Does this sound like a bad idea to you?

[jlueke]

This age of electronic media will likely change a lot of things over time. I really think that it can help authors by giving them more direct access, but the established sources of media and their vast marketing machines won't go away either.

 

The legal situation will always lag behind the technology, and the technology is not yet quite sufficient for the needs of author and consumer. I like the temporary decryption idea, but how would you prevent someone from copying the temporarily decrypted data into a permanent location? It is all just 1's and 0's in the end. Most people who pay for something won't turn around and then give it away although they certainly could. The lawsuits are perhaps a deterrent but only in countries that would enforce them.

 

Perhaps we are heading back to the days of Mozart, Beethoven, and Haydn where the money had to be made up front and then the distributos quickly copied anything that was available.

[Ætheling]

Now for novels.... How's about a combo of audio and electronic. What a great combination. Read along and visuals with full audio capability. I'm in.

 

 

No i don't like that idea at all. Have you ever wondered why the book was always better than the film? Because in a book you imagine the characters, you imagine how they look and how big the house they live in is etc. A book is limited by your imagination only and it's more personal. (Horror books always have more impact than horror films on the subconcious... because your imagination is much better at unsettling you then any amount of gallons of blood shed on a film, when all said and done gore isn't frightening it's often just disturbing). Whereas on film and say a walk you through the book with visuals you are limited to the technology of the period.

 

Class case example, Lord of the Rings.