Real Book vs E-Book: Which Do You Prefer & Why?

[nismaratwork]

I don't think the question is which do you prefer stealing

ba-zing!

 

[General_Sax]

I like e-books because I can pirate them.

 

[Pengwuino]

I like e-books because I can pirate them.

Pff and real books can't be pirated? It's called a photocopier

 

[airborne18]

I bought a sony e-reader. While I still prefer physical books for academic and studying. I do like the e-books for the massive amount of classic lit. that is available.

 

[Dembadon]

I like real books. I've yet to feel as comfortable when "curling-up" with an electronic device as I do with a book. I like the feel of turning pages. I like to underline things and make notes. I like seeing the effects that years of use give them: unique scratches/creases. The physical characteristics of a book, its size, shape, weight, even smell, help distinguish one from another.

 

[Proton Soup]

Pff and real books can't be pirated? It's called a photocopier

i have one like that. but because it was received on interlibrary loan, it's officially not piracy.

as for books, i do like the real thing, they're easier on my eyes and it's easier to flip around through them.

but i still like ebooks for different reasons. if they're searchable, at least. they make for great archives, imo.

 

[DaveC426913]

i have one like that. but because it was received on interlibrary loan, it's officially not piracy.

How does that make it not piracy?

Oh. I'm oging to guess they promised you a book but couldn't deliver, so they sent you a photocopy? Then they said "don't bother returning it".

 

[waht]

Uh, I appreciate the love of books as you describe [I don't particularly have it, but I appreciate it], but I think this goes way too far. It isn't like the entire message is lost in electronic media. In fact the substance of reading remains. It isn't just a transfer of bits of information as in a download. Reading is still the exloration of ideas and information. A drama is still a drama; Plato is still Plato, even in digital form. What is lost is purely esthetic. Additionally, the information of interest now comes with context in the form of immediate sidebar searches about the subject. For example, how much more texture is added to the experience when one can view archives of photographs, or hear the actual recordings of major events, or watch the videos, as one studies history? If a picture is worth a thousand words, a thirty-second video is worth 900,000 words. All of this is here or coming to your e-book soon. Obviously this is true already for pc readers, like me.

I'm deviating on a tangent here:

A picture is a worth a thousand words has a deeper meaning. Consider this: Where do the thousand words come from? If you quantify the size of the picture in bits, and the words to describe it in bits, one immediate finds that the number of bits of words is greater than the bits of the picture. So in as sense, there is more information contained in a picture which the brain unpacks, or unzips to give a sort of subjective but meaningful experience.

People in general are uninterested in statements, or pictures where one has to do little unpacking of information. If you compare for example, Van Gogh painting with a picture of a blank wall, same size and same number of bits, Van Gogh is more appealing because it engages you in unpacking those multilayer meanings.

I claim it is the same with paper books. Paper books are more interesting because you are engaging them like a picture. Handling a paper book is also worth a thousand words. There is more information in a paper book which gives you a pleasure of unpacking. But an e-book reader on the other hand is uniform, homogeneous plastic medium containing less number of bits that your brain could unpack. The margin is small of course, but if you add up all the contributions of processing every day meaningless raw information in the information age; the cell phones, email, webpages, the Cyberspace in all convenient formats delivering bits of information on a silver platter - There is little human substance. There is little unpacking of bits.

 

[DaveC426913]

If you quantify the size of the picture in bits

This is where you go off track. A picture is a picture because its meaning is far more than just its bits.

 

[nismaratwork]

How does that make it not piracy?

Oh. I'm oging to guess they promised you a book but couldn't deliver, so they sent you a photocopy? Then they said "don't bother returning it".

Closer to the used game industry... people buy games but the developers never see a cent of the used game sales. It's not illegal, but it still screws the developers, much as this screws the authors.

 

[nismaratwork]

I'm deviating on a tangent here:

A picture is a worth a thousand words has a deeper meaning. Consider this: Where do the thousand words come from? If you quantify the size of the picture in bits, and the words to describe it in bits, one immediate finds that the number of bits of words is greater than the bits of the picture. So in as sense, there is more information contained in a picture which the brain unpacks, or unzips to give a sort of subjective but meaningful experience.

