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.
Today while thinking about the prompt, I remembered the time I stood in line at midnight to get the final Harry Potter book. Although this seems silly and a bit useless, I realized the whole aspect of a book release disappears with the introduction of electronic readers. Why would you wait in line, when you can click a button and up load it in a second?
While reading an article called “Is it a Book or an App,” I came across an interesting quote. The author wrote that “middle age women can read soft porn in public without anyone knowing about it”. I found this slightly funny and very interesting. When I see people reading, I often look at the book they are reading and sometimes even look it up if it looks interesting. However with electronic books, no one will ever see what a person is reading in the open. I think e-books adds a privacy to reading that maybe was not there before. Know anyone can openly read whatever they want! I think that is great maybe a guy wants to read twilight while relaxing at the beach now he can with no problems!
With the invention of the internet, it seems that newspapers and magazines have gotten hit the hardest. Before the internet, newspapers, radios and televisions were the only way to get news, and even then, newspapers would be the best way to get the most thorough review of the news possible. With the internet, anyone can go to yahoo.com and see headlines of the day for free. With the invention of e-books, newspapers have gotten even more sidelined; while their content may be available for subscription on an e-book, the printing press and anyone who was involved in handling the newspaper gets cut out of the distribution, which impacts the economy by cutting jobs. Thus, e-books (and by extension, the Internet) have an effect on the economy far beyond its intended scope.
In middle school, I loved checking out the oldest books in the library and reading them – not necessarily for their content, but I was strangely fascinated by how the pages sounded like when you turned them, and the musty smell of old books that seemed to shroud the books with mystery. Nowadays, old books are becoming harder and harder to find, and e-books are dominating the book frontier. With an e-book, you can store thousands of books on a single device, surf the web, and check email (on the increasingly popular sophisticated types of e-books). However, with that technology takes away much of the reading experience, from flipping the pages to smelling the pages of the book. While the e-book may be more practical, for me, there will be nothing that can replace the ethereal experience of reading a book.
I recently read an article about how many schools and students have chosen to use electronic readers instead of hard copies of books for summer reading. When of the main points the article discusses is how much easier it is for people to travel with electronic readers. This whole article made me think about how convenience has seemed to come above everything else for us. I cannot help but ask myself is convenience causing us to lose different things. When I read my summer reading books, I was able to flip through the pages and just sit and read on my own. However, now some electronic reads have games in them or even programs that read the book to you. It just does not seem like the same summer reading anymore.
While the original e-book was simply a book that could connect to the internet solely for the purpose of purchasing other books, nowadays e-books are simply small tablets with special screens so that your eyes don’t get as tired reading off of e-books as they would off computers or tablets. Essentially, e-books and tablets have all of the same capabilities, with internet, email, music, etc. E-books may even be more practical since their memory is probably larger than the average tablet’s memory. While that may seem “fun” and “cool” to have a book that can do everything, it definitely changes the experience of reading, from being able to turn the pages to being more focused on your book because you don’t have any other distractors.
While skimming through the book Complex Copyright, I stumbled across a line stating that “copyright law enables a universe of copyright-related systems, such as copyright-based industries”. This line really stuck out to me because it got me thinking about all of the copyright-based industries that exist in today’s society. There are definitely a large number of them. I’m sure that the existence of these industries plays a role in why the complexity of copyright laws has not been edited over time. If copyright were to be made a bit less confusing and complex, then it would directly effect the productivity of these industries.
These guys did a way better job at discussing piracy in a fair and balanced way than I ever could. I encourage you to watch this video regardless of what side you’re on, or where your sympathies fall. I would be doing a disservice to these fine people by summarizing the whole video in this post, so I’ll just hit on one point that hits home to me.
In the middle of the video, the narrator proclaims that there is only one legitimate reason for piracy: if you cannot buy the game legally where you live. To be honest, this is the first reason why I tolerated piracy and the main reason that I continue to do so. If you weren’t aware, there is a lot of good music in Japan. But go on iTunes and search “Jeanne da Arc” “FLOW” or “The Pillows” and all you get is shoddy ripoffs trying to forego copyright. Many great video games and music simply aren’t for sale in the United States; this is one reason people pirate. This kind of piracy really hurts no one: a person outside of the market receives and appreciates a game. It only expands the fanbase, without hurting sales. If I could buy a Pillows album, you bet I would. Those guys deserve the money. But they won’t sell it to me, or their agents won’t, or American companies won’t take them. But I can still listen to them. And, I think, they’re happy more people can enjoy what they do.
I read a short article online that discusses how Facebook is “currently facing a copyright lawsuit due to its timeline feature”. Apparently, Facebook’s new timeline feature was based off of a website created in 2009 called Timelines. The case is still being settled and the actual trial is yet to begin. I thought this was a very interesting case because the concept of timelines has been around for a very long time, and so I personally don’t think it is likely that Facebook stole this concept from Timelines to use on their website. It seems more likely to me that Timelines simply wants to make money, and what better a corporation to make if off of than Facebook?