I have often wondered about the human
history where many have developed our ideas and knowledge and where others have
burned the libraries. Of course, the books of the world also have been
destroyed by accidents and people have died and taken their ideas with them.
But I still imagine that the greatest losses were through violence. How would
the world have been if we would have kept all that was brought and thought by
man, if we could have gained all from all production, burnt cities would still
be here and we would be in possession of all the efforts of man?
Today such destruction is built in the production of the books
in many countries. The book used to be something expensive and very special,
especially before the knowledge in reading spread all over the world. A book
was kept for ever or at least a couple of centuries. Now it has a life of a
couple of years. After it have been printed it remains at the most for three years
before it is put on sale to clear the stocks. Eventually there is a second
chance for it as paperback or audiobook, if the market says so. Very few books
survive more years’ cause of high selling and is reprinted.
Almost no books are in stock after five
years. The libraries have the greatest sellers until they fall to pieces and
the bookshops close down by economic reasons, the books of greatest interest go
through auctions to save at least some of the rarities.
Books, of course, printed in different
languages, also play in different divisions. The possible readers and byers
differ so much. If 500 million speak Hindi and only 30 % of them read books,
still the number of possible readers are about 150 000 000! If now my
book is enough interesting for that culture. A book in Swedish maybe has
6 000 000 possible readers. And some of the other small languages on
the earth have even less readers than that. It is always hard to calculate the
printed number of books. It is very rare in Sweden to print more than ten
thousand copies. Many books are printed in a couple of hundreds and some of
them are not sold. It is easy to understand what that do to the costs.
There are more books printed in all
countries than any of the residents there can read about. And they all are
fighting of attention from the same readers or less. In Sweden, we keep digital
records of all printed books, all titles to be found under topics, and every
book with its unique International ISBN number, also computerized. If I find a
printed book anywhere in the world, I can turn it and read the ISBN number and
on the Internet, find any information about the book and even the best price in
closest internet bookshop.
Many hundred years ago, we already
produced so much new written material, that no one could read it during their
lifetime. We were already then in the hands of other people who could tell us
what was written and the content in more detail. We were in the same position
as the illiterate, who has to pay for reading and writing. With that follows
also increased control problems. When you hear, the story told in second hand
it is always changed a bit.
There are international and national rules
and laws to protect the writer and his rights of compensation for his work.
These rules are guilty in many decades, that is long after the book has died on
the market! Very often these rights are sold or is inherited by others. Hereby
sometimes someone get some money for the book. Money is actually not paid for
the work of writing the book, moreover paid if the book get some readers or
not.
For most writers, it is all about to be
published. They never get any money at all for their writing, or maybe some
small money that could never be called payment for the work they have done.
Their writing is more a way of using the right to speak, if this right ever is
allowed in that country. Here you of course find all these people with a
burning interest in developing the knowledge of man. Those who want to
cooperate with others to build a future knowledge.
Because writers normally understand the
dialectical construction of building knowledge. One thought feeds another and
together they build the third. Some people are of course filled up with the
thought of their ideas as for ever guilty and right and fight and defend with
all arguments they find and so convinced that they use lies. But these fools
are always beaten by Time. Time is always running up and it reveals the untruth
and replace it with the next true for some time. When we say that research
shows, we always mean until next time we reveal new facts.
There are some true statements, often by
defining, that will always turn out to be true, as they cannot be shown to be
untrue without that we change the system of thinking. Among them are that two
and two equals four and Allah Is the greatest! But the supporter of Islam can
never on logical reasons deny that any Hindi gods are greater. The
mathematician can however logically prove that four is greater than three.
Many realize that the rules we have for
protecting the rights of the writers is not optimal for the rights and freedom
of speech and peoples ambition to bring knowledge to the world. The person who
could be the right person to work on to the ideas and thoughts will perhaps
never be able to read the text because it does not exist any longer!
Very few people own very big money from
writing and they have support to protect them. Probably we just need to change
to rules for digital productions anyhow.
The book is transformed from a very
expensive and unique thing to something that even can be sold in a food shop
for less money than one litres of milk. This actually is a paradox, as the
price never give any part in the producing of the book a chance to compensate
themselves for the work and their costs.
Bookstores do not get margins enough to
keep books in stock and soon only bookshops on internet are available. And the
old printed newspapers go along with bookstores.
The new book is of course at a higher
price, but if you need the book for studies you might have no other choice than
to buy. The author and his publisher are still in a bad position, as they do
not know if they get any readers and buyers. They are in the hands of the
Schools and Universities and they can of course not put the book on their lists
before it is written. Now there are a lot of writers and editors who get well
paid on good terms, but not so for all. And not all of their books are selling
good.
The same manuscript can often be reused as
paperbacks and audiobooks, thereby paying off the total costs for production.
The libraries pay normally for loans of books and audiobooks.
When the books are sold out in stock, and
sometimes long before that, the author gives away the rights of the text, and
thereby the ideas, on the internet in a form called PDF, called so by the ends
of the files. The company Adobe has produced a file that combines pictures and
text so that they look the same on screen as they look when you print them.
