Slashdot Mirror
This Book Will Self-Destruct In 10 Hours
extrarice writes: "See here
The "rent-a-book" concept is here. Pay a buck, and you're allowed to read for a cumulative total of 10 hours. After that, the text is inaccessible (unless you somehow access the content you purchased...)"
My two cents. You might try appending "I think that ..." before every sentence below.
Argh. This will fail, for the same reason that the DMCA will eventually fail.
If we assume that we are using a device that you own and control (such as your personal computer), then what follows is a universal truth:
Companies who try to evade this universal truth by creating an artificial scarcity of information in an effort to make more money are doomed to failure. Of course, until they accept the hopelessness of trying, we are going to see companies flail about with their lawsuits and congress-bullying to get laws made to protect their budgets from the advancement of technology.
As the amount of available bandwidth continues to increase, I think greedy corporations that deal in the sale (or, rental) of information will finally have to stop suing the world and devise a new, sane to make money. Right now, corporations wish for us to think of information as a scarce, limited-availability, tangable substance. Because companies that deal in the sale of limited-availability tangable substances can command a good price. While electronic information is becoming an unlimited-availability, non-tangable substance, money-hungry companies would have consumers think otherwise through the misuse of laws and congress-bullying. This is why this book-rental idea, and the DMCA, are so stupid.
Predictions:
In the coming decades, as technology improves, I think information in and of itself will become much less monitarily valuable. Instead, the real value will have to be placed on the immediacy of the information. Meaning: Information can and will be disseminated. But, some may wish to pay a premium to be the ones to get at said information first. And that is where the value will lie.
Some folks have also compared this scheme to Blockbuster Video. You can charge rent for a video because said video is a scarce, limited-availability, tangable substance. Namely, a videocassette containing a video in a conveinient-to-use format. You cannot, however charge "rent" for an electronic representation of said video. Because once that electronic representation exists, it instantly becomes an unlimited-availability, non-tangable substance. You can, however, Still charge rent for the conveinience of using a videocassette.
Let's look at music. You can command a huge price for a live performance. You can charge a decent price for a conveinient-to-use piece of media containing a musical performance. But once that media can be read and represented in an electronic format, the representation of that performance loses all value except for that of the immediacy of its availablity.
Let's look at literature. You can command a huge price for a piece of literature written just for a client. (Say, documentation, or a poem, or a biography... etc.) You can charge a decent price for a conveinient-to-use piece of media containing a work of literature. But once that media can be read and represented in an electronic format, the representation of that work loses all value except for that of the immediacy of its availablity. So, as soon as there exists a device which can rip a paperback book into an electronic format the with the speed and ease that a cd-rom can rip cd-audio into an electronic format, we will see the same DMCA, IP, and copyright turmoil in the literary industry that we currently see in the music industry. Even if the DMCA has already been overturned and forgotten about.
This is just the way it looks to me like things will work out. I don't advocate for artists making less money in the future, or for "stealing" the electronic representations of an artist's work. But I think the approaching shift in the way things work will really show the world how much the creators of information are really worth to the consumers of their information. And how much more valuable a live performance is than a recorded one. People will be paying for quality of information, rather than availability.
-Mike
(Who just purchased two music CDs after he had downloaded and evaluated the electronic representations of their entire contents.)
No matter what publishers would like to think the consumers control the market. If we just keep buying books, this will be a commercial failure. Just as if all of us would stop buying DVDs this whole affair of region codes and trials would go away. The industry is testing new media. We decide what will succeed and what will be forgotten.
What, me worry?
for learning to speed read. I like this model personally. I might not want to subscribe to Salon.com for a year, but I might pay a buck to have ulimited access for a day if I ran across some content that was really compelling.
I doubt this will work very well for ebooks though. The average consumer is too used to owning (books, CD's, DVD's, tapes, etc.). It will take a real shift in consumer habits to pull this off successfully and I think we've already seen how resisitant people are (DIVX DVD's for example).
You rented the use of the book for a cumlative total of 10 hours of reading time.
If you want to BUY a book, do so. If you want to borrow a book, go to the library or get a buddy's book.
If you agree to the terms laid out in the agreement, is that really a problem? Now, if there were no other options around, or the book renters decided to destroy all other ways of reading, that would be a baaaaaaadddd thing, but since other ways already exist and people are already used to owning books (or borrowing) this will be a big hoohaa about nothing.
Ignore it and it'll go away.
DanH
Cav Pilot's Reference Page
UNIX - Not just for Vestal Virgins anymore
FIVE DOLLARS??? WTF?
$5 for 300 sheets of paper, printed cut and bound, then warehoused, distributed, and conveniently available for me to pick up in town is *very* good value.
