Is digital distribution really the future?

[plus2exp]

We can look to the music industry for a practical idea of how this will eventually play out. In short, there's room for both. I haven't bought a physical music CD in over 7 years, but there are still many people who prefer to have a hard copy of their music. As long as there's a market, even a small one, physical media will persist.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

The only thing that will really stay as it is are books. You can NEVER kill books

Physical copies of books/records MUST stay. I shudder when I think what would happen if we had all digital libraries full of our literature and history...and then BAM! E.M.P. attack!

Huh... If I had a Kindle and a supply of money that is far harder to exhaust than it currently is, then I would certainly go all digital on books. Other than missing that "new book smell" and the feel of nice pages to softly rustle between my fingertips, I don't see why not. Sounds like a good tradeoff to me. Same for CD's and movies - I actually don't have much of a problem with them going all digital. The prospect is certainly a lamentable one, but for me it isn't something I would cringe much over.

When it comes to books for personal use, I have no problem with the whole Kindle/Nook digital library thing. But I'm talking about our archives, our libraries, our back copies. As in, the copies of the really important books, such as classic literature, literature that will be classic one day, historical records, mathematical theories, and scientific studies. There are some librarians who want THAT STUFF to go ALL digital, and I'm VERY against that.

Currently, to destroy all archival copies of that information, you'd have to find every physical copy and destroy each one. If our library archives were to go all digital, one serious hardware/software system crash could potentially wipe out centuries worth of accumulated knowledge. And while there are certain safegaurds to prevent those scenarios, the best safegaurd is physical copies that aren't dependent on electricity or technology in any way.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

The only thing that will really stay as it is are books. You can NEVER kill books

Physical copies of books/records MUST stay. I shudder when I think what would happen if we had all digital libraries full of our literature and history...and then BAM! E.M.P. attack!

Huh... If I had a Kindle and a supply of money that is far harder to exhaust than it currently is, then I would certainly go all digital on books. Other than missing that "new book smell" and the feel of nice pages to softly rustle between my fingertips, I don't see why not. Sounds like a good tradeoff to me. Same for CD's and movies - I actually don't have much of a problem with them going all digital. The prospect is certainly a lamentable one, but for me it isn't something I would cringe much over.

When it comes to books for personal use, I have no problem with the whole Kindle/Nook digital library thing. But I'm talking about our archives, our libraries, our back copies. As in, the copies of the really important books, such as classic literature, literature that will be classic one day, historical records, mathematical theories, and scientific studies. There are some librarians who want THAT STUFF to go ALL digital, and I'm VERY against that.

Currently, to destroy all archival copies of that information, you'd have to find every physical copy and destroy each one. If our library archives were to go all digital, one serious hardware/software system crash could potentially wipe out centuries worth of accumulated knowledge. And while there are certain safegaurds to prevent those scenarios, the best safegaurd is physical copies that aren't dependent on electricity or technology in any way.

Do you really think all of those classics are in one spot? Everything from the Bible to Oedipus the King to Paradise Lost to the Chronicles of Narnia are - all of them - stored in thousands of different places. If one server were to fail, then there are tons of different places that those works are backed up in. And that's if something were to happen to one of them. If there was something that could shut down/destroy every computer and server that currently exists on this Earth, then we would have far, far bigger problems than a missing library of old books. Getting stuck in a world akin to the one in The Book of Eli would be horrible but I would be far less worried about reading and far more worried about getting society on its feet.

So nothing short of an apocalyptic event would destroy those classics that many hold so dearly.

EDIT: And even in a single server there are several hard drives with the same information on it. It's called "redundancy". Trust me, if books were to go all digital you wouldn't have anything to worry about.

I'm not saying that they're all in one spot.

I'm saying that even the POSSIBILITY of an entire library's worth of information becoming defunct for any length of time (that's one library, not every library) because of a simple power outage is reason for concern. Also, there is the fact that a virtual library, saved on series of small computer systems and hard drives, can be stolen/tampered with/damaged/destroyed MUCH easier than a library's worth of stacks. To me, these things smell of over-dependence on technology.

Now, I'm a bibliophile, so I concede that I have a definite bias, and technophiles will likely dismiss me as paranoid or ignorant, and that's fine. Everyone has their own opinion and perspective.

 

[Silenthillreturnz]

I like hard copy

 

[DasDestroyer]

Physical copies of books/records MUST stay. I shudder when I think what would happen if we had all digital libraries full of our literature and history...and then BAM! E.M.P. attack!

Fire called, it wants its ability to destroy libraries of books back.

 

[NLS]

Physical copies of books/records MUST stay. I shudder when I think what would happen if we had all digital libraries full of our literature and history...and then BAM! E.M.P. attack!

