The story goes: movie studios have seen their revenue from home entertainment media sales fall off a cliff; during the same time, Netflix nurtured a successful subscription service through streaming content and DVD mailings; movie studios realize their best interests lie in digital content delivery and have sought to re-price their licensing agreements with online providers; Netflix, in turn, having no choice, enter into these contracts and pass the costs to its customers; these very customers react negatively to the price increases and leave en masse; in order to clarify their long-term strategy Netflix announces it will divide its streaming service (Netflix) from its DVD mail service (Quickster), further angering its customers.

I appreciate Mr. Tenner’s thoughts and his coined term of “neo-analog culture.” As physical books move away from being vehicles of information to unique objects waiting to be discovered, I would like to understand the true motivation behind the rediscovery of the analog printed object through the push-back of digital media. Bibliophiles have always put a great value on rare editions of books—more as an artifact to be collected. But, what is described in the source article is more akin to a cultural study of human interaction in the form of the hand-crafted printed object. Is the motivation sentimentality? Nostalgia? Historicism? A pursuit of authenticity?

In the case before the court, where Righthaven sued the Oregon-based Center for Intercultural Organizing for posting an entire article from the Las Vegas Review Journal about the deportation of illegal immigrants, the federal judge James Mahan took the initiative and ordered the plaintiff to show cause why the case should not be dismissed under the U.S. Copyright Law’s fair use exception. He did this despite defendant’s lawyers not contesting the plaintiff’s claims.

I can’t say I spent much time in a Blockbuster store to have developed an archive of memories, so I have no strong feelings about Blockbuster’s inevitable ruinations; but, Mr. Seitz’s sense of loss could be echoed for other types of brick-and-mortar stores: the music shop or the book store. While a Barnes & Noble store has yet to attain the air of decay permeating a Blockbuster, it will only be a matter of time, now that Kindle books sales have started to outnumber hardcover book sales.

As Edward Tenner points out: “That’s what some people are saying about text, too.” Again, what is at stake here is the narrative. Photojournalism at its core is about the art of the story—where the photographer is given the freedom to capture the intimate particulars of an event in order to evidence a universal truth of the human condition. The magazine spread or folio book are still the best way for someone to experience these collection of images. But, I do think the internet will offer the opportunity to explore other methods of presenting the story when we stop thinking of the web as a series of linked pages and more as interconnected but absolute experiences.

There are two ideas to consider here: the notion that an individual who cannot make, or chooses not to make, creates through the act of sharing in the form of on-line curation; while, the individual who can make chooses instead to curate as a means towards influence by way of imitation. I would say that both intentions are born out of the same pathology—the covetous of seeing.