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  3. Everyone will be familiar with the frustration of losing a favourite book. But losing an entire library is another thing altoget

Everyone will be familiar with the frustration of losing a favourite book. But losing an entire library is another thing altoget

admin2014-06-25  70
问题     Everyone will be familiar with the frustration of losing a favourite book. But losing an entire library is another thing altogether. Martin Bekkelund, a Norwegian technology writer, recently blogged about a woman whose e-reader had been wiped by Amazon because it claimed her account was linked to a previously blocked account. Her books were unreadable and no refund was offered. Though it now appears that the woman’s e-books have since been restored, this incident is hardly a first. In 2009, a copyright problem led to Amazon remotely deleting copies of Animal Farm and 1984, two books by George Orwell, from thousands of Kindles.
    It may come as a surprise that this sort of thing is even possible. After all, a high-street bookseller would not spontaneously remove paperbacks from a customer’s home, whatever infractions they may have committed. But, unlike with paper books, customers do not actually "own" the e-books they buy. Instead, they are licensed to the purchaser. Customers cannot resell them and there are restrictions on lending them. The transaction is more like renting access to a book than owning one altogether. Plus, e-book sellers have the capability to take them back without warning.
    The furious backlash against Amazon’s Orwell deletions in 2009 suggests that many customers do not realise this distinction. Yet this lack of awareness of the legal terms-of-use is largely the fault of the e-book sellers. Their websites talk of "buying" books as if the digital transaction is exactly the same as one in a bookshop. And the explanation that customers are, in effect, merely "renting" their e-books is buried in long, jargon-filled license agreements that almost nobody reads.
    Why are e-book buyers faced with this encumbrance? A likely reason is that publishing digital editions opens up a new form of vulnerability to the business. At the moment, people typically share or resell their books in moderation. And they keep them shelved neatly in a sitting room, in order to have information at their fingertips and to serve as a discreet testimony to one’s character—or perhaps a form of self-congratulation to one’s vanity. All of this is lost with e-books: they don’t suffer from wear and tear, can be transferred at the speed of light and a digital copy may seem less valuable than a tangible one. Booksellers and publishers might reasonably fear that the sale of a single e-book could result in it being shared or resold many times over, denying the author and publisher income from their product. The threat of illegal copying must be taken into account too.
    In this view, publishers and booksellers have an interest in licensing e-books and retaining control o-ver their distribution and secondary uses. After all, e-books are a new format and a different product. If the business model needs to change, why shouldn’t the terms-of-use and legal rights associated with the product change as well? But, if this is the case, there should be transparency for the customer too.
The author’s attitude towards e-book sellers can be described as______.
选项 A、fundamentally critical
B、unreservedly supportive
C、chiefly understanding
D、profoundly worried
答案C
解析 本文从“亚马逊删书事件”引出了对电子书用户权限问题的讨论。先是分析事件原因，然后指出书商／出版商在用户使用权限方面做法的不当之处，接着转而分析指出他们这样做的合理性所在，最后再次重申这种做法的必要性，并提出改进的建议。可见作者对电子书书商的态度以理解为主，批评为次，[C]选项正确。同时排除[A]。
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