Fire called, it wants its ability to destroy libraries of books back.

Exactly this. Whenever I see someone state that "What if Steam (or insert other digital platform) doesn't survive the next 20 years, all my games will be gone?", I can't help but think that not even your own bookshelf is safe. I can't play Starcraft anymore because the CD is so scratched up from use. And a friend of mine once had burglars that stole many of his games, including ones that he was borrowing from me.
Of course digital distribution is prone to things like data loss and account theft, but good old physical copy isn't 100% safe either.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

Physical copies of books/records MUST stay. I shudder when I think what would happen if we had all digital libraries full of our literature and history...and then BAM! E.M.P. attack!

Fire called, it wants its ability to destroy libraries of books back.

Exactly this. Whenever I see someone state that "What if Steam (or insert other digital platform) doesn't survive the next 20 years, all my games will be gone?", I can't help but think that not even your own bookshelf is safe. I can't play Starcraft anymore because the CD is so scratched up from use. And a friend of mine once had burglars that stole many of his games, including ones that he was borrowing from me.
Of course digital distribution is prone to things like data loss and account theft, but good old physical copy isn't 100% safe either.

Fires can be fought. We don't have a public service department dedicated to protecting the integrity of digital media.

Just saying...

Also, books don't require electricity.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

Physical copies of books/records MUST stay. I shudder when I think what would happen if we had all digital libraries full of our literature and history...and then BAM! E.M.P. attack!

Fire called, it wants its ability to destroy libraries of books back.

Fires can be fought; we don't have a public service department dedicated to preserving digital media from destruction.

Also, books don't require electricity. Just saying...

 

[veloper]

It's only a matter of time. Only slow internet adoption in households is holding DD back. Harddrive space is already very cheap and will only become cheaper.

The benefits to the publishers are just too huge for them to ignore.

Firstly, retail distibution takes about 50% of the game price. Publishers can earn alot more if they cut out the middle man so they will.
Secondly, 100% digital distrubution completely eliminates second hand sales and publishers are trying very hard right now with little success, but DD will solve their problem.

 

[scw55]

As long as I have crappy internet at home I will always buy physical copies of new releases. As much as 'convenient' it is to not have to travel 15miles to town/juggle physical disks or wait painfully at the post-box, I think it's immoral to waste so much electricity leaving my laptop on over several nights to download a new game. Infact, it's slower, because atleast if I order the game off say Amazon it'll arrive on day of release, opposed to being only able to actaully start downloading the game when it's released (and then taking a few days to complete. [excluding pre-download, though with Portal 2 that took years]).

 

[DasDestroyer]

Physical copies of books/records MUST stay. I shudder when I think what would happen if we had all digital libraries full of our literature and history...and then BAM! E.M.P. attack!

Fire called, it wants its ability to destroy libraries of books back.

Fires can be fought; we don't have a public service department dedicated to preserving digital media from destruction.

Also, books don't require electricity. Just saying...

Yet AFAIK fires are thousands of times more common than offensive EMPs.

 

[imnot]

I hope not, because I have terrible internet, tf2 cost me £14 on steam, 7 hours to download and about £10 extra on my bill.

Besides, boxs are cool.

 

[go-10]

I see them heading the same place as comic books, little by little it'll go more and more digital until it eventually disappears

 

[remnant_phoenix]

Physical copies of books/records MUST stay. I shudder when I think what would happen if we had all digital libraries full of our literature and history...and then BAM! E.M.P. attack!

Fire called, it wants its ability to destroy libraries of books back.

Fires can be fought; we don't have a public service department dedicated to preserving digital media from destruction.

Also, books don't require electricity. Just saying...

Yet AFAIK fires are thousands of times more common than offensive EMPs.

And here I thought we were talking joking around about fire. Now you go talking about realistic probability of terrorism against library archives.

For the record, I mentioned EMP attack as a joke to illustrate that I think we should be aware of the limits and weaknesses and potential problems of all-digital knowledge archives.

But if you're gonna get all argumentative about it, I honestly don't believe that an EMP WMD attack on our knowledge archive is currently a credible threat. There. Happy?

 

[DasDestroyer]

Physical copies of books/records MUST stay. I shudder when I think what would happen if we had all digital libraries full of our literature and history...and then BAM! E.M.P. attack!

Fire called, it wants its ability to destroy libraries of books back.

Fires can be fought; we don't have a public service department dedicated to preserving digital media from destruction.

Also, books don't require electricity. Just saying...

Yet AFAIK fires are thousands of times more common than offensive EMPs.

And here I thought we were talking joking around about fire. Now you go talking about realistic probability of terrorism against library archives.

