1399 Tight Ass

A couple of random observations today.
First observation. I was in a coffee shop with a friend recently and this woman came in. She was wearing those highly fashionable extremely tight jeans. She also appeared to be carrying a cellphone in her back pocket. I’m not saying her jeans were too tight, but I could make out the icons on her touch screen.
Second observation. I was talking to a guy in an interview. As he left, he picked up a paperback book he had brought with him. I recognized the author so we chatted for a bit about it. He said his mom was in one of those book clubs where they all passed an author around and then discussed it. And I thought: This was an example of early file-sharing.
So next question: What about the intellectual property rights of the author? If you’re passing around books you’re not buying books. Why aren’t the book publishers suing folks for that? It’s not much different from trading music. If anything it’s more of a rip-off. Books cost a lot to print. A lot more than pressing a record or burning a CD.
The answer, of course, is we are headed that direction. As soon as the ebook revolution is complete, all book files will have hidden code that insures every user must pay. The only way we’ll be able to have book clubs in the future will be if we all sit around one kindle or one computer monitor.
Reading will bring us closer. Really closer. We’ll be crammed together tighter than buttocks in new blue jeans.
And the donkeys at the publishing companies can be the tight asses they’ve always wanted to be. America, ya gotta love it.