@ErikUden What should be done individually? Archive everything and own as much physical copies as possible? Create our own digital/physical libraries?

@ErikUden I wish we considered libraries to be shrines to knowledge instead of an afterthought.

@ErikUden this is one more reason to fight DRM

@ErikUden But they'll miss out on the community building that throwing books into a bonfire while screaming praise of the Leader builds.

I guess they'll just have to make do with disabled people like me.

@ErikUden DRM is *highly* political.

@ErikUden Piracy is more important now than ever before

@ErikUden

I thought this was #programming #libraries at first...

Uff.

@ErikUden
So many people are going to be very rudely awakened by the fascism they failed to stand up against

@ErikUden
And so it is very important to support ours librairies, incities many exist and deseirve our help
The fascist threat love the way the world numerize himself in occidental countries

@ErikUden they can already do that with TV/movies. If Disney was controlled by a Christian Nationalist, they would just delete all LGBTQ and feminist content from Disney+

@ErikUden they don't even do that. they have already rewritten the whole history for their own amuse and benefit...

@ErikUden
Yes: all tech is political.

@ErikUden
Well, as long as they can corrode the cogs of Washington, I guess they'll be the ones helping these fascists.

Keep an eye out.

@ErikUden@mastodon.de

Imma just leave these here

http://libgen.rs/
https://annas-archive.org/

@ErikUden
I hear you, but at the same time, the electronic infrastructure means you can download, cache and hide any content you want to preserve. The 'woods' of Fahrenheit 451 still exists, where the knowledge will not die.

One hopes it never devolves to that, and the prescience of your warning is not diminished.

@ErikUden Library Genesis, Viva la Books!

@ErikUden not just books but also films, TV shows, and video games. It's already happening with the latter two. Digital only TV shows and games have been removed from the online story and essentially deleted from existence. The library is last bastion because they still take physical book for the most part but the trajectory is not looking good

@ErikUden Another reason to pirate everything. Even if you download some DRM-infested ebooks or audio files legally, you should run it through some DRM-breaking software and store it in a liberated format on a safe storage device. Just in case.

@ErikUden
This seems a bit like the right wing/trump view that leftists are simultaneously an all powerful conspiracy and at the same time helpless people who will be utterly defeated by trump without any effort
The Orwellian all powerful and simutaneously weak enemey

@ErikUden It’s time to get those hard copies of what you really need, folks.

@ErikUden This isn't theoretical, either.

https://gizmodo.com/amazon-secretly-removes-1984-from-the-kindle-5317703

@ErikUden Well, only the rich can afford paper books now. Just the price of paperbacks has tripled just because they decided to charge for e-books what they used to charge for paperbacks.
I use to buy a book from the Kindle store for 99 cents. They're now $15 or more. The paperback version is now $25-$35.

@ErikUden@mastodon.de Tech is apolitical, the tech companies that run it right now, are not. Amazon could delete my entire library with a click, but they couldn't touch my library of downloaded books on my server. And even if they did, nothing prevents me from making 80000 copies to USB ticks and hiding them under a rock. Tech is not inherently bad, the companies trying to keep it away from the people and in the hands of the rich are... Practice technological anarchism, not technological doomerism...

@ErikUden piracy is imperative now

@MisterEK
@CazMnobody

@ErikUden

@ErikUden that was my first thought when Amazon created the Kindle Fire. It felt like we were bringing book burnings into the digital age. And it was no surprise the first time Amazon reached into Kindle owners devices and removed a version of a book they had purchased replacing it with a new publication.

@ErikUden this is why i keep all my books on a locally hosted calibre instance

@ErikUden Don't forget about the time that Amazon pulled all copies of 1984 off of all Kindle devices. If I recall correctly, it was due to a licensing issue. Given what 1984 is about, it seems awfully suspicious. Whether it really is a licensing issue or it was done for a nefarious purpose, we can't know for sure, but it's worth being skeptical about.

@ErikUden I think it is important for people to understand the average shelflife of a book in a library. Just because there is a physical copy in a library today does not mean it will not wear out and become irreplaceable.

Decentralized digital archives are even more important than we realize.

@ErikUden Once something is digital it can’t be censored. You might be able to restrict access or make it difficult to access, but it’ll never be fully blocked

@ErikUden

They don't need to delete books. Amazon can just edit them without the Author's permission. It's an autocrat's dream.