For the record, I mentioned EMP attack as a joke to illustrate that I think we should be aware of the limits and weaknesses and potential problems of all-digital knowledge archives.

But if you're gonna get all argumentative about it, I honestly don't believe that an EMP WMD attack on our knowledge archive is currently a credible threat. There. Happy?

... somewhat.
But now I'd sad that my sense of humour isn't working today...

 

[Sarsaparilla]

Physical copies of books/records MUST stay. I shudder when I think what would happen if we had all digital libraries full of our literature and history...and then BAM! E.M.P. attack!

Fire called, it wants its ability to destroy libraries of books back.

Fires can be fought; we don't have a public service department dedicated to preserving digital media from destruction.

Also, books don't require electricity. Just saying...

But what about digital media's ability to store so much more information in much smaller spaces? My local library is constantly having to sell off items to make room for new books - shelf space is a real concern and when you're trying to save as much as possible for posterity not really knowing what might be valuable down the line digital media can really help out. And digital media's ability to create identical copies of the original item nearly instantly and to send out those copies just as fast is pretty darn impressive. While I don't know of any department dedicated to the special issues and concerns digital media presents I think that people who implement digital versions already do their best to address those issues and implement new, better policies/equipment as they come along & are able to. Sure, digital media has it's issues and it may be too early yet to confidently push for it to be the default format for our libraries but I'm not afraid of that day. Project Gutenberg & Archive.org kick ass!

 

[remnant_phoenix]

Physical copies of books/records MUST stay. I shudder when I think what would happen if we had all digital libraries full of our literature and history...and then BAM! E.M.P. attack!

Fire called, it wants its ability to destroy libraries of books back.

Fires can be fought; we don't have a public service department dedicated to preserving digital media from destruction.

Also, books don't require electricity. Just saying...

But what about digital media's ability to store so much more information in much smaller spaces? My local library is constantly having to sell off items to make room for new books - shelf space is a real concern and when you're trying to save as much as possible for posterity not really knowing what might be valuable down the line digital media can really help out. And digital media's ability to create identical copies of the original item nearly instantly and to send out those copies just as fast is pretty darn impressive. While I don't know of any department dedicated to the special issues and concerns digital media presents I think that people who implement digital versions already do their best to address those issues and implement new, better policies/equipment as they come along & are able to. Sure, digital media has it's issues and it may be too early yet to confidently push for it to be the default format for our libraries but I'm not afraid of that day. Project Gutenberg & Archive.org kick ass!

Oh yeah, space is a huge concern when you're storing lots of information in print.

I'm in total agreement that there are huge incentives to going to all-digital and you nailed all the ones I can think of. You also address the possible problems, which I applaud. My concern is that too many technophiles may be pushing for "all-digital" before we're ready for it because they're focusing on the advantages and not giving enough regard to the potential problems and how to prevent them.

And even when we're completely given over the digital information age, I believe that there should still be hard copy archives somewhere, just in case the worst of the worst of social and/or technological breakdowns occur.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

The only thing that will really stay as it is are books. You can NEVER kill books

Physical copies of books/records MUST stay. I shudder when I think what would happen if we had all digital libraries full of our literature and history...and then BAM! E.M.P. attack!

Huh... If I had a Kindle and a supply of money that is far harder to exhaust than it currently is, then I would certainly go all digital on books. Other than missing that "new book smell" and the feel of nice pages to softly rustle between my fingertips, I don't see why not. Sounds like a good tradeoff to me. Same for CD's and movies - I actually don't have much of a problem with them going all digital. The prospect is certainly a lamentable one, but for me it isn't something I would cringe much over.

When it comes to books for personal use, I have no problem with the whole Kindle/Nook digital library thing. But I'm talking about our archives, our libraries, our back copies. As in, the copies of the really important books, such as classic literature, literature that will be classic one day, historical records, mathematical theories, and scientific studies. There are some librarians who want THAT STUFF to go ALL digital, and I'm VERY against that.

Currently, to destroy all archival copies of that information, you'd have to find every physical copy and destroy each one. If our library archives were to go all digital, one serious hardware/software system crash could potentially wipe out centuries worth of accumulated knowledge. And while there are certain safegaurds to prevent those scenarios, the best safegaurd is physical copies that aren't dependent on electricity or technology in any way.

Do you really think all of those classics are in one spot? Everything from the Bible to Oedipus the King to Paradise Lost to the Chronicles of Narnia are - all of them - stored in thousands of different places. If one server were to fail, then there are tons of different places that those works are backed up in. And that's if something were to happen to one of them. If there was something that could shut down/destroy every computer and server that currently exists on this Earth, then we would have far, far bigger problems than a missing library of old books. Getting stuck in a world akin to the one in The Book of Eli would be horrible but I would be far less worried about reading and far more worried about getting society on its feet.