People in general are uninterested in statements, or pictures where one has to do little unpacking of information. If you compare for example, Van Gogh painting with a picture of a blank wall, same size and same number of bits, Van Gogh is more appealing because it engages you in unpacking those multilayer meanings.

I claim it is the same with paper books. Paper books are more interesting because you are engaging them like a picture. Handling a paper book is also worth a thousand words. There is more information in a paper book which gives you a pleasure of unpacking. But an e-book reader on the other hand is uniform, homogeneous plastic medium containing less number of bits that your brain could unpack. The margin is small of course, but if you add up all the contributions of processing every day meaningless raw information in the information age; the cell phones, email, webpages, the Cyberspace in all convenient formats delivering bits of information on a silver platter - There is little human substance. There is little unpacking of bits.

This is very fanciful, but utterly divorced from reality.

 

[S_Happens]

E-ink or ultra-thin OLEDS could be a winner for this kind of tech. I think OLEDS have the benefit of being readable in the dark, and being even more flexible (in theory) than E-Ink, and more likely to be integrated into a touch-screen so you can take notes in the "margins" and such.

If it were an OLED screen, then I would not have been interested. One of the biggest factors for me was getting away from the lighted screen. E-ink is far easier on the eyes (which also answers someone elses comment about real books being easier to read; the e-ink display looks uncannily like a real piece of printed paper) and I would consider the OLED to be too similar to a computer and simply use my laptop or desktop rather than pay for a little more portability.

I can add notes, "highlight," search, and categorize although I have yet to play with some of those functions. I have about 9 hours to kill so I'll try to do that. I forgot to bring my cable with me to add some pdf files.

Astronuc's comment made me look around, and in fact some of the books that I have downloaded have links in the Table of Contents that allow you to jump to that chapter/section.

I'm kind of wondering if I need to make a separate thread so that people can ask questions about it that I can try to answer. It might help me get familiar with some of the functions that I might not try to mess with on my own, and it would certainly address some of assumptions people are making (whether it be to validate or not).

As far as waht's post, I don't see the problem. For me, usually reading a work of fiction (which is mostly what I'll be doing with the Kindle) means winding down and is really a break for my brain. I think the margin of difference between a real book and the e-reader is very small, but any more simplicity just fits the majority of what I will be using it for anyway.

So far I haven't pirated any books. There are enough classics available for free to keep me busy for a while.

 

[G037H3]

I use e-books a lot more because I'm far too poor to buy all the books that I want to study, or look at before I decide to study.

That said, I prefer books (hardcover -_-) because they provide more of a sense of accomplishment as you work your way through them, and they don't require an electronic device.

 

[nismaratwork]

If it were an OLED screen, then I would not have been interested. One of the biggest factors for me was getting away from the lighted screen. E-ink is far easier on the eyes (which also answers someone elses comment about real books being easier to read; the e-ink display looks uncannily like a real piece of printed paper) and I would consider the OLED to be too similar to a computer and simply use my laptop or desktop rather than pay for a little more portability.

I can add notes, "highlight," search, and categorize although I have yet to play with some of those functions. I have about 9 hours to kill so I'll try to do that. I forgot to bring my cable with me to add some pdf files.

Astronuc's comment made me look around, and in fact some of the books that I have downloaded have links in the Table of Contents that allow you to jump to that chapter/section.

I'm kind of wondering if I need to make a separate thread so that people can ask questions about it that I can try to answer. It might help me get familiar with some of the functions that I might not try to mess with on my own, and it would certainly address some of assumptions people are making (whether it be to validate or not).

As far as waht's post, I don't see the problem. For me, usually reading a work of fiction (which is mostly what I'll be doing with the Kindle) means winding down and is really a break for my brain. I think the margin of difference between a real book and the e-reader is very small, but any more simplicity just fits the majority of what I will be using it for anyway.

So far I haven't pirated any books. There are enough classics available for free to keep me busy for a while.

I can see your point about not wanting to have active lighting... and organic element or not, light is light. What we really need are holographic displays with implants in the hand allowing for Adaptive Haptic Feedback.

 

[lisab]

I use e-books a lot more because I'm far too poor to buy all the books that I want to study, or look at before I decide to study.

That said, I prefer books (hardcover -_-) because they provide more of a sense of accomplishment as you work your way through them, and they don't require an electronic device.

