Our recent discussions and readings have touched upon the
changing meanings of traditional roles such as authorship and
readership, but we haven't spent much time yet discussing ownership. This role is easy
to take for granted in a world of print: I can walk into a bookstore,
buy a printed book, and walk out again with a clear sense that the
object is mine to do with as I wish (mostly). I can read it, give it
away, forget it on the subway, sell it to a used bookstore, leave it in a
random location in the hope that someone reads it, or hurl it into Lake
Ontario (actually, don't do that; it's littering, and that lake is
pretty full of books already). In other words, the legal affordances of the owned print book as an object align fairly closely with its physical
affordances (mostly). One thing I could do physically but probably not
legally is scan several chapters of the book and post them on the web.
So although it's not entirely true that there are no legal limits to
ownership of a printed book, it's fair to say that digital books and
related texts and artifacts are changing notions of ownership that have
evolved over centuries. As Simon Rowberry mentions in one of our readings from this past week, publishers and online
retailers are increasingly thinking of digital books not as objects but
services.
Have you had any experiences with digital books, texts, games, software, or other textual artifacts that have made you question your own assumptions about what it means to own something? How would you contextualize that experience in relation to the discussions we've been seeing in our readings for recent classes? Feel free to delve into the recommended readings or other discussions not on the course syllabus.
For example, a few years ago I wanted to download a particular novel in EPUB format in order to do some bibliographical analysis of the file itself -- the very EPUB file we looked at in class this week, in fact. Not coincidentally, I was sitting in the reading room of the Fisher Library, looking at printed editions of the book, when I decided to do some online shopping for an ebook version. I had a surprisingly difficult time finding an online retailer that would allow me to download the book as a stand-alone file; most wanted me to access the ebook through their specific software, such as iBooks or the Kobo desktop app, both of which use EPUB files but within the software's own local database. I finally found a way to pay for and download an EPUB file that I could save directly in my computer's file system, but I was surprised at how difficult it was to find one. Not only had print conditioned me to think of a book as a discrete, locatable thing, but so had other software such as iTunes made me used to purchased digital things as files.
What are your experiences with the changing nature of ownership in a digital world? Bookish examples are welcome, of course, but keep in mind that other things like video games, audio files, and video files are also texts in the broader sense of the term that McKenzie advocates in one of our recommended readings. You could also extend the idea of ownership into the idea of access, such as the forms of digital access that come with being a student at the University of Toronto. However you approach the question, please give us an example, but also take the opportunity to reflect on what we can learn from it in light of scholarly literature on the topic.
Have you had any experiences with digital books, texts, games, software, or other textual artifacts that have made you question your own assumptions about what it means to own something? How would you contextualize that experience in relation to the discussions we've been seeing in our readings for recent classes? Feel free to delve into the recommended readings or other discussions not on the course syllabus.
For example, a few years ago I wanted to download a particular novel in EPUB format in order to do some bibliographical analysis of the file itself -- the very EPUB file we looked at in class this week, in fact. Not coincidentally, I was sitting in the reading room of the Fisher Library, looking at printed editions of the book, when I decided to do some online shopping for an ebook version. I had a surprisingly difficult time finding an online retailer that would allow me to download the book as a stand-alone file; most wanted me to access the ebook through their specific software, such as iBooks or the Kobo desktop app, both of which use EPUB files but within the software's own local database. I finally found a way to pay for and download an EPUB file that I could save directly in my computer's file system, but I was surprised at how difficult it was to find one. Not only had print conditioned me to think of a book as a discrete, locatable thing, but so had other software such as iTunes made me used to purchased digital things as files.
What are your experiences with the changing nature of ownership in a digital world? Bookish examples are welcome, of course, but keep in mind that other things like video games, audio files, and video files are also texts in the broader sense of the term that McKenzie advocates in one of our recommended readings. You could also extend the idea of ownership into the idea of access, such as the forms of digital access that come with being a student at the University of Toronto. However you approach the question, please give us an example, but also take the opportunity to reflect on what we can learn from it in light of scholarly literature on the topic.
