” about the embedding of the mobile phone unto society. It is interesting to think about how it became socially acceptable to be texting someone while amongst other people. In the same way it is now acceptable for students to have ebooks in class. These ebooks enable students however to do much more than read. I wonder if this has negative effects on learning.
Blogging Prompt – Ebooks and funny twitter accounts
It seems that ebooks keep popping up in one way or another in this course. One question I’ve had, that many other people probably have as well, is whether or not this form of technology will ever end up fully overtaking physical books. It certainly seems that the ebook industry is rapidly growing, especially with the exponential growth in tablet device sales that we have seen in the past few years. However, one could also argue that the book has become such an ingrained part of society that rather than supplanting them, ebooks will instead coexist with their predecessors. This is a question that at the present time, cannot be fully answered. We must wait and see how the market develops before we will know for sure. It is likely that we will not be able to make informed predictions for many more years.
Also, I’ve posted the link for the twitter account Horse Ebooks. This is a spam account with a random letter generator, whose purpose is to promote low-quality ebooks. However, it has gained popularity over the internet for the ridiculous messages its random generator comes out with. Check it out and tell me what you think.
https://twitter.com/Horse_ebooks
Tuesday’s Class
Tuesday’s class discussion about the prospect of a celestial jukebox brought up some interesting points. Most notably, many people were divided on the issue of whether or not it was a good idea to level the playing field between large corporations and smaller parties. Those arguing in favor of such a leveling believed that getting rid of distributors would make it easier for the smaller parties to have their work made available to people and, as a result, would get more notice. This may be true, but what must not be forgotten is that distribution is of itself an industry. Getting rid of this aspect of the process would most likely cost many individuals their jobs and would therefore create quite a bit of damage. As with anything else, the costs must be equally weighed with the benefits.
ebooks v print
As I was looking for something to say about ebooks, I stumbled across this article. What immediately stuck out to me was its title “Don’t Burn Your Books–Print Is Here to Stay”. These days, it seems like ebooks are continuing to increase in popularity, however, I can’t help but hope that traditional books will always be around. As I was reading the article, this statement surprised me: “By 2015, one media maven predicted a few years back, traditional books would be gone.” While ebooks do make reading much more convenient and accessible, I would never have gone so far to say that by the time I would be graduating college, traditional books would be a thing of the past. I think that while ebooks have there benefits, traditional books will always have a certain appeal to them as well. Abby mentioned in her comment to this post, “Can we look to our past to predict our future? Do people consider books technology?” which led me to the question:
with technology rapidly developing and ever-changing, do people expect the same from books?
are people getting bored by traditional books?
In my opinion, although the content is what truly matters, traditional books are what make reading such a peaceful experience. Other mediums of reading add too many distractions. I find myself occasionally using reading as a distraction. I don’t want to be distracted from it. (If that makes sense).
ebooks
I personally have never used an ebook before. When I go to read, I prefer to do so in a more isolated environment where I am as far away as possible from any distractions because for me, reading is about losing myself in the words and the stories I am reading. I also love being able to physically flip the pages–it just adds to the experience.That being said, I do see how ebooks are convenient in todays constantly and rapidly changing world. According to this CBS News article, “Ten years ago there were about 4,000 independent bookstores in the U.S. Today, there’s less than HALF that.” The article also states that for ebooks, “Sales will go from about $150 million last year . . . to an estimated billion-dollar business by 2012, as new products from tech companies like Apple flood the market.” I just hope that with the increasing number of new products, they continue to promote reading and don’t all become too tablet-like.
Ebooks that change the way we write
This article made me really think about all of the different ways that ebooks can impact writing. Ebooks gather so much data from users each time they pick up a book. Ebooks provide the exact data of how a reader interacts with a text like where they stop, where they read quicker or slower, and what they reread. What if readers statistically lost momentum in a book around page 150? Then the publisher could take this exact data into consideration and add a plot twist. Or what about personalized ebooks? Much like the advertisements on the sidebar of Facebook, ebooks could be individually targeted at consumers.
Copyright and the picture-less Art History Book
In class when we were looking at the book Professor Phillips authored and all of the images that he had cleared I started to think about all of the image in my art history textbook. Do the publishers have to clear every image? In fact, I found this article about an art school that was forcing students to buy an image-less textbook for $180. The publishers of the textbook said that if they aquired all of the image rights the book would cost $800.An excerpt from the pictureless textbook:
Documentary Filmmakers and Fair Use
Today’s brownbag brought up some really interesting points. One point that Professor Sikand mentioned was that many times documentary filmmakers become discouraged by the price of licensing copyrighted works. This is a shame because most filmmakers do not have the budget of a Hollywood feature film and upon realizing how much the licensing of a song for their movie can be, they often decide against producing or finishing their work. This prevents many important stories from being told. Professor Sikand did mention that their is a light at the end of the tunnel. She mentioned that there are websites that feature music that can be used freely in movies as long as the artist is credited. While reflecting on the short clip we watched where filmmakers were discussing copyrighted works in relation to their films, I decided to look a little bit more into this issue. While searching the web I cam across this website which highlights documentary filmmakers’ statement of best practices in fair use.
Obama- style Poster Maker…
My group is using the Fairey vs. Associated Press court case for our second portfolio paper. In this case, the artist Shepard Fairey, the creator of the iconic “Hope” Obama poster, is accused of copying the photograph taken by an AP photographer. When I was doing research for this essay I stumbled upon multiple sites titled “Obama Poster Maker”. These sites enable anyone to upload photographs and digital produce them in the style of Fairey’s poster. How does copyright law deal with this? Does Fairey own this technique or is it just an ability anyone with Photoshop or googling skills can freely apply to any photograph?