$5 for a download of the exact same thing is not.
It should be 20c for 10 hours and $1 for the whole thing, that is the genuine "eCommerce enabling technology" - pricing that reflects the vastly lower overheads involved in digital publishing.
Also, if you look near the bottom, it says that you can buy it (and presumably own it as much as you own any print book.) for $4.99. So your precious rights aren't being abused. Unless, of course, your "rights" include getting the product for 1/5 of the price it's being sold for. If that's true, I've been wasting an awful lot of my money...
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
The original divx(the purchasing system from circuit city, not the video codec) had a similar system. After you bought it, it had a way of not being usable after two days. I'm not sure if it was via the dvd player(logging a id number of the video on the player) or some kind of timestamp on the actual media. Of course, with this book technology you can renew it by paying more, a divx was a one use media. (It never found a market because a special player bought at circuit city was required)
Tomas Jefferson would just be smart enough to BUY the book as opposed to RENTING it. Problem solved. I don't see where this is a big deal, until they completely stop SELLING books and go exclusively to RENTING them, what is the problem?
You are given a choice, some people might not want to read the book all ten times, why should those people have to pay as much for 10 hours of use as you do for a lifetime of use?
But paper is bulky. My standard ruler is the King James Bible, about 1000 pages, 5 megabytes. One CD-ROM is equivalent to some 130 Bibles, about 5 meters of bookshelf.
I still get almost all of my casual reading in paper form, but, for reference works, digital is definitely superior.
Making a VHS (or any other format) copy of analog video introduces noise, so you cannot make an unlimited number of generations. But if you make a copy of a digital book, the copy is absolutely identical to the original, so a single copy can be quickly reproduced for literally every single person in the world.
You know blockbuster, where you go to get those cheap videos? Well those evil corporate bastards have made it so you can only watch it overnight, or for a few days, and then you have to take it back! TAKE IT BACK FERCHRISSAKE!!!! Not only that, but now thanks to the ADMC it's illegal to make my own copy for personal use for free whenever I want. Man, they must have bribed a few senators to get that one through! We must rally against it, this corporate mastery! It must be a scheme to keep the little guy, the grass-roots video publishers out of business- CONSPIRACY!
What the hell am I on about?
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
Forget the fact that you have to pay hundreds of dollars for a reader before you get any content....
Forget the fact that reading this stuff gives you a headache....
Forget the fact it's a pain in the neck to flip between pages....
Forget the fact that there's so few books available in eBook format....
Forget the fact that the competing "technology"(paper books) is superior....
We'll just restrict people's use of the content, charge them more, and boom, it will take off like a rocket!
Excuse me while I go out and buy some stock in this outfit...
------
www.moneybythenumbers.com
Now, about my subject: I used to work in a chain bookstore (Waldenbooks #642), and I know how much they pay for books (about 60% of cover price). Now take out the cost of printing (about 20%) and eBooks should cost about 40% of the paperback price (why pay $20 for an eBook just because the store copy is in hardback?) not close to full price! No matter how much I love "The Lord of the Rings" I would refuse to pay more than $2.50 for each volume and I would want to read it as many times as I choose.
I can understand if they wanted to operate on the honor system like a public library does, but since I'm not taking a physical item from them I shouldn't have to pay to "borrow" and eBook. If they want security they can encrypt it so it can only be read by my reading device (in this case a Palm IIIx).
I wonder if Gates of Redmond is behind this?
I bet crackers who are used to crack copy protection schemes will find tons of possible ways to disable the time limit.
As a simple scheme:
existing code:
cmp time_passed, 10*60*60
jge time_expired
; continue normal loop
replace with:
cmp time_passed, 10*60*60
nop
nop
; continue normal loop
You go to the store and pay $3 to rent a tape/dvd. Now you claim you bought the item and are allowed to keep it? This is no different except that its purely in electronic form.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
The first author decides to offer his book *only* in this format. Now all of a sudden there's a book you can't read without renting and that libraries can't offer on their shelves.
Kinda like proprietary software is now.
I see a sig around here from time to time that says something to the effect of "Software engineers are so infatuated with the fact that they CAN, they never stop to consider whether they SHOULD"
I present the same to you. Certainly any first year CS student could crack such a lousy scheme, but what benefit would there be in that? Who does it serve?
My answer is that it serves you, and you alone, You steal from the author (yes, they're a millionaire. But they got those millions, because they earned it), you steal from the public at large. How? because when you steal the material, you discourage the author from producing more of the same material that you like so well, and so society looses.
This is the simple case, I know. There are still concerns with the evil RIAA &c. But the point here is for you to think about your actions first. I think, that perhaps, just because something can be done, there are times (like this one) when it shouldn't be done.
Fish