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Why Nobody Likes E-Books
CybrGuyRSB writes: "In today's Chicago Tribune, there is an interesting article about the total unpopularity of e-books. It seems to partly tie their failure into their copyright protection and briefly discusses the Skylarov case."
Hell, your not even buying electrons, for the most part all the electrons in your computer stay there, when you download a book, its just their servers telling your electrons what configuration to take.
Quite simply, reading a piece of text onscreen and reading words printed on a page are two *totally* different things. I have a eCopy of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy on my computer, aswell as a paperback version on my bookshelf, and 19 times out of 20 I'd rather go for the paperback. Why? Because reading a book isn't just putting information, words, descriptions etc, into your head, its an experience in and of itself. I can't wrap a blanket around myself and snuggle up with a good text file, can I? I can't *thumb* through a text file looking for my favourite paragraph and get distracted by another piece that can keep me enthralled for hours. I can't throw my text file into my gym bag to show my frields on the way back. What I'm trying to say is that a book isn't just words; its something which cannot be simply replaced by pixels on a computer screen; an actual real experience.
Last summer, out in the woods with the new popup camper, it was very enjoyable to reread Huckleberry Finn (which I do every few years) whenever I could grab a few minutes. I carry it anyway (work, spreadsheets, phone #s, etc.) so I might as well load up a book or three for those spare moments.
I purchased and read all the installments of Stephen King's The Plant (first time I've ever read anything by him). I'm looking forward to the conclusion of the work (if he ever decides that the 6-figure _profit_ he made from the early portions justifies writing some more).
Specialized readers? NO! Useful and/or entertaining documents? SURE!
I carry around the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, FIFA Soccer Rules, Unleashing the Ideavirus!, and others ...
Having the exact quote at your fingertips is sometimes quite handy ...
For most purposes, 355/113 is close enough.
For some things perhaps. Not all. An ebook library would take up much less space. Which is a problem I currently face in my one bedroom condo.
It allows someone to move through the book faster (mainly reference books, like Java in a Nutshell), ...
I suspect that someone using the find or search command would more quickly locate info then someone using the index or table of contents on a paper book, with the discrepency increasing with the size of the book. Exceptions might be searching for illustrations.
That said I much prefer paper books to todays ebooks. The are numerous problems with the technology (poor screens, clunkly units), the software (limited catalog, lack of standards), the legal environment (DMCA), and the lack of respect the companies have for the consumers (copy protection, greed, thinking everyone is a pirate).
But the problems all seem correctable. And I look forward to the day when book readers are as cheap as gameboys, my entire library is available to me where ever I go, and I can back up my books (ever drop one in a pool, leave one on a plane?).
Steve M
"A Russian graduate student named Dmitry Sklyarov was arrested"
I was happy to see they used the term "graduate student" and not the ever to popular term "hacker" in their article.
The exact same article ran in the August 6 LA Times.
I've referenced it a couple times here already.
The Vonnegut comment at the end is great!
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Pay $20 for an electronic book that:
Can only be read on the one device
Can't be loaned to a friend, unless you give them the device too
Can't be resold to a used book store
Won't necessarily be readable 5 years from now if the technology has changed.
Or Pay $20 for the hardcopy version of the book that:
Has none of those drawbacks and
Depending on the hardware, is probably lighter in weight
I would gladly pay $5-7 for the electronic version of a $20 hardcopy book, but I sure won't pay the same price for a 'limited license' version of the same material. It costs money to print, bind, pack, ship, unpack, sort and shelve a hardcopy book. It doesn't cost that much to run an ecommerce website (based on the roughly 2.836 x 10^9 SPAM mail messages I receive each month).
If the publishers would make ebooks affordable, then people wouldn't be so anxious to pirate them. I'm a voracious reader, I can go through 5 pocket novels in a week, easy. Since most new novels are at least $6 (and I've them seen as high as $8) I have to limit myself to shopping at used book stores, and whatever fiction e-books I can scrounge from the newsgroups, otherwise I'd have to turn to a life of crime to be able to afford my reading habit (ok, that's a slight exageration).
