There are answers that cover the short, medium and long term. Everyone needs to realise that the thing the internet is good at is copying files, especially text files, between different locations. It is not a bug that needs cured, it doesn't need fixed, it's what makes the internet work. More people are reading more words from more screens everyday. It's not going to be long before the majority of text people read is in a digital format. |
There are people already sharing eBooks out there, ... and they do it simply because they love books. You don't buy a second copy of a book, cut the spine off, lay each page on a scanner, run that .tif through an OCR (Optical Character Reader), hand edit the resulting output for errors and then post it online if you don't love the book. it can up to 80 hours to turn a printed novel into an eBook. I figure if someone out there is willing to put in 80 hours of work promoting my book, then I'd prefer they do it in a way that gives a better return to me. |
This is a fascinating phenomenon that evolved through the unexpected use of technology. It classically illustrates the way people find their own uses for technology. |
This seemed insanely limiting. So ... Yahoo tells me to deliberately keep a large number of users from seeing my pages, but won't even suggest a way to do this. Clever, huh? |
What little empirical evidence is out there points to eBooks and free downloading increases sales on a net basis. |
What petulant jerks. Look, Sony, you got caught sleazing your customers' computers. Telling us that it wasn't so bad is just infuriating and insulting. An apology would have been better received. |