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This is a really weird article for me. Ebooks are zip files with HTML pages (that is, text files) and images inside. That's about it. These three technologies

This is a really weird article for me. Ebooks are zip files with HTML pages (that is, text files) and images inside. That's about it. These three technologies are some of the oldest and most robust we have when it comes to digital media at large. Being concerned about reading and displaying HTML pages in a zip file in a decade is absurd. They're both already over 30 years old themselves. DRM, yes. DRM is a complete and utter pox on the digital media world. Almost as bad as trade-bound paperbacks which tend to fall apart after (sometimes during, grrr) a single read. Preserving trade paperbacks, however, takes more effort than removing ebook DRM, and both procedures are well documented with broadly available tools.

kazinator 4y ago
If you don't copy those files to new media, the piece of hardware itself that they reside on may be unusable. How easily can you read some HTML sitting on a 500 megabyte IDE drive from 1995, versus a book printed in 1995? If you come across such an object, you don't even know what is on it, and whether it is worth it to delve into it.
- falcolas 4y ago
  Hence my comment about needing a backup strategy. If I go to a library to read a trade paperback from 1995, it's going to have been re-bound. And that's if the paper has survived. Trade-bound paperback books - which are usually price equivalent to ebooks - require intervention to remain usable for more than a few years. As for my own collection, I have no books from 1995 left. They've mostly fallen apart or been replaced with ebooks (which are still in great condition).
  - goosedragons 4y ago
    What do you do to your books?? Chew on them while reading? I've read and bought paperbacks more than 30 years old. Yeah, I imagine a popular book in a library that's constantly checked out wears out faster, but every 27 year old trade you have is ruined? Seriously?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
abracadaniel 4y ago
The point is that the paperback can sit on a shelf for 100 years be readable. An ebook takes a migration plan to remain readable. Yes you can remove DRM, but libraries cannot, they have to keep paying, and they're being sued to prevent them from preserving and migrating their data.
- falcolas 4y ago
  > the paperback can sit on a shelf for 100 years be readable Not really. The paper's acidic, which means that the paper degrades to the point of not being usable without a huge amount of intervention. I have trade paperbacks which are under 20 years old whose paper are downright brittle. > but libraries canno Which is, I hate to say, irrelevant to the discussion of preserving digital documents. Libraries are getting shafted - humanity at large is not.
  - wizzwizz4 4y ago
    > Libraries are getting shafted - humanity at large is not. Libraries are how humanity at large preserves documents! Sure, I might have a wonderful collection of books on my hard drive, but other than me (and whoever knows about my torrents), nobody's benefiting from that; whereas everyone with a local library knows (at least, in theory) that they can find information there. When I kick the bucket, what happens to my hard drive? If somebody knew about it and cared enough, they might subsume its contents into their collection; and then the information would be safe for another… few decades? To quote Randall Munroe (https://xkcd.com/1909/ https://xkcd.com/1909/ title text): > I spent a long time thinking about how to design a system for long-term organization and storage of subject-specific informational resources without needing ongoing work from the experts who created them, only to realized I'd just reinvented libraries.
    - falcolas 4y ago
      Historically, yes. Today? No. The internet has, in many ways, supplanted it. And where Libraries are hobbled by following the laws, the internet community has found ways around this particular damage. And that's cool. Now then, should Libraries be getting shafted like this? Fuck no. Can any actions I take - short of running for office and making my way up to the federal government in charge of interstate commerce - effect that? Also, sadly, no. I will continue to support librarians seeking change while facing reality.
dfabulich 4y ago
The article isn't clear, but in the conclusion, the author is asking for libraries to have the legal right to remove ebook DRM, and to make copies of ebooks in the course of routine maintenance. IMO, the article's title should say, "DRMed ebooks wear out faster than physical books." And that's clearly correct: digital data that you don't make copies of is quite physically fragile, and even if the physical media survives, it may be difficult or impossible to read it. (Reading data off an old IDE hard drive or Jazz drive, for example.)
debesyla 4y ago
> trade-bound paperbacks which tend to fall apart after (sometimes during, grrr) a single read I'm sorry for probabbly a stupid question, but what is "trade-bound paperbacks"? I have tried to google it but I can't figure out which binding method is meant here..? Cheap glued paperback books? Sewn books? Something else? :/
- falcolas 4y ago
  Effectively hot glue bound paperbacks filled with low quality, poorly printed pages. EDIT: I have probably confused Mass Market paperbacks with Trade paperbacks. The former is the main target of my ire, the latter is purportedly of higher quality in general.
  - debesyla 4y ago
    Thank you!
ncallaway 4y ago
> Ebooks are zip files with HTML pages (that is, text files) and images inside There is almost no consumer storage medium that will last as long as a printed book. The files that will (probably) be easy to read in 50 years won't be readable on the hard-drive/CD-ROM/etc where they are stored. A printed book likely would be able to still be read
moralestapia 4y ago
I totally get the point of the article, not only in books but in other media as well. My CD collection is sitting next to me since forever and will continue to be there for the foreseeable future. Guess what happened to the very carefully curated playlists I had on Grooveshark? I've also lost dozens of songs from Spotify as they've been removed. I have a huge list of music videos that I like on YouTube (~900), every month or so I find a few of them gone, I don't even know which ones they are as they only say "deleted video" or whatever.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
BarbaryCoast 4y ago
PDF is also future-proof. At least, it can be. A PDF file is just a collection of pages described in the Postscript language. The page "object" is then compressed and some metadata is built around it to produce the PDF. There are tools which will extract the pages in their (plain text) Postscript form.