No doubt cost will be the deciding factor in the marketplace - it usually is.

 

[Proton Soup]

How does that make it not piracy?

Oh. I'm oging to guess they promised you a book but couldn't deliver, so they sent you a photocopy? Then they said "don't bother returning it".

the ILL request was for academic use, some mathematical transforms i needed for some project. i don't know why they didn't send the actual book (afraid of losing it?), but someone at that library actually photocopied the whole thing and sent that. i don't think I've used it since, it's in a box somewhere. there was no request to either return or burn the thing, and if they had sent the actual book, i certainly would have photocopied the pertinent sections and kept that.

i have to assume this was all legit, because this was just the way things were being done between university libraries, and they're normally pretty strict about things. educational/academic use gets a lot of waivers in copyright law, i guess. i think today digital scans are more the norm.

oh, and this reminds me. i had a freshman english prof once that composed his own book for the course using scanned chapters, one each from about a dozen books. he seemed to think it was fair use and had set up an arrangement with kinkos to print out spiral-bound copies for us. that seemed a bit more over the top.

 

[The legend]

at this rate e-books will never capture the readers!
(and it hasnt captured me yet! )

 

[nismaratwork]

I prefer real books because they help me kill small bugs. :evil:

JK, I put 'em outside except for mosquitoes and cockroaches, and for them a book is not necessary or wanted.

 

[JaredJames]

the ILL request was for academic use, some mathematical transforms i needed for some project. i don't know why they didn't send the actual book (afraid of losing it?), but someone at that library actually photocopied the whole thing and sent that. i don't think I've used it since, it's in a box somewhere. there was no request to either return or burn the thing, and if they had sent the actual book, i certainly would have photocopied the pertinent sections and kept that.

i have to assume this was all legit, because this was just the way things were being done between university libraries, and they're normally pretty strict about things. educational/academic use gets a lot of waivers in copyright law, i guess. i think today digital scans are more the norm.

My uni is very strict on copyright, but they have something of a 'workaround'. Basically, they tell you over and over you must adhere to copyright laws and not violate them in any way, at all. It is your responsibility not the universities. However, they don't actively police it. So long as no one gets reported for it, they don't seem to care and turn a blind eye. I don't think there is any waivers given to them. Not saying it isn't wrong, but they are giving a bit of room for students to maneuver.

oh, and this reminds me. i had a freshman english prof once that composed his own book for the course using scanned chapters, one each from about a dozen books. he seemed to think it was fair use and had set up an arrangement with kinkos to print out spiral-bound copies for us. that seemed a bit more over the top.

That is definitely copyright violation. Period.

He is actively copying and distributing copyrighted material. It's like me taking short clips from various blockbusters and compiling them together into a 'new' film and then putting it in cinemas. See how long you get away with that for.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I prefer real books because they help me kill small bugs. :evil:

You can do that we an e-book as well, once.

 

[Topher925]

You sure about that?

Trees are a renewable resource. What is the environmental footprint of an electronic device?

Yes, pretty sure. Trees are technically not a renewable resource since they are being consumed faster than they can be grown. Anyway, the energy required to turn a tree into a book along with the ink, dye's, chemicals, etc are not renewable. There is a study out there comparing the environmental footprint of a years worth of newspaper, magazines, and books compared to an ipad and the ipad won hands down. I'll see if I can find it.

 

[nismaratwork]

Yes, pretty sure. Trees are technically not a renewable resource since they are being consumed faster than they can be grown. Anyway, the energy required to turn a tree into a book along with the ink, dye's, chemicals, etc are not renewable. There is a study out there comparing the environmental footprint of a years worth of newspaper, magazines, and books compared to an ipad and the ipad won hands down. I'll see if I can find it.

Old growth for furniture and some building materials is being used faster than grown... paper mills often use rapidly grown poppler that is perfectly renewable. The issue there is the use of water, fuel, and bleaching agents, not the renwewability of the trees.

 

[Mu naught]

you can read an e-book in the dark right?

 

[Perspicacity]

I'm conflicted. I bought the kindle when it originally came out, and built up quite a large library. I've swapped in my kindle for an iPad, and find it annoying that I can't move my kindle purchases into iBooks.