@ErikUden Reference managers are your personal library.

@ErikUden which is why we need to decentralize digital libraries as well!

@ErikUden You are talking about _centralization_. And, yes, we need to get away from it.

@ErikUden @notsimon “they don’t gotta burn the books they just remove em”

@ErikUden That’s… not true, though? Books will always exist outside of libraries, and technology exists to download and share digital books without DRM or remote server management. You seem to be skipping a couple of steps in your personal Apocalypse.

@ErikUden wow I just remembered Napster.

@ErikUden
Excellent argument against DRM.

All they have to do is invalidate the key.

@ErikUden
Libgen exists. Also you can remove DRM from kindle ebooks.

@ErikUden Yes. People who are holding books in their hands will be pointed out as the "subversives"

@ErikUden Rage had it right 20+ years ago, "they don't gotta burn the books, they just remove 'em"

@ErikUden everyone should throw a few bucks into the general direction of Anna's Archive, Zlib and Library Genesis. Or run mirrors.

@ErikUden
And in the digital space, it's important to actually own the e-books you buy. If you can't access it, copy it, or delete it yourself, locally on your device, then you don't own it.

Remember folks, "on the cloud" just means it's someone else's computer.

@ErikUden what's DRM?

@ErikUden ✅

@ErikUden I can’t believed grow up in a State that always supported public library. Where communities events and gathering.

@ErikUden Our laziness is one of the stronger ally of capitalism. Integrated systems like Amazon + Kindle + Audible is the perfect example of this.

One cool local initiative to fight back is to create book exchange boxes in you neighbourhood. In Switzerland, they are everywhere!

It's very "fediversitic" in it's philisophy, I believe!

#LittleFreeLibrary #StopDrm #fightbackcapitalism

https://littlefreelibrary.org/

@ErikUden I continue to use my local library two or three times a week at the moment with my kids. We borrow every time, to help in part footfall and borrowing stats.

In terms of academic and public access to research, things have genuinely improved with the advent of open access…the sums charged by journals and publishers to academics is a whole other story though.

https://doaj.org

@ErikUden arms warehouses fill as quick as the cells

@ErikUden hard to ban libraries when we archive and tor exist

@ErikUden
Precisely why I have never owned a Kindle.

@ErikUden On another scale, I had this thinking not so long ago that we are able to find ancient egyptian papyrus, or some drawing on cave walls from thousands of years ago. What will futur generation find from our civilisation ? Unsusable rusty hard drives and chips. The digitalisation of our culture also destroy futur archeology and history.

@ErikUden This is why one must always de-DRM all owned content.

@ErikUden you'd probably call me a fascist.

But I still agree with you on the books. Buy and read _real_ books! Don't just use digital: get a hard copy!

@ErikUden so you are saying we need a decentralized and encrypted network for communication?

@ErikUden #Amazon in fact remotely deleted #AnimalFarm and 1984 from Kindles over a decade ago...

@ErikUden also, the ChatGPT and Grammarly, etc... if you let AI write policy papers, its going to change the language to the benefit of those who wrote the algorithms

@ErikUden - Centralized of control may be one adverse consequence of DRM, maybe even th main one - but far from being the only one. Accessibility is also hampered. For example, Kindle does not have the scrolling feature that MoonReader has that allows me to read books that otherwise I would not be able to & DRM prevents me from reading ebooks bought on Amazon on MoonReader. And I’d be surprised if alternative ebook stores (with similar book selection) are any better.

@ErikUden that's largely the same for all info. What do you recommend as a mitigation? Big fan of backups

@ErikUden I stopped buying ebooks (except for those under creativecommons or other free culture licenses) because the EUCJ ruled that every sale of an ebook is only a "communication to the public" so passing it on is only allowed with permission by the author.

https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?docid=221829&mode=req&pageIndex=1&dir=&occ=first&part=1&text=C%25E2%2580%2591263%252F18&doclang=EN&cid=4222787#ctx1

So, I’m sorry: the dystopia is already here.

@ErikUden I would not jump to such conclusions. People read, people will read, and people will find ways to get stuff to read. Yes, it is power move, but essentially fruitless against march of progress.
Fact they are doing this yes, exposes them for what they are. But unless they have power to force full dictatorship - they do not - this is just a gasp.

@ErikUden the books they would burn aren’t available pn kindle in the first place. (ironic thing to name such a device isn’t it?)