People want to pirate books for the same reason they pirate music or satellite TV, it's so damn expensive in the first place.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
Add to that this: the "book" as we know it has been around for over 500 years.
There's a reason for that. In fact, there's many reasons for that. Me, I've got 2000 books in my house. Sure, I've got a 40 gig hard drive, too -- in fact three 40 gig hard drives -- and could easily fit my books on one (probably less than 1) of those hard drives.
But why? Why would I want to sit and stare at a computer screen or Palm or PocketPC or iPaq or Rocket eBook reader or whatever is the gadget du jour?
I actually enjoy the physical book -- the paper, the way it smells, the way I can use it, abuse it, tote it, and carry it around. I also like the fact that I won't be arrested if, say, I decide to backwards engineer it -- if I take a peep at the binding, wonder if the leaves are glued, and even spot a couple pages that haven't been cut.
I can't do that with an eBook. I can't do that because Adobe and Microsoft will make sure I end up in jail. They'll claim that my "crime" is nearly as bad as murder -- more so, in fact, because I'm infringing on their "intellectual property" which, as we all know, is more important than anything else these days.
Yeah, eBooks rock, all right. Go ebooks. Wonderful.
And all these "screen reading" software that Microsoft is pioneering? Yeah, it's wonderful. Sit me down in front of a bigass monitor with Microsoft's Reader software. Software, by the way, which hasn't been updated in nearly a year. Software which is slow, buggy as hell, and won't even let me "register" more than twice.
Oh yeah, ebooks rock all right. Let's see. Don't get me started. How about the one time I decided to purchase an ebook? I filled out all the forms -- nearly had to give my driver's license number -- and then submitted all my credit card information only to -- get this! -- get a 500 Server Error when it came time to issue me the "digital verification" that I then had to "click" on then RESUBMIT just to prove that I'm who I said I was and that my reader was registered.
Love it! Let's see, now how does that compare with this:
Live in Ann Arbor (or any good college town with lots of bookstores). Go to Dawn Treader Books (or any good used bookstore piled high with thousands of books). Buy book. Buy another book. Bring book up to counter. Chat with clerk who says, "Hey, if you're into Thomas Pynchon, have you tried Gaddis?" "No," say I. "You recommend him?" "Oh yeah," says clerk who, within seconds, drops a copy of _The Recognitions_ and _JR_ on top of the nicely dog eared copies of _V_ and _Gravity's Rainbow_ that I'd already decided to purchase.
So exit I do, ambling down Liberty Street (or whatever street in your college town of choice that is lined with your used bookstores of choice) with my newly purchased used books. I can read these books anywhere. I can underline them. I can lend them to my friends. And -- imagine this! -- no matter what I do to these books -- read them, underline them, xerox a few pages from them for a presentation -- the FBI DOES NOT GET INVOLVED!
Now, compare that with digital books. Compare that with encryption, validation, verification. You tell me which is the better deal for readers?
Now, don't get me wrong. Maybe ebooks have their uses. You're Pre-Med, say, and can get a semester's worth of ebooks on a CDROM. Maybe that's a good deal. Or you're a law student and can get what you need a couple CDROMS and don't have to scout out estate sales of dead lawyers just so you can build a library of outdated law books. All right, fair enough.
But for book lovers -- and actual readers -- readers who like to discover an old Modern Library edition of Thackeray that was used by someone in 1941 who dated the book and even stuck a few interesting notes on the margin -- there's nothing to compare with actual, phsyical text.