These files can free be produced och read in your computer. From the Internet,
the author let you free download his PDF file including the whole book.
On your own computer´s hard disk, you can
easily store a billion books if you want so, but you will never be able to read
all of them!
If you now read his text on your screen
you have got three things:
1.
You have got the whole book free.
2.
You can search the text with digital
tools.
3.
You can copy everything in the book, both
text and pictures.
Hereby students can quote och do quick
search and research in the text for what they need, and actually a lot of
possibilities to violate the rights of the author. If the owner of the rights
agrees or give the rights for the material with some remarks, there still is
the risk of plagiarism and forgeries. These are although rather easy to show as
the internet will show the crimes if we control the texts of the students
against the internet and check all the sources.
For the society, we also reached something
which the author and the cartoonist might be happy about, namely the secure for
future.
By putting the PDF on a homepage on
internet will the material only be secured for the future so long the homepage
is updated and paid, normally less than ten years.
Many have already discovered these
possibilities and the number of articles and books to download is soon reaching
an impossible amount to look through. The need for a central base of texts is
overwhelmingly and urgent. One for each language all over the world. This of
course a question for international cooperation and as so, a governmental
question. Many languages die every year and the effort to save culture
belongings and knowledge is important.
The yearly costs for a central register of
such PDF files is negligible and can be split on an almost infinite number of
files. Of course, more than you can store on your computer’s hard disk. With a
common storing system, not only you secure books for future, they are also
possible to search without any downloading. In fact, a dream of many
researchers. All contributors should be given an identity number of the text,
no matter if it is an article, a novel or any other text, in the same way that
the ISBN number work for printed books.
There are already a lot of libraries like
this, but none with the possibility for anyone the take part and most private
rights behind the materials. A central library of this kind in an easy form is
done within the budget of what some single universities already do in the area.
But all written materials produced in PDF must be collected. The day a book is
not available on the market or the libraries it should be put into the library,
if not before.
No kind of censorship should be, all texts
are to be published and stay published. If they are violating the laws they
should of course be brought to court and justice and be completed with a
warning text that the text is violating the law and brought to court, or if
already court ruling exists, a text telling so is put before it. But the text
in itself should always be protected from being taken away, thereby making a
better guarantee for justice.
Next generation of books is already here
on the market. We are talking about VR (Virtual Reality) with help of computers
och also about the technic of holography, also shaped by computers. The
computer industry talk disappointed about only 500 000 users of VR today,
but count on a heavy upturn.
The normal book out of paper is now as
cheap as can be and the technic to produce it is so simple that anyone can use
it, especially if they buy the help with printing and other things.
The next step including VR and holographic
is going to be more rocket science. More like producing films. But both VR and holographic
will come in simpler forms. Soon will free or almost free apps be on the market
for simpler production with VR and holographic for normal computers, and even
tablets and smartphones.
The computer itself will change form.
Soon a computer with a smartphone, or what
we today call a tablet, can project a picture on any wall and demonstrate for
an audience. In fact, they started selling the first ones a couple of years
ago. I have one myself.
Everything is working without cables, even
the speakers today. Next generation on the way up in the society already are
born with the new technic and download files of different kinds between
smartphones, tablets, computers, TV, printers, and others. They keep their
tablets in the schoolbag, write on a keyboard when they need written
communication. Nor the mouse needs any cables, if they use them at all.
Both computers and smartphones are
possible to be operated with your voice, if we now choose that technic. I
remember the first phones with the technic and it frightens me that it happened
so soon 25 years ago. Today the functionality is better.
Virtual Reality is shown everywhere in
adds. People with special equipment experiencing abnormal situations and
sometimes even are interacting with the fantasy world. Once someone told you
about the D-day, then they printed books telling about it, after that came the
films, later the TV-films and now you can use VR to get into the fight, if you
only could get someone to put up the big money to produce such a program.
But do not think this is only about
computer games. The potential for education has no limits and education in the
front is already using it. But the societies have to be alert and take part and
decide which productions suit education in the best manners and how they can be
used by education in the future.
Through an international educational
cooperation for producing educational material of any kind the costs for
production can be lowered. When the book is digital the translation is only on
push by the finger away. VR and the holographic technics both are easy to use
without earlier problems for international cooperation in producing material.
But the international cooperation must be organized by the authorities. But we
are in a hurry, billions of dollars are used up everywhere with much lower
effects than we should have.
I am not planning to take the business from
the media groups. I only point out the need of planning and acting from the
national sectors of education, if education should gain the possibilities and
effectiveness of new technics, instead of being totally in the hands of media
groups, who not are having the same goals as the society.
This is not for the local schools, they
should help and support the learning of the students with readymade material.
This is governmental work.
On the international level, there will
surely be hard discussions about should be produced. But then start with
introducing materials for different subjects. Take all the instructions needed
I math, so that the pupils easier understand all parts of the pre-university
levels of math. Work with short (five minutes) introductions and start with the
pre-school programs and keep that kind of educational level for all programs.
All common produced material should be
paid with governmental money, with all the rights on a common base, so that all
education can use it free without any restrictions and extra costs.
Goa the 9th of January 2017 Lennart
Warenius
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