LIBR 251 - Experiencing a significant gravitas shortfall

            Large companies such as Amazon, Apple, and Google want us to not think of digital content as something we can own. In fact, many of their end user agreements codify that we don’t actually own the content we buy. For instance, the Google play user agreement says Following payment of the applicable fees for Content, you will have the non-exclusive right, for the period selected by you in the case of a purchase for a rental period, and in other cases for as long as Google and the applicable copyright holder have rights to provide you that Content, to download, use or stream, in each case, solely as expressly permitted by Google and subject to the restrictions set out in the Terms and associated policies, copies of the applicable Content to your Devices, and to view, use, and display the Content on your Devices or as otherwise authorized by Google as part of the Service for your personal, non-commercial use only. All rights, title and interest in Google Play and Content not

Human brains are bad at conceptualizing. If it’s not something we can see or touch, we are bad at understanding it. This makes sense, as when our brains were evolving they was no need for them to understand concepts like large numbers, or the size of the earth, or that digital content is actually real. If you can touch it, see it, or lick it, your brain has a hard time believing in it. That is why a paper book feels like a real object that you really own, whereas word on a kindle screen do not. They are both fundamentally the same thing, but as far as your brain is concerned, one is real and the other is not. The same way you can’t really understand that there are 7 billion people on earth, you can understand that there is a book inside your computer. I’m as guilty of this as anyone. I reserve buying physical versions of content for things I really love, not only to save on clutter, but because that way it feels real. Intellectually, I know there is no difference between the comic I

 Photo Credit: Getty Images, Mirek Toski         Do you really own digital content? It doesn’t feel like you do, at least not in the same way as tradition content. For instance, this is my blog, but it doesn’t feel like it really belongs to me. If for instance this blog was a tradition journal, it might be pasted on to my offspring when I die, but being digital, that seems more than a little unlikely. They aren’t exactly going to find the password and username in a box in the attic, are they? No, if anything, this blog will sit forgotten on a web host somewhere until it’s deleted to create more room. That points to why I think we don’t feel like we own digital things; we think of them as disposable. For example, Bruce Willis had to sue Apple so that he could leave his iTunes library to his daughter  (Child, 2012) . That was seen as odd, but would we balk at the idea of a father trying to stop his record collection from vanishing into the ether? We just seem to believe that digit