E(merging) Books
By: Sam Vaknin
A novel re-definition through experimentation of the classical
format of the book is emerging.
Consider the now defunct BookTailor. It used to sell its book
customization software mainly to travel agents - but such
software is likely to conquer other niches (such as the legal
and medical professions). It allows users to select bits and
pieces from a library of e-books, combine them into a totally
new tome and print and bind the latter on demand. The client
can also choose to buy the end-product as an e-book. Consider
what this simple business model does to entrenched and age old
notions such as "original" and "copies", copyright, and book
identifiers. What is the "original" in this case? Is it the
final, user-customized book - or its sources? And if no
customized book is identical to any other - what happens to
the intuitive notion of "copies"? Should BookTailor-generated
books considered to be unique exemplars of one-copy print
runs? If so, should each one receive a unique identifier (for
instance, a unique ISBN)? Does the user possess any rights in
the final product, composed and selected by him? What about
the copyrights of the original authors?
Or take BookCrossing.com. On the face of it, it presents no
profound challenge to established publishing practices and to
the modern concept of intellectual property. Members register
their books, obtain a BCID (BookCrossing ID Number) and then
give the book to someone, or simply leave it lying around for
a total stranger to find. Henceforth, fate determines the
chain of events. Eventual successive owners of the volume are
supposed to report to BookCrossing (by e-mail) about the
book's and their whereabouts, thereby generating moving plots
and mapping the territory of literacy and bibliomania. This
innocuous model subversively undermines the concept - legal
and moral - of ownership. It also expropriates the book from
the realm of passive, inert objects and transforms it into a
catalyst of human interactions across time and space. In other
words, it returns the book to its origins: a time capsule, a
time machine and the embodiment of a historical narrative.
E-books, hitherto, have largely been nothing but an ephemeral
rendition of their print predecessors. But e-books are another
medium altogether. They can and will provide a different
reading experience. Consider "hyperlinks within the e-book
and without it - to web content, reference works, etc.,
embedded instant shopping and ordering links, divergent, user-
interactive, decision driven plotlines, interaction with other
e-books (using Bluetooth or another wireless standard),
collaborative authoring, gaming and community activities,
automatically or periodically updated content, ,multimedia
capabilities, database, Favourites and History Maintenance
(records of reading habits, shopping habits, interaction with
other readers, plot related decisions and much more),
automatic and embedded audio conversion and translation
capabilities, full wireless piconetworking and
scatternetworking capabilities and more".
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