The news reports a problem with the new camera phones. Bookstore customers are using them to snap a photo of, for example, a sinngle recipe out of a cookbook or a magazine. The practice has acquired the name "digital shoplifting."

Oh, what a good idea! I had always wished they had xerox machines in book stores. You hate to buy a whole book for one page. But, of course, I am rather a cheapskate!

I just read about these today. There's a lot of controversy about them. Here's a quote from the article I read:

"In Japan, improved picture quality has prompted bookshop browsers to use their camera phones to quietly snap a photo of, say, an interesting recipe out of a cooking magazine. Such maneuvers already have a name: "digital shoplifting." Japanese magazine publishers have grown concerned enough about the potential for lost sales that in July and August the industry association mailed out posters to 33,000 bookstores nationwide, urging customers to 'please refrain from recording information inside the store with your camera phone.'"

Sorry, Kalleh.

Tinman

This is not an altogether modern phenomenon. Some 25 years ago, I was in the "adult" (AKA porn) section of a book store that displayed a sign (professionally made, yet) reading "Thank you for not masturbating." I thought it was hilarious but at a subsequent visit I saw that it had been taken down. Turns out that some of the store's more frequent browsers were offended! (Some people just can't take a joke.)


"Digital shoplifting." Sounds like you're stealing fingers...

What I find heelarious is the cost of those camera phones versus the cost of whatever is being stolen. It's like using Luis Vuitton luggage to keep pennies in.

Luis Vuitton luggage
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What, pray tell, it that? Is that like Jordache? I've seen women in overly tight jeans that say "Jordache" on the back. I don't know what a Jord is, but if they'd wear looser jeans, I'm sure it wouldn't ache!

Well, all I can say, Asa, is that I heard that their purses, which run $1600, have a long waiting list at our local store.

[I am not on that list! ]