So nothing short of an apocalyptic event would destroy those classics that many hold so dearly.

EDIT: And even in a single server there are several hard drives with the same information on it. It's called "redundancy". Trust me, if books were to go all digital you wouldn't have anything to worry about.

I'm not saying that they're all in one spot.

I'm saying that even the POSSIBILITY of an entire library's worth of information becoming defunct for any length of time (that's one library, not every library) because of a simple power outage is reason for concern. Also, there is the fact that a virtual library, saved on series of small computer systems and hard drives, can be stolen/tampered with/damaged/destroyed MUCH easier than a library's worth of stacks. To me, these things smell of over-dependence on technology.

Now, I'm a bibliophile, so I concede that I have a definite bias, and technophiles will likely dismiss me as paranoid or ignorant, and that's fine. Everyone has their own opinion and perspective.

It isn't paranoia or ignorance. At least I don't think so. It seems more like an unwillingness to welcome the digital (i.e. no physical CD's, DVD's, games) era, which as you can see by my original post I also am a little bit against, though my concern is with games and not with books, movies, or audio CD's.

As for hard drives going bad because of a simple power outage - that's laughably unlikely. I'd just like to assure you that your books would never be completely lost if they were to go all digital, but I just don't see all-digital happening. As illustrated by this thread, too many people like their physical copies to even think about buying a whole bunch of new ones. The only thing you'll actually lose is the joy of having a physical book.

Maybe "defunct" was the wrong word. What I meant was "unusable," "unusable for any amount of time from a power outage." As someone who lives in a hurricane zone, I've been without power for multiple days. The idea that I could read my physical books was a huge comfort when laptop batteries died and there was litter else to do.

The idea of an entire library being inaccessible because the electricity is out is, to me, depressing.

 

[k-ossuburb]

I've been reading through this and people seem to be focusing on how much more "convenient", "cheaper" and "faster" digital distribution is in comparrison to physical media, yet nobody has stopped to think of what it really means if physical media disappeared altogether.

Digital distribution is not a model for making things easier for you, it is, in fact, a way for companies to try to stamp out the pre-owned market. As more and more media becomes digitized there will be less and less media in your hands and therefore in your own control.

I can take a game or CD into a store or over to a friend's house and sell it to them for a reasonable price which I set and it is perfectly fine, if I try this with a digital download it is ILLEGAL and will end up costing me way more than what I originally paid for the damn thing in the first place.

If all media becomes 100% digital then good luck finding a bargain bin because there won't be any; the company will be setting the price you pay for your media. Picking up an entire album for pocket change will be a thing of the past, you'll instead have to deal with compressed bullshit that always has a digital whine in the background.

Every time you want to buy a movie you'll have to contend with prices that the company sets, you won't be able to borrow it from a friend's house, glance at your shelf when you feel like watching something or, indeed, trade it back to the for in-store credit.

This isn't something that companies are doing for you. Just like everything else they do this is about the bottom line. This is about them taking the media you paid for literally out of your hands and therefore completely removing your right to it.

Once this happens, what's to stop companies from shoving unskippable ads into their products in order force you to buy more of their crap? What's to stop them from making you pay to have the ads removed as part of a "Gold Membership" service?

What if they shoved DRM into everything? Movies, music, games, books, T.V. shows, etc. they'll pretty much have to since piracy will now be the ONLY way anyone could get the media they want at a price they can afford.

Imagine how irritating it would be if you had to maintain a constant internet connection to listen to the album you just bought, and how much more irritating it would be if for 30 seconds before you played it there was an ad for another album by another band you liked because the company had been tracking your purchases.

 

[scw55]

As long as I have crappy internet at home I will always buy physical copies of new releases. As much as 'convenient' it is to not have to travel 15miles to town/juggle physical disks or wait painfully at the post-box, I think it's immoral to waste so much electricity leaving my laptop on over several nights to download a new game. Infact, it's slower, because atleast if I order the game off say Amazon it'll arrive on day of release, opposed to being only able to actaully start downloading the game when it's released (and then taking a few days to complete. [excluding pre-download, though with Portal 2 that took years]).

Your laptop uses little more than 2 lightbulbs. ~ You think that's a threat? ~ George Carlin

And yet we're told to turn off lights when you leave the room. It's too easy to dismiss little things when compairing them to great behemoths. Two lightbulbs are patheticly small compaired to Las Vegas, but consider how much energy can be saved if every person avoids using two lightbulbs. As humans we generally are selfish. Since my two lightbulbs are insignificant then it's fine. Then you have 7 billion people thinking the same.