My own opinion -- after years of haunting used bookstores and 'Friends of the Library' sales -- is this: that people who claim that ebooks are the best thing to come around since, er, the invention of the book are not readers. They simply don't read. They like to have the books. Or they like to have the electronic versions of books that they've read (I mean, really, how many copies of Joe Haldeman's 'Forever War' or Isaac Asimov's 'Foundation Trilogy' do you really need? If you check out the ebook groups on usenet, these are really the only books traded, posted, and pirated -- Haldeman, Asimov, some Sterling, Gibson (of course), and Heinlein. And the same pirated texts are posted day after day after day after day after day. But that's not the point, is it?)
I think this is silly. You know the same could be said of software and look what M$ turned into.
Companies have been building their software in recent years to make copying more difficult. They understand that copying is inevitable, but by using sophisticated install programs and liberal use of the Windows registry, they have made it tricky to simply copy a program. The software industry has been dealing with digital copying the longest, it makes sense that they would've gravitated toward some level of protection by now.
I'd like to expand on some points I made in the previous post. The first thing to consider about electronic books is how small they are. A single mp3 weighs in around 5 megs, which is quite a bit larger than a compressed version of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. This is the root of my concern, books take up so little space that someone could download hundreds of books and store them on their home system. You may point out that someone who does this probably won't actually read the books (and you'd probably be right), but a massive copyright violation did just take place.
I also understand that there are books currently being released in unsecured formats and there isn't a problem with copying. My response is that the distribution channels aren't really there yet for wide spread piracy. When someone thinks of music they think (or used to) Napster; when someone thinks of books, no Internet solution pops in their heads, yet. As more books become available in electronic format, more people will look into copying them because the selection will be there.
As I stated before, it's my opinion that a proprietary format is needed to "keep the honest people honest". I'm not saying Adobe is the best solution for that, I personally would prefer a more open design, but it makes a lot of sense to me to keep heading in this direction. Just my two cents.
Not true, you can make copies for personal use under "Fair Use" laws. It's not until you distribute those copies that it becomes a problem. -n
My value in an e-book would be better left only to text books for college. I'd rather have all of my text books placed into a single portable. The whole market would be based on crazed college students with educards readily buying e-books so they don't have to walk out to their 120 degree car to swap books mid day. E-books, rather E-textbooks should be where the market plays out. I'd surely appreciate it rather than carrying a digital circuits book and a thousand page logic gate reference book to class.
I think the reason that eBooks are unpopular is that they are not books. Books are portable, easy to use, easy to store, last for a long time, and have a fantastic "Refresh rate". I can't stand reading large amounts of text on a computer monitor, or LCD screen. Teh screens are ether too bright, and glare and reflections, or are just plain too flickery. With a book you can read it in bright light, low light, and by flashlight. The batteries never go dead ether. It's just so nice having an actual physical book there to look at, and reference whenever you need it.
Why does the electronic copy require more (inhibiting) protection than the paper? Of course, it's because the electronic copy is much more easily transmitted, changed and reformatted than the paper. But still, if you're going to charge a premium price, and only let me read it using propritary hardware/software... then I'll take the paper. Thanks anyway.
Mmmmmmm. Floor pie!
People who read lots of book, those that would see the greatest benefits of a portable reader, actually love books themselves! They like personal libraries, the weight of a good book in their hand, and honestly have some kind of tactile fixation with page turning. Most everyone but the geeky fifteen year-olds (god bless their hearts) mentioned in an article below are actually trying to get away from the monitor at the end of the day.
feints within feints, wheels within wheels
If the publishers of books and music and software and movies would get ONE, just ONE, only ONE, point through their head, we'd all be better off.
If you publish something, anything, in digital format, it can and will be reproduced. PERIOD.
All this mess, all this money spent, all this pointless effort. Nothing you can do will stop it, no matter how hard you try, no matter how much money you have, no matter how many stupid laws you get passed. And I think that everyone who reads Slashdot knows that it's futile.
