On Animal Farm...

I found this article interesting. Again, it relates heavily to my group's presentation on Wednesday for LIS 2000 and to issues of copyright and fair use in general. It seems to me that devices like the Kindle are definitely indicative of (at least part of) the future of reading, but where they have it wrong is that they're (at least as far as I'm aware) tied in directly with Amazon. Compare that an iPod, for example. Sure it's made by a single corporation (Apple), but you can put whatever you want (wherever you buy or, ahem, don't buy it from) on there. That, I think, is what really drives its popularity. Everyone can put his or her own personal touches on what that person wants to listen to or watch on his or her device. That's where radio stations (like the short-lived Jack FM in New York) who play all of their songs in a shuffle-ish mode across different listening formats get it wrong. People don't wanna hear the same songs over and over again. It's not just about randomization, but personal choice. I think (or at least I hope) that someone will invent a reading device akin to a Kindle, but where you can load up (for example) books bought from Amazon as well as Barnes and Noble as well as whatever .pdfs and .docs you might want on there for say, a class or for pleasure reading. Thus, my feeling is that these reading devices are sort of in the pre-iPod stage right now. Thoughts?

And as for Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm, aside from the obvious irony of 1984 essentially being temporarily censored by Amazon (similar to my classmate Nathaniel Wolfgang-Price's point in his group's presentation on Wednesday; specifically, he stated that Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 had either been challenged or successfully banned somewhere, though I don't remember which now), Animal Farm reminds me of two things. First off, some friends of mine in college did a zine called Manor Farm. Furthermore, there's this gem by The Kinks on their amazing 1968 amazing The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society. Enjoy!