The link is to an article in the New York Times that was posted on the 17th July: Some E-Books Are More Equal Than Others.
The article discusses the case of the Amazon Kindle users who found that ebooks they had purchased had been deleted from their digital readers & what made a rather interesting twist to the tail was that some of the books were by the Author George Orwell. I think this article highlights many issues relating to digital user ownership. It created a stir due to the named texts that were removed and also due to the issue that the book texts had been bought and paid for by the users, who wrongly assumed they then had full rights of ownership of the books. However, ownership is a tricky word in the age of web 2.0, as we begin to 'own' many items in different ways.
I think a possible disturbing edge to the mass switch to online technology, in particular within a singular or limited system, is that of ownership of information.There are many platforms that provide easy and innovative ways in which to view or share information. Information is being viewed and shared more than ever before and that is great... Yet, the issue highlighted by this Amazon story is that of the power over access to information. Does someone out there really have the power to switch things off?!
I think a possible disturbing edge to the mass switch to online technology, in particular within a singular or limited system, is that of ownership of information.There are many platforms that provide easy and innovative ways in which to view or share information. Information is being viewed and shared more than ever before and that is great... Yet, the issue highlighted by this Amazon story is that of the power over access to information. Does someone out there really have the power to switch things off?!
This may seem trivial in present day, but it could prove to be much more topical in the future depending on who is controlling this access and the types of information we begin to place into online networks (although I personally have a startling amount on it already).
The idea of a life expectancy of information is particularly interesting, as information moves quickly... news articles, twitter tweets, flickr photos, blog posts. All this information is so based on the moto,"here today, gone tomorrow" or at least that is how it seems. I sometimes wonder what if it were all just gone tomorrow... permanently. What would happen if the websites that we feed this mass of information into, our personal details, our photographic memories, our favourite books... a growing collection of historic personal moments. What if at some point somebody just decides to switch it off, to take it away. This could also be an issue in regards to the information we absorb, the blogs we read, the news sources, digital books, online articles.
There seems to be an acceptance that most of the information that we read and absorb today is transient. However, it is important to acknowledge that its lifespan could also be shortening on a permanent level and I have started to wonder how this makes me feel. There is a beautiful quality of ownership that can be gained for example from reading and owning a real book, but also a real sense of life. That that book could last for an infinite amount of time. However, with digital information... the sense of time, of lasting long time, just does not seem to be as valid.
I imagine there are many discussions over whether the increase in technology does in fact increase or decrease the lifespan of information. So I may look this up some time, as it could be argued that in fact the widespread availability of information, therefore increases the ability for certain pieces of information to stay alive. But yes I think I will ponder this some more another day.
The idea of a life expectancy of information is particularly interesting, as information moves quickly... news articles, twitter tweets, flickr photos, blog posts. All this information is so based on the moto,"here today, gone tomorrow" or at least that is how it seems. I sometimes wonder what if it were all just gone tomorrow... permanently. What would happen if the websites that we feed this mass of information into, our personal details, our photographic memories, our favourite books... a growing collection of historic personal moments. What if at some point somebody just decides to switch it off, to take it away. This could also be an issue in regards to the information we absorb, the blogs we read, the news sources, digital books, online articles.
There seems to be an acceptance that most of the information that we read and absorb today is transient. However, it is important to acknowledge that its lifespan could also be shortening on a permanent level and I have started to wonder how this makes me feel. There is a beautiful quality of ownership that can be gained for example from reading and owning a real book, but also a real sense of life. That that book could last for an infinite amount of time. However, with digital information... the sense of time, of lasting long time, just does not seem to be as valid.
I imagine there are many discussions over whether the increase in technology does in fact increase or decrease the lifespan of information. So I may look this up some time, as it could be argued that in fact the widespread availability of information, therefore increases the ability for certain pieces of information to stay alive. But yes I think I will ponder this some more another day.
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