Book Burning

chaz wyman · **Joined:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 7:31 pm **Posts:** 10592

lennartack wrote:

Oh, if you're unfamiliar with DRM, check out http://www.defectivebydesign.org/what_is_drm.

If you buy an ebook it usually has DRM, meaning you cannot copy or redistribute it, and it is only readable on the device you bought it.

Any system can be overcome.
Most of the best books worthy of burning are already in the public domain and cannot be bought.

lennartack · **Posted:** Sun Jun 10, 2012 2:50 pm

chaz wyman wrote:

lennartack wrote:

Oh, if you're unfamiliar with DRM, check out http://www.defectivebydesign.org/what_is_drm.

If you buy an ebook it usually has DRM, meaning you cannot copy or redistribute it, and it is only readable on the device you bought it.

Any system can be overcome.
Most of the best books worthy of burning are already in the public domain and cannot be bought.

Unfortunately a lot of books in the public domain must be bought, even digitally (I recently bought the works of St. Augustine from www.ccel.org).

Sure, any system can be overcome, just like you could overcome book burning by hiding the books. The problem is that people are too lazy to take precautions and all buy their ipads and move their life to Facebook without caring for the consequences. If this trend continues eventually it will be possible to remove certain books from everyone's devices with a push of the button. Or even worse; some books may never be allowed into the store/search engine, so people don't even know about their existence.

chaz wyman · **Joined:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 7:31 pm **Posts:** 10592

lennartack wrote:

chaz wyman wrote:

lennartack wrote:

Oh, if you're unfamiliar with DRM, check out http://www.defectivebydesign.org/what_is_drm.

If you buy an ebook it usually has DRM, meaning you cannot copy or redistribute it, and it is only readable on the device you bought it.

Any system can be overcome.
Most of the best books worthy of burning are already in the public domain and cannot be bought.

Unfortunately a lot of books in the public domain must be bought, even digitally (I recently bought the works of St. Augustine from http://www.ccel.org).

WHY?????

http://sparks.eserver.org/books/augustineconfess.pdf
http://manybooks.net/titles/augustinetext02tcosa10.html

Sure, any system can be overcome, just like you could overcome book burning by hiding the books.

But you can hide 60,000 books on one DVD; that would take a very large environmentally controlled warehouse to do in paper.
On a small stack of DVDs you can hold all books every published since the dawn of time, and copyable in minutes.

The problem is that people are too lazy to take precautions and all buy their ipads and move their life to Facebook without caring for the consequences. If this trend continues eventually it will be possible to remove certain books from everyone's devices with a push of the button.

Bollocks. You have a very simplistic view of computers if you think that. All you have to do is pull the plug on the Internet or move your backup drive to another room.

Or even worse; some books may never be allowed into the store/search engine, so people don't even know about their existence.
And some books are never published in paper. But it is easier to publish electronically and always will be.
There is just no counter argument here. Electronic is far more save from burning.

lennartack · **Posted:** Sun Jun 10, 2012 4:16 pm

chaz wyman wrote:

lennartack wrote:

chaz wyman wrote:

Any system can be overcome.
Most of the best books worthy of burning are already in the public domain and cannot be bought.

Unfortunately a lot of books in the public domain must be bought, even digitally (I recently bought the works of St. Augustine from http://www.ccel.org).

WHY?????

http://sparks.eserver.org/books/augustineconfess.pdf
http://manybooks.net/titles/augustinetext02tcosa10.html

I needed another book, in epub format. But nvm, it is also available for free.

Sure, any system can be overcome, just like you could overcome book burning by hiding the books.

But you can hide 60,000 books on one DVD; that would take a very large environmentally controlled warehouse to do in paper.
On a small stack of DVDs you can hold all books every published since the dawn of time, and copyable in minutes.

It is very hard to find a forbidden book in a physical library, but a digital library can be scanned in seconds.

