So I'm guessing that you're looking forward to the day when the only use you'll have for paper is that you wipe your ass with it. That you'll do and read everything on your iPad or Kindle or Galaxy or Nexus something something.
And before you shout out, "Wipe your, WHAT?" and earn yourself the nickname Skidmarks McGee, let me explain that in most places in the USA, people use paper to wipe their asses after they poop. You can see cartoon bears give lessons on TV every day.
But if you prefer not to wipe, I can tell you that if you spray your ass with WD-40, you won't have to wipe at all because nothing sticks. And if you spray a generous coating of"butter-flavor" PAM cooking spray, people will smell you and think you just baked cookies.
Here are your differences between paper books and electronic books, in case you forgot, since that's what this post about, and not ass-wiping:
PAPER BOOK
tear it: no penalty
sell it: no penalty (unless it was intended for foreign markets - see below)
lend it: no penalty
wipe your ass with it: the respect of your peers
ELECTRONIC BOOK
reverse engineer it: sued, fined, prosecuted
copy it: sued, fined, prosecuted
share it: sued, fined, prosecuted
modify it: sued, fined, prosecuted
But my asshole friends in the library world tell me that they can get around any protections the industry builds into the format. Well, fuckety-do to you, Mr, Wizard. What you're doing is illegal or actionable in a court of law. And considering the desperation within the publishing industry, I'm guessing that someone is getting fucked by them pretty soon. Probably not you, but maybe that student you showed how to do all your wizardy stuff. And if you show someone how to do illegal stuff, they might come looking for you, too.
All this shit is illegal. Everything we've come to expect from paper is now illegal to do with electronic. They did the same thing with analog and digital music: copy one and you're fine; share the other and you're fined.
But this is the BIG QUESTION:
Why create a system where the only way I can benefit from it makes me a criminal?
And even bigger, WHY don't you care?
In just a few short years, we went from a country of people who value privacy to a group who just doesn't give a fuck.
Well, GIVE A FUCK!
This country was founded on giving a fuck. But I see that lately we feel it's not our place. We just do what we're told. Because we're just glad to have a job or be out of jail or have a place to shit.
I don't know what happened to us, but I don't like it. And like many of you, I barely have two fucks to rub together. But that means I have one fuck, so I'm giving it.
And if that's not bad enough that we get fucked by technology, we're starting to get fucked by geography. As an example, if Apple releases a limited edition red iPad in China, but you want one so bad, you know, because you're stupid, that you buy one online or have a friend bring you one or whatever, you WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO HAVE YOUR IPAD SERVICED BY APPLE LOCALLY without the very real threat that will confiscate it because it wasn't meant to be sold here. Unless you can show you currently live in China.
For years, we've had Regions for DVDs. We live in Region 1. And if you try to play a DVD from a different Region, the odds are pretty good that your DVD player will reject it and not play it. But if you can play those DVDs with a "region-free" player, you might have a collection of Korean or wherever DVDs that you got because they were cheaper or of versions of movies never released in the US, and not on Netflix. So if these were never intended for the US market, can I ever resell them?
So this isn't just about books or music or movies. This is about corporations publicly encouraging global commerce, while lobbying for legislation to restrict local commerce. They want the benefits of cheap labor and and economic growth in emerging markets while still controlling prices and supplies in existing markets.
The message to me seems to be: Buy our Product! Now, Go Fuck Yourself.
Why do we put up with that?
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