Tuesday, October 24, 2006

E-Ink Reader

As a bleeding edge technophile, (leading edge now, damn you sweet, sweet core 2 duo macbook pro) who also loves to read, you would think I would be pitching a pant tent over all these new e-readers coming to the market. I want to like them and part of me wants it just to play with it as well as for the few situations it might actually be useful. Unfortunately, I love the physical qualities of books, especially the way they smell and the way they look stacked up on a bookshelf.

I am very worried about the possible DRM restrictions that may be imposed. Will there be rampant book p2p-ing when e-readers are more ubiquitous and won't burn your eyes out? I'd like to believe people who read a lot of books and grow to love certain authors would want to support them, but easy five fingered discounts are always enticing. I think publishers are going to preempt the wait and see method and just hit us with crippling DRM that won't be interoperable and will force you to buy and re-buy content that you should already own. Then you will get the same backlash that you get from true music fans who refuse to be encumbered with DRM, which DECREASES the value of the file, who use p2p or torrents to get a more featured "product."

Eventually, the wave that is technology will overcome the paper book as it does to most obsolete things, but I am interested to see how fast it catches on in the meantime.

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