Is Apple conducive to stealing?

Sick of the iPad? If you don’t have one, then most likely you are. Still, there’s constant news either because the device is changing some company, lacking something noticable now that it’s been out a week or, in this case, causing all sorts of problems for other industries.

The book publishing industry knows that it’s in trouble and has to make some serious changes because of e-books, but one of its fears is coming true because of the iPad: piracy!

TorrentFreak tracked downloads of books on BitTorrent throughout the week after the iPad launched and found that, yes, there is some illegal downloading going on. “The number of unauthorized eBook downloads on BitTorrent grew by 78% on average.” That is a huge number. The interesting part is that the books that TorrentFreak tracked were business books because that fit the “demographics of iPad buyers.” Looking at the general bestselling list on Amazon provided nothing. Those 10 books were not seen on BitTorrent, although they might be elsewhere (i.e. Pirate Bay).

One thing that the book publishing industry can relax about is that book piracy isn’t anywhere near illegal music downloading. Of course, the iPod has been out for almost a decade, whereas the iPad and other e-readers have only been popular a couple of years. So, while the number is small right now, it will most likely grow in the coming years.

True, it’s not Apple’s fault, per se. Apple is just at the front of a lot of technological advances right now and it’s the technology, not the company, that is making it possible for people to skirt around paying. No matter what company created the iPod or the iPad, people will find a way to get things for free. Because who likes to pay for stuff?

Brave New Books

All these e-readers and tablet computers are great for avid readers, aren’t they? Not only are you able to download a lot of e-books for low prices, but now these e-books have all sorts of added features. There are extra apps to accompany them, there are extra notes and there are ways of buying books per chapter.

Imagine if the Lord of the Rings trilogy was originally published in the age of the e-reader. There would be all sorts of added bells and whistles. The e-books would be like buying the extended DVDs. There would be interactive maps following the journey to Mordor. There would be documents, like the ones Gandalf finds in Gondor detailing the Ring. There would probably be character sketches and photos of what gave J.R.R. Tolkien his inspiration.

These are some of the things that David Baldacci’s new book Deliver Us From Evil is going to come equipped with. The book experience is not just about reading a book any more. It’s become a more in-depth experience and journey. The nerd in me loves this.

The iPad's not out yet, but enriched e-books will be right at home on its screen.

The other side of the fence doesn’t like the way our grass looks though. For the people who make contracts and try to figure out rights, things are getting a little sketchy. Imagine trying to make a movie like Deliver Us From Evil into a movie. Who gets rights to certain aspects? Undoubtedly the publisher’s will say anything part of the original book package is the book. The studio will say that those extra bells and whistles are media rights that the movie company should have rights to.

Are research photo or text cut from the final product really a part of a book? Do these things belong with the studio that makes the movie? After all, the studio might choose to include some of the cut text. Oftentimes a movie based on a book will have extra scenes that help move the plot or are visually more appealing or whatever the reason is.

Google is usually right, but not this time

Making predictions about technology is hard. Remember Back to the Future? In the second movie kids had hovering skateboards. Ever watched The Jetsons? According to that show by the year 2062 people had flying cars and buildings were extremely high up on the top of poles. I have faith technology and innovation but I doubt any of that will come to pass in 52 years.

Making predictions can come back to bite you in the ass, as Farhad Manjoo pointed out in his Slate piece: That Whole Internet Thing’s Not Going to Work Out. Basically, someone wrote in Newsweek that the Internet was never going to become used widely by the public. Well things changed a lot in just a few years.

Google’s sales chief, made the grand statement that desktops will be irrelevant in three years. While I firmly believe that desktops e-readers share the same fate, I don’t think three years is long enough. All the companies that have thousands of desktops will have to replace all of them. Yes, more people are using laptops and smartphones and soon iPads and other tablets. And while, according to Manjoo, you should never “underestimate people’s capacity for change,” I think three years is pushing change a little quickly.

Maybe 10 years down the line desktops will become irrelevant. The majority of people will have to have strayed from desktops for his prediction to be true and I just don’t see that happening. Many people have both a desktop and a laptop. And while desktop sales might begin to stagnate, it won’t be until enough are going unsold that companies stop producing as many or any that I would feel they are “irrelevant.”

I think Google’s prediction of desktops is probably overstating and more wishful thinking on the company’s part since they stated they are going a more mobile route. It is beneficial to them if their three-year prediction comes true, after all.

How many more years do you think desktops have left?