kazinator 4y ago

If you don't copy those files to new media, the piece of hardware itself that they reside on may be unusable. How easily can you read some HTML sitting on a 500 megabyte IDE drive from 1995, versus a book printed in 1995? If you come across such an object, you don't even know what is on it, and whether it is worth it to delve into it.

falcolas 4y ago
Hence my comment about needing a backup strategy. If I go to a library to read a trade paperback from 1995, it's going to have been re-bound. And that's if the paper has survived. Trade-bound paperback books - which are usually price equivalent to ebooks - require intervention to remain usable for more than a few years. As for my own collection, I have no books from 1995 left. They've mostly fallen apart or been replaced with ebooks (which are still in great condition).
- goosedragons 4y ago
  What do you do to your books?? Chew on them while reading? I've read and bought paperbacks more than 30 years old. Yeah, I imagine a popular book in a library that's constantly checked out wears out faster, but every 27 year old trade you have is ruined? Seriously?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

abracadaniel 4y ago

The point is that the paperback can sit on a shelf for 100 years be readable. An ebook takes a migration plan to remain readable. Yes you can remove DRM, but libraries cannot, they have to keep paying, and they're being sued to prevent them from preserving and migrating their data.

falcolas 4y ago
> the paperback can sit on a shelf for 100 years be readable Not really. The paper's acidic, which means that the paper degrades to the point of not being usable without a huge amount of intervention. I have trade paperbacks which are under 20 years old whose paper are downright brittle. > but libraries canno Which is, I hate to say, irrelevant to the discussion of preserving digital documents. Libraries are getting shafted - humanity at large is not.
- wizzwizz4 4y ago
  > Libraries are getting shafted - humanity at large is not. Libraries are how humanity at large preserves documents! Sure, I might have a wonderful collection of books on my hard drive, but other than me (and whoever knows about my torrents), nobody's benefiting from that; whereas everyone with a local library knows (at least, in theory) that they can find information there. When I kick the bucket, what happens to my hard drive? If somebody knew about it and cared enough, they might subsume its contents into their collection; and then the information would be safe for another… few decades? To quote Randall Munroe (https://xkcd.com/1909/ https://xkcd.com/1909/ title text): > I spent a long time thinking about how to design a system for long-term organization and storage of subject-specific informational resources without needing ongoing work from the experts who created them, only to realized I'd just reinvented libraries.
  - falcolas 4y ago
    Historically, yes. Today? No. The internet has, in many ways, supplanted it. And where Libraries are hobbled by following the laws, the internet community has found ways around this particular damage. And that's cool. Now then, should Libraries be getting shafted like this? Fuck no. Can any actions I take - short of running for office and making my way up to the federal government in charge of interstate commerce - effect that? Also, sadly, no. I will continue to support librarians seeking change while facing reality.

dfabulich 4y ago

The article isn't clear, but in the conclusion, the author is asking for libraries to have the legal right to remove ebook DRM, and to make copies of ebooks in the course of routine maintenance. IMO, the article's title should say, "DRMed ebooks wear out faster than physical books." And that's clearly correct: digital data that you don't make copies of is quite physically fragile, and even if the physical media survives, it may be difficult or impossible to read it. (Reading data off an old IDE hard drive or Jazz drive, for example.)

debesyla 4y ago

> trade-bound paperbacks which tend to fall apart after (sometimes during, grrr) a single read I'm sorry for probabbly a stupid question, but what is "trade-bound paperbacks"? I have tried to google it but I can't figure out which binding method is meant here..? Cheap glued paperback books? Sewn books? Something else? :/

falcolas 4y ago
Effectively hot glue bound paperbacks filled with low quality, poorly printed pages. EDIT: I have probably confused Mass Market paperbacks with Trade paperbacks. The former is the main target of my ire, the latter is purportedly of higher quality in general.
- debesyla 4y ago
  Thank you!

ncallaway 4y ago

> Ebooks are zip files with HTML pages (that is, text files) and images inside There is almost no consumer storage medium that will last as long as a printed book. The files that will (probably) be easy to read in 50 years won't be readable on the hard-drive/CD-ROM/etc where they are stored. A printed book likely would be able to still be read

moralestapia 4y ago

I totally get the point of the article, not only in books but in other media as well. My CD collection is sitting next to me since forever and will continue to be there for the foreseeable future. Guess what happened to the very carefully curated playlists I had on Grooveshark? I've also lost dozens of songs from Spotify as they've been removed. I have a huge list of music videos that I like on YouTube (~900), every month or so I find a few of them gone, I don't even know which ones they are as they only say "deleted video" or whatever.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

BarbaryCoast 4y ago

PDF is also future-proof. At least, it can be. A PDF file is just a collection of pages described in the Postscript language. The page "object" is then compressed and some metadata is built around it to produce the PDF. There are tools which will extract the pages in their (plain text) Postscript form.