The problem is that people are too lazy to take precautions and all buy their ipads and move their life to Facebook without caring for the consequences. If this trend continues eventually it will be possible to remove certain books from everyone's devices with a push of the button.

Bollocks. You have a very simplistic view of computers if you think that. All you have to do is pull the plug on the Internet or move your backup drive to another room.

Maybe I should stop studying computer science then... Anyways, we were talking about the future. Suppose you were smart enough to back up your books BEFORE the deletion button was pressed. When you try to restore the books on your disconnected hacker pc you may find out the files are encrypted and you are not able to read them anymore. Also, have you ever tried backing up your facebook conversations? It's not so easy.

Or even worse; some books may never be allowed into the store/search engine, so people don't even know about their existence.
And some books are never published in paper. But it is easier to publish electronically and always will be.
There is just no counter argument here. Electronic is far more save from burning.

I agree that electronics and the internet in their current form are very safe from book burning. I am more concerned about people not realizing or caring that their flow of information on the part of the internet they are using is controlled be one or a few entities. It is indeed very easy to publish on the internet, but who will read it if your publication does not appear and is not discussed in the Big Social Internet of the Future ®.

chaz wyman · **Joined:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 7:31 pm **Posts:** 10592

lennartack wrote:

chaz wyman wrote:

lennartack wrote:

Unfortunately a lot of books in the public domain must be bought, even digitally (I recently bought the works of St. Augustine from http://www.ccel.org).

WHY?????

http://sparks.eserver.org/books/augustineconfess.pdf
http://manybooks.net/titles/augustinetext02tcosa10.html

I needed another book, in epub format. But nvm, it is also available for free.

Sure, any system can be overcome, just like you could overcome book burning by hiding the books.

But you can hide 60,000 books on one DVD; that would take a very large environmentally controlled warehouse to do in paper.
On a small stack of DVDs you can hold all books every published since the dawn of time, and copyable in minutes.

It is very hard to find a forbidden book in a physical library, but a digital library can be scanned in seconds.

It is MUCH easier to hide a digital book. You are struggling on the wrong side of this argument.

The problem is that people are too lazy to take precautions and all buy their ipads and move their life to Facebook without caring for the consequences. If this trend continues eventually it will be possible to remove certain books from everyone's devices with a push of the button.

Bollocks. You have a very simplistic view of computers if you think that. All you have to do is pull the plug on the Internet or move your backup drive to another room.

Maybe I should stop studying computer science then... [color=#BF00FF]
CLEARLY. Either that or try harder.
Anyways, we were talking about the future. Suppose you were smart enough to back up your books BEFORE the deletion button was pressed. When you try to restore the books on your disconnected hacker pc you may find out the files are encrypted and you are not able to read them anymore. Also, have you ever tried backing up your facebook conversations? It's not so easy.
[/color]
Blah blah nonsense. You can't delete a hidden DVD.

Or even worse; some books may never be allowed into the store/search engine, so people don't even know about their existence.
And some books are never published in paper. But it is easier to publish electronically and always will be.
There is just no counter argument here. Electronic is far more save from burning.

I agree that electronics and the internet in their current form are very safe from book burning. I am more concerned about people not realizing or caring that their flow of information on the part of the internet they are using is controlled be one or a few entities. It is indeed very easy to publish on the internet, but who will read it if your publication does not appear and is not discussed in the Big Social Internet of the Future ®.

[/color]

lennartack · **Posted:** Sun Jun 10, 2012 5:02 pm

Sure, if you're smart enough you will always be able to prevent your books from being burned, even in a digital Orwellian society. But you're not going to be able to do it (assuming you're not a computer hacker).

chaz wyman wrote:

Bollocks. You have a very simplistic view of computers if you think that. All you have to do is pull the plug on the Internet or move your backup drive to another room.

Maybe I should stop studying computer science then...
CLEARLY. Either that or try harder.

