電子書籍的發展與影響─以日本出版業為例─

一個國家可從其出版業的發展程度及自由度看出其文化素養的高低。二戰之後，日本出版業的發展相當蓬勃，其興盛程度可說是世界有名，然而至90年代中到達頂端後便開始走下坡，進入21世紀後，日本出版業的走向更是越趨多元化，卻仍無法挽救其產業的不景氣。究其原因，人口減少、閱讀習慣的改變、科技的進步等等，皆是可能影響出版產業的重要原因。身為先進國家的日本，雖然少子化是影響其產業的因素之一，但由於少子化之於出版業為不可抗力的關係，日本出版業無法抵抗這股發生在全球發展中以上的國家會有的社會變遷，因此在此不予以討論。而閱讀習慣的改變，以及閱讀人口的下降之種種因素，皆與科技的發展大有關聯，像是隨身聽、遊戲機或手機、電腦的發明，都大大瓜分了人類用以消磨的時間。而自從電腦普及，科技更是日新月異。其中影響出版業甚大的，即是伴隨電腦而問世的所謂的電子出版。廣義的電子出版是指用電腦之類的科技產品編輯製作書籍雜誌；狹義的定義則能縮小到有商業行為才能稱作電子出版。在本論文則是採用狹義的定義去探討電子書發展對於出版業的商業行為之影響，先是研究主要出版品近年的走向，再探討電子書籍發展狀況，最後探討電子書籍對於日本出版業界所帶來的大問題及影響。

關鍵字

日本出版業；電子書；電子出版；電子閱讀器；著作權； Google

並列摘要

A country can reflect the level of culture from the development and freedom of the publishing industry. Japan had led to a vigorously growth in publishing industry after World War II, and been known to world. However, it began to decline after getting to the top in the mid-1990s. In the 21st century, Japanese publishing industry is becoming more diverse, but still can’t save the downturn of industry. The factors like depopulation, reading habits change, development of technology, etc., are the important factors that may affect the publishing industry. Japan is an advanced country. As one of the most technologically advanced countries of the world, decreasing birth rate is one of the factors that has made impact to the industry. It isn’t discussed here because the decreasing birth rate has force majeure relation with publishing industry. Japanese Publishing Industry can’t resist the social change that occurs in the developing countries. The reading habits change and reading populations decline are associated with the development of technology. Just like the Walkman, games, mobile phones or computers have greatly consumed most of our times. Since widespread use of computers, technology improvement and innovation have affecting the publishing industry. Affecting publishing industry the most is electronic publishing which appeared by the development of computer software. In a wide sense, electronic publishing is to editing books and magazines by computers or technology products, such as tablet reading devices; in a narrow sense, the publishing of the commercial behavior can be called as electronic publishing. In the paper, I will discuss the effect of developing e-books on Japanese publishing industry. First, I will research recent publications, and then discuss the development of e-books. Finally, I will discuss the development and influence of e-books on Japanese publishing industry.