If you're in the US there are not really any truly banned books. There are books that are banned from certain libraries (mostly school libraries).
But, imagine that a school adopts the DRM processes described in the article and requires this study level of control even on personal devices that are used for school. Suddenly those book bans can be enforced digitally by the school and will totally cut off access to certain books that the school chooses.
You might say that it's within the school's rights to do this for a device that is used for school and if you don't like it then use a different device. Now that's a system where there is a class-divide on the information that one is physically able to consume on their devices.
You might think Mein Kampf is ban-worthy, but the whole point is actually that you should not ban any book at all, because once you start banning books it becomes far too easy for more books to be banned. All it will take is one regime change in a school district's PTA for new books, that you maybe think should not be banned, to be added to the list.
It's worth considering the most banned books in America. His Dark Materials. A fantastic young adult fantasy novel that pokes harder at religion than some Christians can bear.
> But, imagine that a school adopts the DRM processes described in the article and requires this study level of control even on personal devices that are used for school.
The prerequisite for this to happen is that the school removes all physical editions of the books and has digital editions for all content, and a lending program for the books that is sufficient to satisfy publishers... and all students have digital book readers able to access the school library.
I don't see this happening in the near (or even within the decade) future. There is far too much content that is physical only, publishers haven't embraced digital editions for libraries, school libraries don't have the technical resources (physical or in many cases human) to convert their collections to digital.
The hypothetical school book ban for digital editions is needlessly alarmist.
When those resources are available to schools, then yes - lets talk about it... though the school banning books will continue to mean "that resource isn't in our collection" and a student can go to another library (or in many cases book store) and get a copy of that book for themselves. This is no different than today.
But, imagine that a school adopts the DRM processes described in the article and requires this study level of control even on personal devices that are used for school. Suddenly those book bans can be enforced digitally by the school and will totally cut off access to certain books that the school chooses.
You might say that it's within the school's rights to do this for a device that is used for school and if you don't like it then use a different device. Now that's a system where there is a class-divide on the information that one is physically able to consume on their devices.
You might think Mein Kampf is ban-worthy, but the whole point is actually that you should not ban any book at all, because once you start banning books it becomes far too easy for more books to be banned. All it will take is one regime change in a school district's PTA for new books, that you maybe think should not be banned, to be added to the list.
It's worth considering the most banned books in America. His Dark Materials. A fantastic young adult fantasy novel that pokes harder at religion than some Christians can bear.