Film, literature and music on your shelf - thing of the past?

[Martinus]

I think Apple e-books can be copied many times over and they got rid of the copy protections. So it is just a matter of honesty (i.e. that you ask your friends to delete the copy once they read it rather than keep it illegally).

I also read stuff on my iPad in the bathtub. 

[Fate]

I just bought an iPad w/ retina display for Christmas. I don't think I'll ever buy another hard copy of a book. The screen is just so... gorgeous. The only exception might be large medical anatomical atlases and such... but those are really just office decoration.

I've slowly migrated to the cloud. For $10 a month I can get 200 gigs of storage from Google. I keep all my pirated books, movies and music on there. Right now a terabyte of storage costs $50/mo, but I bet in 5 years it'll be half that.

[The Minsky Moment]

And of course it relies on the other person being in the same walled garden as you.

You are focusing on the wrong thing.  The "walled garden" is not a big issue for ereaders like it for say tablets.  Some readers use open formats so there is no walled garden at all.  Amazon does a proprietary format, but it can read using a free e-reader program on virtually any electronic platform in existence.

The real limitations on things like lending and gifting come from the old fashioned publishing companies.

[Fate]

An important issue for me is once I finished a good book, I might want to lend it to a friend, which at the moment, I can't do sort of lending him the actual ebook reader.

You can lend but you can only do it once, and it only lasts for 14 days.

I don't think that's enabled in the UK yet.
And of course it relies on the other person being in the same walled garden as you.

You can also just pirate a pdf verison of the book and send it to your friend via email. It'll be less than a 5 megabyte attachment.

[The Minsky Moment]

I keep all my pirated books, movies and music on there.

This is the kind of thing that makes the publishers go paranoid and ruin the experience for everyone else.

[Eddie Teach]

I've slowly migrated to the cloud. For $10 a month I can get 200 gigs of storage from Google. I keep all my pirated books, movies and music on there. Right now a terabyte of storage costs $50/mo, but I bet in 5 years it'll be half that.

My hard drive has 2 tb of storage space and I don't have to pay any monthly fees. 

[Fate]

I've slowly migrated to the cloud. For $10 a month I can get 200 gigs of storage from Google. I keep all my pirated books, movies and music on there. Right now a terabyte of storage costs $50/mo, but I bet in 5 years it'll be half that.

My hard drive has 2 tb of storage space and I don't have to pay any monthly fees. 

I have multiple devices. It's just so easy to access shit via google drive. It seamlessly integrates my laptop, ipad, smart phone. If I want to use whatever file on a different computer, I can get to at anytime. There's also no chance of losing the physical drive, having it become corrupted, etc.

[mongers]

And of course it relies on the other person being in the same walled garden as you.

You are focusing on the wrong thing.  The "walled garden" is not a big issue for ereaders like it for say tablets.  Some readers use open formats so there is no walled garden at all.  Amazon does a proprietary format, but it can read using a free e-reader program on virtually any electronic platform in existence.

The real limitations on things like lending and gifting come from the old fashioned publishing companies.

Yes, good points, but I think Amazon poses a particular problem as they were first to a strong market position, with perhaps the most restrictive format.
And I have a fair few amazon e-books, that have cause me this problem and as you note, short of going down the route taken by Fate el al, I really have to back out of the amazon walled garden and find a better solution, to mix my metaphors.

[The Minsky Moment]

Yes, good points, but I think Amazon poses a particular problem as they were first to a strong market position, with perhaps the most restrictive format.
And I have a fair few amazon e-books, that have cause me this problem and as you note, short of going down the route taken by Fate el al, I really have to back out of the amazon walled garden and find a better solution, to mix my metaphors.

Epub is probably the best format for you then.  I think everything can read it except the kindle.

[mongers]

Yes, good points, but I think Amazon poses a particular problem as they were first to a strong market position, with perhaps the most restrictive format.
And I have a fair few amazon e-books, that have cause me this problem and as you note, short of going down the route taken by Fate el al, I really have to back out of the amazon walled garden and find a better solution, to mix my metaphors.

Epub is probably the best format for you then.  I think everything can read it except the kindle.

Yes, I've come to that conclusion, especially as our library system uses it.
Just need to brave the crowds/high street and buy a Nook.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I am broadly with the progressive crowd here. That being said, I seduced at least one guy by showing him my Gore Vidal books and Derek Jarman DVDs shelf so this cannot be underestimated either.

Of course later on he left me for a chick. 

Um, this was in Poland? I'm pretty sure I'd fuck a guy in Poland if he bathed regularly, brushed his teeth, and had a job. That immediately puts him ahead of 99.99% of the population, male or female.

[OttoVonBismarck]

As for me, I make ebook purchases for "trash novels" and such that I'll read once for entertainment. Anything serious is still in physical format for permanence. I'll give up my large collection of leather bound books around the same time I give up my collection of guns, and it'll be defended just as vigorously.

[Jacob]

But IMO the vast majority of physical books have no special aesthetic quality or unique indiviudal history.

I'm probably more sentimental than you when it comes to books.

As for the the rest:

Most dedicated ereaders are very stingy power users so this is unlikely to be an issue unless one sepnds long periods of time in environments without access to electric power.  Net access is not required to read on an ereader - only to get more books.  Takeoffs and landings are an issue but this is a pretty insignificant period of time.  Physical books don't do well with water either. It is true, however, for a number of reasons that cookbooks are better in physical form.  As for cross-referencing, one advantage of ebooks is the ability to search across a wide number of books for a particular word, name or concepts.

Most are excellent points. Still, to counter them:

- Stingy with power or not, that won't help much if I didn't recharge the gadget for a while and then I'm off for a 14 hour flight where I packed the cable in the check in luggage or whatever. It's not an everyday concern, nor is it a reason not to get an e-reader, but it is still a reason why sometimes a physical book is better.

- As for cross referencing, the ability to search for a particular word, name, or concept across volumes isn't that important to me. What is useful is to have the book open to the page with the rules for Orc combat options, next to the main rule book open to the table of combat outcomes (that the combat options references), while having the map of the realm folded out on another part of the kitchen table. It's a niche issue, for sure, and doesn't impact the use of e-readers to read the most recent novel you like, but it's one that matters to me nonetheless.

That said, I'll probably get an e-reader eventually.

The nice thing is that although there are uses for which physical books are superior, there is an easy solution - just get physical books for those uses.   

Agreed

[Josquius]

I just bought an iPad w/ retina display for Christmas. I don't think I'll ever buy another hard copy of a book. The screen is just so... gorgeous. The only exception might be large medical anatomical atlases and such... but those are really just office decoration.

I've slowly migrated to the cloud. For $10 a month I can get 200 gigs of storage from Google. I keep all my pirated books, movies and music on there. Right now a terabyte of storage costs $50/mo, but I bet in 5 years it'll be half that.

Retina display? Whats that?

My mam just got my a kindle fire for xmas- never asked for one though she knew my kindle had died and she didnt quite understand why e-readers are so good so thought she was just getting me the latest and best version of a reader. I'm quite liking it as a little tablet computer but can't see myself doing much reading with it due to it being a conventional screen...

[katmai]

Of course later on he left me for a chick. 

Marti turns them straight.