-jason
www.dangercrew.net
Mainstream society isn't even really aware of the copyright issues surrounding e-books. Put your 1337 weberati selves aside and think about the average mainstream consumer. E-books aren't catching on because people still like carrying dead trees around with them. They're familiar with the feel and sense of permanence that comes with a real book.
/. really a representative cross-section?
Sure, there are adequete electronic replacements for most typical real book functions, but people(who aren't geeks and comprise the majority of the mainstream) prefer being able to run highlighter pen over important passages and earmarking pages that interest them. If they can afford the good stuff, they want leather bound acid free pages with gold embossing. I doubt a similar e-book reader would convey the same sense of value.
I'm sure most of us agree that e-books or something like them are the way to go for replacing portable printed matter, but is
...unfortunately I have to "steal" them. Even though I can buy the paperback for $6, the companies wants me to pay hard cover prices for electronic copies. Forget that. I'll buy the paper back, then download a copy of the book from a newsgroup and iSilo it onto my Visor (which I feel that I have a right to use with my ownership of the paperback). It is great reading a part of a book anytime you have a free moment. With my Visor always with me, I always have 4+ books at my disposal. When I finish a book, I delete it and give the paper back to the library. Wouldn't it be much simpler to sell me the electronic copy for $6?
I totally agree but authors (I am one BTW) need to make money or they will do something else with their time.
One company that seems to get it right is Fictionwise (www.fictionwise.com). They sell popular books at a low price in a wide variety of formats and most books are not copy protected. They specialize in Science Fiction with many former Nebula and Hugo nominees. Almost all books are under $10 with many under $1. Many of the ebooks are also short stories, which are easy to read during spare moments.
This is probably why Fictionwise is thriving while other ebooks sellers are still trying to find a viable business model. They have found a way to deliver cheap, popular ebooks to the readers and still pay the authors for their work.
In a world that is Free and Open, who needs Windows and Gates?
yeah, exactly...
One of the big difference I see between normal books and ebooks is that for eBooks you need software and hardware to read it, that means you are locking yourself into a certain system. If this system is non-standardized or proprietary you basically are at the mercy of the availability of hardware and software to continue reading your books. One of the nice things about real books is that I can pick up a 100 year old book and I'll still be able to read it. With eBooks I can see how soft/hardware manufacturers will make my ebook collection obsolete by 'upgrading'/'versioning' and stuff like that which forces me to buy the same books over and over.
- The encyclopediaes, dictionaries and maps of this world. Here people are making lot of money from selling these. All are reference works, so the computer adds a lot of value from better search capabilities and more up-to-date material. On the other hand we do not look long the text, so the panalty from inferior screens does not count.
- Newspapers. The publishers have not yet learned how to make money, but for many people the web has become their premier news source. Here the advantage is timely delivery.
When in five years time we have readers that provide 300dpi resolution, a complete day of battery life and are robust enough to be taken outside, a lot of material will go electronic. But this requires the publishers to loose their fears. Unless you need the search capabilities of a computer, you will only accept an electronic version when the price/performance ratio is at least as good as that of a book. A book allows me to- make notes
- copy individual pages
- lend it to someone else
- share the notes with someone else
- and it can be used along side any other book
If I cannot do one of these things, I need to be compensated by the price. If I got The Art of Computer Programming for 5 dollar without the ability to copy it, that would be OK. But not for 100 dollar. Also, when will the page paradigm for e-books die? It is interesting that all the good e-books I know do not regard themselves as books, but are modelled on the browser interface....including the fact that they are more expensive than a cheap paperback novel usually, they usually hurt your eyes more and are more difficult to read. Until digital paper becomes much more widespread, I don't see many people buying ebooks. Aside from all the normal drawbacks, there is the fact that they typically lock the book onto one device, which is probably the biggest drawback to Ebooks...
Shit adds up at the bottom...
To quote zpengo:
"The biggest problem with [eBooks] is the same one that affects [online comics] and other online reading -- Monitors on which reading and viewing are actually comfortable have not yet filtered down to the masses. Joe Sixpack won't read lengthy [eBooks] because it makes his head hurt after a while.
