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Yesterday, while looking online for some information on a 33 year old motorcycle, I happened upon tradebit.com, a site that allows users to upload files that they wish to sell, then brokers them and integrates the listing with search engine capability and PayPal payment options.

As you might expect, the digital versions of repair manuals and other such things are much cheaper through a digital download than in the print form, where time and physical wear have destroyed many copies of older works. For the particular manual I was looked at, the download cost was $8.99, as compared to eBay listings of $30-60 for a print version of the same manual, in various states of disrepair.

The download itself was very easy, and consisted of simply giving my PayPal info to tradebit (you can also use a major credit card through PayPal, so that’s still an option). The 50mb file streamed relatively quickly (<5 min) and was a good scan of the original, a manual which was clearly in good condition.

Of course, with a user-contributed site like tradebit, you always have to wonder whether or not you'll always get a quality product for your money. I haven't uploaded anything to tradebit, so I'm not really sure how well they police whether or not the downloads are what they claim to be. I'm sure there's some sort of customer service structure in place, where you can complain if the download was misrepresented, but that would be the major question mark still in my mind about how successful a service like tradebit will be.

The other issue which occurred to me almost immediately was copyright. After all, people could simply scan copyrighted material into their computer, then upload it to tradebit and profit mightily from the purchase and consequent multiple resale of a single copy of the work. The site offers a 7-day free trial of their uploading service, so I'm going to find my old thesis on German punk rock and try to sell it for a reasonable price on tradebit. Hopefully I'll get a better idea of their copyright safeguards and how the selling works in general, then I can post on that aspect of the tradebit site.

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A TV tower in Berlin in the former East Germany.

Two years ago, in January of 2005, I was lucky enough to travel to Berlin for the purpose of writing a paper on East German punk rock. While there, I took a bunch of photos, mostly on the theme of the Wall, and the consequent division of the city, both phyisically and psychologically. Almost 20 years after that Wall came down, Berlin is still very much two cities-an Eastern metropolis quickly and ravenously consuming the trappings of Western consumerism, and a glittering Western icon and bastion of capitalism no longer surrounded by the dark threat of Communism.

A bus turnaround necessitated by the Wall.

Most people in the East speak two languages, as do their Western counterparts, but that language is Russian, not English. People my age remember the fall of the Wall vividly, as grandparents and other family members hitherto unreachable for over 30 years were suddenly a 10-minute subway ride away.

18 years ago, satellite dishes were illegal in this part of Berlin, as they carried only capitalist media.

Yet, in spite of the collapse of the physical divide, Berlin remains two cities, clearly demarcated by crumbling bits of the Wall and other fading symbols of the official separation. The unique feeling one gets in Berlin has stuck with me to this day. It is Germany’s most vibrant and cheerful city, yet the memory of its recent violent past still governs the countenances and attitudes of Berliners today. View the Flickr photostream from Berlin beginning here.
berlin wall, berlin, germany, deutschland, berliner, alexanderplatz, east germany, west germany, west berlin, east berlin, communism, divided city, capitalism, photography, photos, east german punk rock, german punk rock