So HMV is going to bite the dust….that’s sad. But who uses dvds these days (apart from me)? One thing that wasn’t commented on, this morning on the BBC is how the move away from physical to digital recordings, from printed page to e-book, from film, through dvd to streamed movies, is a move away from the integrity of the stories we are being told, in words and pictures.

Digitalisation has loosened the ties that bind texts and films to their origins. Your E-book can be edited, and so can can your digital movie; and in this instance editing means censoring. What offends us in the past can be edited out, changed, misrepresented or simply tweaked, and the further from the original we get, the easier it will be done. What’s inconvenient to those in power, of whatever stripe, at the present time can be sidestepped, or stepped on.

There has always been something similar going on. Paragraphs were removed when first editions were reprinted. Movie scenes were excised when film was transposed to dvd. But the films, and first editions wouldn’t all be removed or destroyed. The evidence still remains, and in the hands of readers and viewers. In my time of schooling we were shown the pictures from which Trotsky had been removed on Stalin’s orders, and the still existent prints of the original photos. But the streamed digital download, especially if your device is still connected to the source, can be edited, or even removed, at the will of…..who knows who or how, eh?

And it won’t be done, friends, for our benefit. Just a thought.