Actually I already stopped; it was too easy, maths is more challenging.

chaz wyman wrote:

Blah blah nonsense. You can't delete a hidden DVD.

Then you don't know what cryptography is capable of. When the key is deleted, the book will not be restorable. And you don't know the key! Your future book reading software will take care of the decryption, so to obtain the key you'd have to reverse-engineer the software.

chaz wyman · **Joined:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 7:31 pm **Posts:** 10592

lennartack wrote:

Sure, if you're smart enough you will always be able to prevent your books from being burned, even in a digital Orwellian society. But you're not going to be able to do it (assuming you're not a computer hacker).

chaz wyman wrote:

Bollocks. You have a very simplistic view of computers if you think that. All you have to do is pull the plug on the Internet or move your backup drive to another room.

Maybe I should stop studying computer science then...
CLEARLY. Either that or try harder.

Actually I already stopped; it was too easy, maths is more challenging.

Common sense eludes some clearly.

chaz wyman wrote:

Blah blah nonsense. You can't delete a hidden DVD.

Then you don't know what cryptography is capable of. When the key is deleted, the book will not be restorable. And you don't know the key! Your future book reading software will take care of the decryption, so to obtain the key you'd have to reverse-engineer the software.

Your efforts are getting increasingly ridiculous.

Arising_uk · **Joined:** Wed Oct 17, 2007 2:31 am **Posts:** 10396

You can't do this with paper books,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/20 ... indle-1984

Not that its stopped me buying one but it does rankle that apparently you lease not own a Kindle e-book.

Although I think the worries are overblown as you can transfer Kindle books to other hard-drives so maybe the above people should have backed-up their stuff.

chaz wyman · **Joined:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 7:31 pm **Posts:** 10592

Arising_uk wrote:

You can't do this with paper books,

True but ...you can't sell books if you don't have the copyright in the first place.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/20 ... indle-1984

Not that its stopped me buying one but it does rankle that apparently you lease not own a Kindle e-book.

Although I think the worries are overblown as you can transfer Kindle books to other hard-drives so maybe the above people should have backed-up their stuff.

Arising_uk · **Joined:** Wed Oct 17, 2007 2:31 am **Posts:** 10396

chaz wyman wrote:

True but ...you can't sell books if you don't have the copyright in the first place.

Agreed but if you do buy such a thing then can the authorities come and confiscate it so easily?

I remember back in the late 80's the Greek students on my course having hard-bound copies of all the text-books, I asked how they could afford them and they laughed and said in Greece there was a thriving photo-copy and book-binding trade, so they clubbed together to buy one and then got the rest made,it was cheaper than buying them apparently.
p.s.
Had to laugh that it was Orwell, if there is a 'God' of books then he certainly has a sense of humour.

chaz wyman · **Joined:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 7:31 pm **Posts:** 10592

Arising_uk wrote:

chaz wyman wrote:

True but ...you can't sell books if you don't have the copyright in the first place.

Agreed but if you do buy such a thing then can the authorities come and confiscate it so easily?

I remember back in the late 80's the Greek students on my course having hard-bound copies of all the text-books, I asked how they could afford them and they laughed and said in Greece there was a thriving photo-copy and book-binding trade, so they clubbed together to buy one and then got the rest made,it was cheaper than buying them apparently.
p.s.
Had to laugh that it was Orwell, if there is a 'God' of books then he certainly has a sense of humour.

There is no doubt that Kindle have used the technology to its best advantage.
They also do that book copying in Cambodia where you can get a Rough Guide for $5. The pages are not cut well but they are usable.
But I think it is clear that the advent of electronic media have accelerated the abuse of copyright far more effectively than a photocopier ever has. Think of casette tapes and CDs. and before they got wise and hitting on Internet providers to control downloading most people I know managed to collect 4-8 thousands audio files to replace their scratched records and duff tapes.
As for books beyond their copyright time - they are already out there in the world and will never suffer from burning.

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