Streaming of books threatens to sell readers down the river

Scholastic, the publisher of such children's book juggernauts as The Hunger Games and the Harry Potter series, announced recently that its Storia ebook shop would shortly be "transitioning" to a streaming model. What this means for its readers is that books they have already purchased might become unreadable. According to Scholastic's website: "The switch to streaming means that ebooks you've previously purchased may soon no longer be accessible." In one of those brilliant physical/digital metaphors that seem to sum up all of the confusion of virtual cultural objects, the site also says: "You may be able to continue using your ebooks by making sure to open them on a bookshelf at least once by 15 October."

Unlike some previous depressing episodes in ebook licensing that also hit UK readers, such as Barnes & Noble's shutting-down of its ebook store Fictionwise in 2012, or Samsung's abrupt closure this year of Readers Hub, when many lost not only their books but also their notes and highlights, Scholastic is offering a year to claim refunds on lost books. Given the continued prevalence of digital rights management (DRM) software, intended to prevent digital piracy, this story is likely to continue for a while.

It's like a censor's version of Borges's The Library of Babel, where the books are not just randomly distributed, but are fading, reverting to blank pages if they are not opened quickly enough. The librarian's job is not to order books, but simply to keep opening and closing them fast enough to stop their contents from disappearing, or moving them rapidly from shelf to shelf in order to keep them out of black holes forming in the bookcases.

Meanwhile, the use of personal bookshelf software such as Calibre or Alfa still seems the domain of techies and paranoids, like bothering to encrypt your email. Last year, France passed a new law imposing higher taxes on DRM-ed ebooks. Perhaps it's time we asked for something similar over here.