andrewducker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
andrewducker) wrote2012-04-21 12:00 pm
andrewducker) wrote2012-04-21 12:00 pm
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Interesting Links for 21-04-2012
- Phone GPUs to overtake consoles by 2014. Phone + HDMI + Bluetooth controllers = console replacement?
- Has the ereader reached its zenith? Or is it DRM that's preventing creativity?
- IBM creates high-density, light-weight, lithium-air battery - 500 miles on one charge (in 10 years)
- GlobaLeaks - The Open Source Whistleblowing Framework
- Nobody knows what "randomness" is.
- A good review of The Cabin in the Woods, which does a nice job of pointing out its flaws (while appreciating it)
- Adam West weighs in on Christopher Nolan's final Batman chapter. Turns out he's both smart and right!
- Cameron and the civil service coup
- Context-Free Patent Art - lots of video-game patents that had me wondering what the submitters were on...
- Appropriation as art. (Sometimes it's refreshing to step into a world I know nothing about, and be boggled)
- People Who Don’t Know How to Spell “Cologne”
- THE KITTEN APPROACHETH!
- Why is the "missionary position" called that?
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The Steam game platform is, for me, the "friendly" face of DRM-made-useful. It remains to be seen whether Kindle is that for readers. Certainly, however, having my book collection quickly available on four different computers (admittedly only via browser in the linux case), my kindle and my phone is super useful.
The point is, I lose not much moving phone brands. I lose lots moving e-reader brands unless I take steps to mitigate that loss (and those steps are both technical and illegal).
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That strikes me as quite unusual. Most people I know are pretty "precious" about books. I'd have thought that the proportion of people who buy books but don't care if the books "go away again" once read is very small. I may be completely wrong but I've never come across anyone with that attitude before. I've come across many people who would never ever consider throwing away a book no matter how unlikely they'll reread it.
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To non-technical people DRM is usually a non-issue. My mum and dad just assume with kindle books "they own them" and there's no possibility of losing them in the foreseeable. (Which is, to be honest, what I think the actuality of the situation is).
To technical people DRM is usually a non-issue because they can circumvent it and there's no possibility of losing them (if they don't mind a little legal side-step). If amazon goes bust or goes crazy and deletes things, I can get my own copies from elsewhere or take off the DRM.
I guess the people who would be concerned about this are either half technical or sticklers for the legal niceties.
But then, people have strange attitudes to these things and in particular, laws on physical media are ignored in ways that electronic media are not. (e.g. I don't know anyone who pays attention to "This book shall not be sold or lent outside US jurisdiction" notices or who ever paid attention to the illegality of ripping a CD to mp3 -- it may be there are such people you just rarely meet them).
So, I don't know if you're right or not here. I know there are some people who fall into this class of "won't risk DRM as they might lose what they bought"... I suspect they'll look increasingly "weird" as time goes on (because I don't think it will happen very often because companies who do it will look very bad*) but I may be wholly wrong and DRM may be a passing fad.
* E.g. negative publicity from amazon selling then taking back and refunding a copy of 1984 after a rights mix up.
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Kinda. While it seems unlikely that Amazon would go bust tomorrow, leaving people unable to read their books, that kind of thing does happen (see Microsoft Plays-For-Sure and Google Video for cases where people spent money on DRM'd media that the license servers no longer exist for).
And it does lock people in - they might say "I'm happy with my Kindle, I'll be sticking to Amazon forever.", but ten years from now, when the Uberbook comes out, and they want to switch to it, they find they can't, because all of their books are locked to a different provider. It's at that point that the DRM stops being a non-issue, and becomes a brick wall (well, until their geek child fixes it for them).
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You're right about the lock in though... it's an advantage and a disadvantage. For me it's 100% win because I know I can unlock it.
Non-technical people will not be likely to think about these issues though.
I wonder if, in the future, we will see a "rights transfer" option... I can see monopolies people wanting to stop lock in.
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And yeah, I expect you'll get rights over transfers at some point. Possibly even when the publishers insist on it, to stop them being squished flat by Amazon.
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Does that > 20 year timescale put the problem in the same category of problem as "don't buy vinyl/cd/cassette/blu-ray because in 40 years you won't own a device capable of playing it"?
I think I was a late adopter for CD and did not have a CD player until 1994. I don't have anything which can now play any music I bought before 1994. I honestly can't remember if I own a VCR. I think I do not so I don't have anything which can now play any film or TV program I bought before about 1998.
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You are right. On the other hand, if over a ten year period, everyone but luddites moved from their primitive ebook collection in favour of a system where nanobots etched the words into your eyeballs while exuding a relaxing smell of bacon and gradually it became as difficult to get a working kindle reader as it was to get a stylus to play 78s... well, I'm not sure people would care.
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Sorry, what were you saying?
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