Paper is still a beautiful medium."
Right on.
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
Why? Because I can stick the paper in my pocket, I can scribble on it, I can read it in an elevator, I don't have the change the batteries...
I can do a lot of that with my HP Jornada too, but it's just not as convenient and it's just not as easy on the eyes to try and read a lengthy document (or annotate it) on the little screen.
-Coach-
Perhaps the world's greatest tragedy is that ignorance is not impotence.
I can buy the book for $14.95... or the reader and the material for $200... pure economics... all geek factor aside... I cant photo copy out of an reader electronic reader either
When the day comes (hah) that I can go into a bookstore and purchase both a 'real book' and an 'E-Book' at the same time, I will be happy.
E-Books are nice when you need to search for something, or you need a quick reference. I think it is quite handy that most of my $60 programming books come with the entire text and examples on CD. Yes, I could copy that cd and give the information away, but nobody wants it because it is asthetically worthless in non-paper form.
Paper books will always rule. We all function with a linear mindset. If you read something in a real book and later need to find it, you don't have to page through the entire thing. *Oh, it was about 1/3 through the second chapter* You flip to about where you thought it was, and find it. I hate searching EBooks by clicking or paging. I haven't seen any ebook devices yet that have any decent search interfaces.
The E-Book is a good idea for publishing companies, it eliminates the only major contribution they make to a book. (aside from editing) It is quite sad that their goal now is to find the most secure format to restrict access to a book. Any system based on mass distribution and individual 'licenses' for something as trivial as a book seems like a waste of time.
And has anybody thought about how, once E-Books take over the world, a person would check a book out from a library? I would hate to even imagine. Since it would be easy for you to make a copy of the electronic book (we are all inherently evil), you probably would not be allowed to leave the library with it.
Bah, humbug. Give me paper or give me death. I'm sick of this computers are taking over the world crap.
-S
We Apprentice Developers and Designers
Mr. Vonnegut is an ironic choice for a publisher to convert the works of to e-format. Many of his works deal with dehumanization through technology. The most prominent of these is Player Piano.
It describes a world in which everything has been mechanized and computerized. Because of this, there are few required jobs left, and most of the population has to work for government programs, or join the army. Eventually, the former director of the largest automated mass production facility becomes the de facto leader of the rebellion against the machines. Published in 1952, this puts it comfortably in the "way ahead of its time" league.
Interspersed in the novel are examples (a mechanized tavern goes flat broke when a "germ trap of a Victorian bar" opens up next door, and the soon-to-be-rebellious director falls in love with an old farmhouse with well-water and no electricity) that the most advanced way of doing things is not always the best, or the most appealing. It's a good read... on paper, of course.
-- Insert witty one-liner here. --
A) Because I want to quit my day job.
B) Because I PREFER reading off a screen.
Why quit my day job? I'm an author by night and a webmonkey by day. I publish online, distributing my work for free in text or HTML format (even though my peers balk at HTML, it's infinitely more flexible than 72 column formatted ASCII). I have little interest in traditional publishing models and all the rigamarole that comes with them; if I could self-publish, go indie with it online and make my work a complete user experience rather than just a long text string, I would. (And I do. But I can't do it for money beyond donations, because the tech and business methods haven't clicked yet.)
Why do I prefer reading off a screen? I don't care about the tactile paper and holding-a-real-object and such. It smacks of meaningless nostalgia to me. The refresh rate of reality and all the usual stuff people toss up to attack the idea of digital reading becomes a tired arguement with the same catch-phrase dismissals. The advantages to having books in digital form outweigh these conventions. I'd like to think I'm not the only person on earth who PREFERS reading from a screen, even if it seems that way at times.