@ErikUden oh that is a very scary thought. @Babcia54

@ErikUden the books are going to be deleted from my external hard drive full of pirated PDFs?

Maybe I am missing context but bittorrent is over 15 years old and I don't see how on earth the fascists -- mostly tech illiterate -- could stop someone from running OCR on a book and putting it online.

@ErikUden oh, man…

@ErikUden This is why I strip the DRM from every single ebook I buy and archive them.

@ErikUden Thank you! It drives me nuts that many people don't realize digital is controllable. I'm not a conspiracy theorist but I feel the same about linking everything financial to a digital app. Having cash is a good thing. So is having a real copy of a challenging book that can be read by anyone.

@ErikUden @CapeBretonGent

Five? 6 years ago, there was a huge ruckus about Amazon deleting titles from Kindles over a rights claim. Maybe longer ago. Huge deal at the time, and as it turned out, Amazon was wrong about the title's copyright, IIRC. I think it was actually public domain. So it's already happening.

@ErikUden Speaking of paywall, did you know the Wayback machine bypasses pretty much any news article paywall?
(If there isn't an existing archive, use the savepagenow feature).

@ErikUden

@ErikUden Big tech has proven they're not apolitical. Avoid them and buy older books and dictionaries. They haven't been woke washed and can't be while kept on your shelf.

@ErikUden conspiracy theory. I prefer digital options and keep copies offline.

@ErikUden Remember, everyone. Piracy is a moral imperative.

@ErikUden
You have a good point.
Though I don't think they would eliminate the literature, but rather leave some so that those who read will become demoralized. Seeing the magnitude of the loss.
Much like the billionaire's media tolerating Democracy Now, FAIR, and a few other legitimate journalist's reports.
It demoralizes people when they see how completely the corporate-fascists have taken over.

@ErikUden they will not succeed

@ErikUden imagine thinking this was a guide...

@ErikUden
With a flick of the switch, your book disappears. Now that’s horror.

@ErikUden
True.. as long as #tech is controlled by #capitalists and #corporates their only goal will be to serve and supporting the ruling class.

This is not only a question of digital lirbaries.. Digital money is a big controlling mechanism. Eg: there is a huge thrust for using #DigitalMoney in #India. But even if there is any small disturbance in a place the first thing the government does is cut off #internet thus making all your digital money and transactions impossible.

@ErikUden
Perfectly a good time to learn how to use calibre to remove drm.
Ive done this. At one point i removed the drm of ebook i bought . And then stored them in an external hardrive for archive purposes

@ErikUden in fact we are already seeing this dynamic play out in American prisons (the testing ground for fascism) where for-profit companies (namely securus) are digitizing all incoming information onto tablets and even trying to get rid of physical books. And they can delete anything they want or take away the tablet at any time.

@ErikUden libraries are getting defunded because the citizenry doesn’t use them. The solution isn’t to keep up the funding, but rather get people to use libraries again. Funding follows the people in a democracy.

@ErikUden Excellent point. I'd like to share this on other social media...

@ErikUden This hadn't occurred to me, but you're quite clearly correct. All the more reason for us all to support our #libraries, and keep them funded and open! 🙏

#Tech *is* apolitical, but the uses to which it is put are not! 😥

#books #reading #book #DRM

@ErikUden In a slightly different context, this is why I prefer to maintain a personal music collection on my own hard disk, where it cannot be taken from me. [I have several back-up copies, to ensure I don't lose it all.]

I also have a text/eBook collection on my hard disk too. 👍😀

@ErikUden this was a core argument in my book The Piracy Crusade. https://archive.org/details/ThePiracyCrusade

@ErikUden torrent, data horde, self host libraries. Best ways to prevent such from happening.

@ErikUden Visible each day in China nowadays at every company surrendering to the Chinese dictatorship for "the huge market and $$$$$$$$$". The party doesn't like a book? "Oh it's gone on all devices".

@ErikUden People don't care anymore. The whole world adopts the US nightmare "I'll work hard without any rest or vacation until I can retire and to do this I need to own 4 houses by then and that's the only thing which counts and I'm ok with a dictatorship if I can have these houses".

@ErikUden . this is why i have a server to keep libgen alive.

@ErikUden Which is why using Calibre is a political decision, as much as an economic/thrift one.

@ErikUden it is a good point, but faschists movements have evolved- instead of burning books they make people feel that reading is not important