I can read all of my kindle books on my iPad, using the kindle app, but it makes me worried that I'm spending all sorts of money on stuff I don't really own and can only legally use as long as I'm on an approved device.

What if Amazon and Apple don't want to play ball with the next company that designs the next better device? Am I going to have to choose between the best new technology and my old digital collection?

I do think that these things will be eventually ironed out—I think 25 years from now literally every bit of literature or art will be available to everyone at whim. I'm just not sure whether I'm wasting a lot of money on digital content in the meantime.

 

[JaredJames]

If they're in PDF format it isn't a problem.

I'm always wary of buying from companies that insist on you using their own formats (Apple being one of the biggest offenders).

 

[Perspicacity]

If they're in PDF format it isn't a problem.

I'm always wary of buying from companies that insist on you using their own formats (Apple being one of the biggest offenders).

That is true, but often times pdf's aren't available.

 

[Office_Shredder]

That is definitely copyright violation. Period.

He is actively copying and distributing copyrighted material. It's like me taking short clips from various blockbusters and compiling them together into a 'new' film and then putting it in cinemas. See how long you get away with that for.

It's not at all clear that it's the same

http://www.umuc.edu/library/copy.shtml#copy

What Can Be Copied?

* A chapter from a book (never the entire book).

The rules for what you can use for educational purposes are hazy as far as I can tell. The difference with your film example of course is the fact that you're profiting on it.

 

[JaredJames]

A bit controversial are those rules, under what should be avoided:

"Making multiple copies of different works that could substitute for the purchase of books, publisher's reprints, or periodicals."

Which is exactly what you described the teacher doing. He is substituting the purchasing of the various books by making copies and using them within the class. Although what he is doing may fall within the spirit of what is allowed, he is definitely violating the "what should be avoided" rule.

"Copying the same works from semester to semester."

Does he change what he teaches / use different books each semester / year? I don't know many who do that. Would take a lot of effort.

From the fair use for instructors section, this applies equally to the above:

"If you use something for one semester it is likely to be seen as fair use. If you use something repeatedly, it's less likely to be considered fair use. The expectation is that you will obtain permission as soon as it is feasible. Using something over a period of years is not within the spirit of the guidelines."

"Copying more than nine separate times in a single semester."

Again, pretty vague, does this apply to individual items or sets of copies? In the one sense he would only be allowed to provide for nine students, in the other, as long as he does it all in one then he's ok.

 

[Proton Soup]

A bit controversial are those rules, under what should be avoided:

"Making multiple copies of different works that could substitute for the purchase of books, publisher's reprints, or periodicals."

Which is exactly what you described the teacher doing. He is substituting the purchasing of the various books by making copies and using them within the class. Although what he is doing may fall within the spirit of what is allowed, he is definitely violating the "what should be avoided" rule.

"Copying the same works from semester to semester."

Does he change what he teaches / use different books each semester / year? I don't know many who do that. Would take a lot of effort.

From the fair use for instructors section, this applies equally to the above:

"If you use something for one semester it is likely to be seen as fair use. If you use something repeatedly, it's less likely to be considered fair use. The expectation is that you will obtain permission as soon as it is feasible. Using something over a period of years is not within the spirit of the guidelines."

"Copying more than nine separate times in a single semester."

Again, pretty vague, does this apply to individual items or sets of copies? In the one sense he would only be allowed to provide for nine students, in the other, as long as he does it all in one then he's ok.

whose rules are these? the university's? US copyright office's ?

 

[JaredJames]

whose rules are these? the university's? US copyright office's ?

You gave the link, I just read it. Was I not supposed to do that? I took it that you meant them to back up what you said about his copying being "fair use". From what I understood from them that there were conflicting sections which made what he was doing equally wrong.

The university rules don't trump US laws. So theirs or not, they can't give teachers a workaround to the regular laws.

I've had a quick look but can't find anything specific, but I find it hard to believe that US copyright law allows for people (or teachers) to actively make multiple copies (enough for a class) of various sections of books and then publish them (although not for profit). Although I can see how this helps with getting students the materials required, I also see it as a way of removing the need for a student to purchase the book (for a lot of teaching style textbooks their main income is from students), therefore reducing copyright holder profits. I'm very interested in seeing where it states that sort of thing is allowed in the law.