Musings

The year 2008 seems to be moving along quickly enough. It's already mid-month and Chinese New Year rounding the corner in three weeks time.

One of the things that I need to remind myself to do later tonight is to re-design the banner for this blog. Haha...I don't think I should have the Merry X'Mas wishes well into February. I kind of have some ideas on how it should look like...but probably spend the better part of the night drafting it out...and then the tweaks and readjustments...

Blogging has been sporadic these few weeks. We can put that down to
1) Not having any mood to blog
2) Writer's block
3) Occupied
Though I believe it's more down to being lazy - which I readily admit.

Musings...
I have been reading a lot books lately - actually they are soft copies of books, which I have downloaded using torrent. The first thing that comes to mind when people read this (or at least it should) are the words "intellectual property" or in short, IP. At first glance, it can be said that by downloading these materials off the web, without the appropriate license, means that I'm violating the writer's IP rights. And I am.

I used to buy most, if not all, of my books. I like collecting them, though I can only afford the small paperback version. So why the change? The simple reason: Price. A book that used to cost only about RM30 (perhaps less) is now closer to RM40 for newly published books. I can understand the rise of living standards and cost of living, and the inflation that comes with it, and the price increases of materials, etc. etc.

But has our buying power increased accordingly with our cost of living?

In Malaysia, where the government tells us that the inflation rate is only at 1.9% - and we all know that the numbers are biased - there is certainly no surprise at the low pay increments that employees in the private sector receive every year. That is if they are even given one.

With the amount of books that I read - or rather the amount I would like to read - the rising cost of books is making it harder and harder to maintain the habit. Because it's not only the cost of books I need to take into account of...and I think I can safely assume that most people feels the pinch in the rising cost of everything from petrol for transport to food stuff like noodles and roti canai.

Anyway, enough of that, less I be thought of as justifying my actions of downloading unlicensed stuff. I'm down to the third book of a collection of four. Can't wait to get home tonight and continue where I left off last night. Oh wait...the banner...hahaha...after that then ;p

Enough musing for one day I suppose. Though I'm interested to know, do you guys also download reading materials or do you still prefer to buy the original version from the bookstores?