You love your Kindle – the portability of a walking library, the purchasing ease, the readable screen. But as Richard Stallman at GNU notes, the privacy dangers and restrictions on freedom that e-books present may be trumping the overall convenience of the digital form in its present iteration.
While digital books have arrived, and are indeed the future, the points Stallman makes should give us pause about the current way in which we acquire our e-books, and should inspire us to consider the greater freedoms paper books afford us as we see them slowly slip into the sunset.
Here, extolling the virtues of printed books and the freedoms they afford that are not seen with e-books, Stallman writes:
+ You can buy one with cash, anonymously.
+ Then you own it.
+ You are not required to sign a license that restricts your use of it.
+ The format is known, and no proprietary technology is needed to read the book.
+ You can give, lend or sell the book to another.
+ You can, physically, scan and copy the book, and it's sometimes lawful
under copyright.
+ Nobody has the power to destroy your book.
Now contrast these points with Amazon's typical purchasing requirements for e-books:
+ Amazon requires users to identify themselves to get an e-book.
+ In some countries, Amazon says the user does not own the e-book.
+ Amazon requires the user to accept a restrictive license on use of the e-book.
+ The format is secret, and only proprietary user-restricting software can read it at all.
+ An ersatz "lending" is allowed for some books, for a limited time, but only by specifying by name another user of the same system. No giving or selling.
+ To copy the e-book is impossible due to Digital Restrictions Management in the player and prohibited by the license, which is more restrictive than copyright law.
+ Amazon can remotely delete the e-book using a back door. It used this back door in 2009 to delete thousands of copies of George Orwell's 1984.
These points can not be overstated. There are two principal problems with e-books as they stand today (as sold through vendors such as Amazon):
1) The freedom to exchange information, either by legally sharing or copying, has been severely impinged upon by the current format.
2) Readers' privacy is being severely compromised by e-books sold by venders such as Amazon, which require the authentication of an identity before a purchase can be made.
This, coupled with the fact that, on an e-reader, you must rely upon proprietary technology to read a book, rather than just your eyes and, for some, glasses, is a serious issue. For as we've seen in the past, reliance on that proprietary technology can also mean reliance upon those who stand behind that technology to make decisions about what should, and shouldn't, be read.
Is this a manifesto calling upon the abolishing of e-books? Absolutely not. As a writer considering the e-book market for possible future publication, I recognize the benefits the technology affords.
However, we should seriously consider the powers we are now relinquishing to the likes of Amazon as e-books become widespread, and consider forming alternative digital avenues where privacy can be maintained and information can spread more freely while still abiding by copyright laws.