If anything, online reading is far easier for me than normal reading; I have a physical disability (diastrophic dwarfism) which results in some hand deformity, making the act of holding up a book for a long period of time and reading from it very difficult. If I could download a small library to my PocketPC and browse it there nice and portable, I'd be in hog heaven. Instead, I have to handle huge, clunky hardbound books if I want to read the latest releases, which strain more than my eyes.
I've done my best to support eBooks, and support them the right way (no draconican digital rights management books exist on my computer, and yes, I want Dimitri free.) I've purchased and downloaded copies of Harlan Ellison's work and a few of the thousands of Star Trek books dumped to .LIT. I really want this to work; if I was a coder I'd lend a hand, if I was an economist I'd figure something out, but being an author the best I can do is hope for a good system to come along and keep an eye on things.
The E-book companies would end up selling a lot more if they removed the security because more people would use e-books and even if a certain percentage of e-books were illegally obtained, there would still be a great increase in the number sold legally.
There should be no proprietary text formatting options.
They just limit ease of use and make the world a crappier place.
hrrm.
Here is what an e-book reader needs to be to be successful:
1. Physical dimensions of a closed paperback.
2. >=200 dpi high contrast display.
3. Internet/wireless enabled. Should be able to plug in a phone line or ethernet cable, or use 802.11b at the book store to download new content.
4. E-Books should never 'expire'. I want to be able to re-read a book ten years from now. I can do it with printed books, why not an e-book.
5. Huge storage capacity - at least 1000 books.
6. Battery life in the 16 hours range (most people could read two average books in this amount of time).
7. Should function on it's own. I don't want to HAVE to use a PC to load books onto the damned thing, see #3 above.
8. Not neccessarily fully voice enabled, but it should be able to listen for something like 'bookmark', 'next page', etc...
9. The books should cost LESS than normal books. Why? Because it does cost less to make an e-book - you are just shoving bits, instead of printing, binding and distributing. Additionally people need a REASON to switch to E-books, making them cheaper might be a good incentive.
...but you have my OFFICIAL permission to correct spelling errors (Sklyarov) for the sake of accuracy in reporting. Spelling the guys name right shows that you care enough about the issue to at least spell his name correctly.
I don't know why this doesn't happen, since some of the editors have no problem with introducing their own spelling and grammatical errors as commentary.
Why would I want to buy an E-book that could lock me out of the book I want to read at the publisher's whim when I can buy a paper copy that I can always read?
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
-NeoTomba
Take a look at any of the ebook usenet groups one day and you'll see that ebooks aren't dying, rather they are only viable as an underground were people digitize all of the greatest new releases (and older classics, and older not-so-classics) and distribute them in easily read formats. You can get nearly any modern book from these people in plain old text, which you can slap on a Palm or simliar device and read on the bus/train/whereever you want.
Contrast this with "official" ebooks, where you have to buy an expensive and proprietary reader for your expensive books from exceptionally obscure authors. Worse, these readers have all sorts of annoying "copy protection" built in that makes you a thief for even trying to give your book to a friend (like you can do with regular old paperbacks), and the publisers treat you like the enemy when you buy one of these.
I think the truth is in the article. Ebooks are the future, unfortunatly that's a future without publishers, so the publishers of today have every incentive to make ebooks look as bad as possible and makes sure that everybody knows that "everyone else prefers the tactile sensation of books over any of those crappy ebook things that you want to stay away from."
Of course the publishing industry is slow to change, so we probably won't see the publishing industry die anytime soon.
I read the internet for the articles.
I would like to go into a book store, and ask for any book, which would be printed on demand.
Or, I would like to go into a book store, transfer my ebook token, for which I paid $4 for to the book store. Then for an additional $3, I would receive a cheap pulp/paperback print copy of the same book. Or I could add $11 for a original printed copy from the publisher/printer, which normally would have cost $15 withot the token.
30 years after, the print copy would still be functional, while all the other gadgets and content delivery schemes would long since have been obsolete and thrown away.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.