Open eBook Forum Courts Controversy Over Formats

Brad Rigby writes "TeleRead's David Rothman is calling for [1, 2] the replacement of the Open eBook Forum by "an honest trade association" and a related standards body to create an open standards ebook format at the consumer-level. This will benefit publishers, distributors and retailers, librarians, the open-source community, and most importantly book readers. Largely because of the proprietary format wars, ebooks have flopped commercially, with only an estimated ten million dollars in sales in 2003. In addition, OeBF is being held hostage by its Gold Sponsors, including Microsoft, Adobe, and Palm Digital, companies with proprietary, incompatible ebook format solutions. And to make matters worse, OeBF's president, Steve Potash, runs OverDrive, a company profiting from this "Tower of eBabel", which, according to David, is an obvious conflict of interest and the reason why OeBF is no longer living up to the promise of a standard consumer ebook format. Interesting detail: The OeBF is so focused on promoting its Gold Sponsors that it has yet to speak out against European VATs that will tax e-books but not p-books."

Comments

We already have a standard for eBooks.

[Psychic Burrito]

It's called ASCII.

Re:We already have a standard for eBooks.

[jared_hanson]

Which works well until you want to do anything as rudimentary as a children's novel, in which pictures are a good idea.

What's that? ASCII art you say? Tell that to a med student studying up on anatomy. I'd like to see the intricacies of the human nervous system represented in ASCII.

Re:We already have a standard for eBooks.

[morcheeba]

I'd like to see the intricacies of the human nervous system represented in ASCII.

Oh, no you didn't say that. Slashdot trolls already have ASCII anatomical representations in WAAAY too much detail for my tastes!

Re:We already have a standard for eBooks.

[macemoneta]

HTML takes care of that issue, with the img tag. There are already cross-platform e-book readers that take HTML (including embedded graphics and tables) and convert them to a compressed form for display on the target device (iSilo is my personal favorite). And yes, the conversion software is available for Linux as well.

Any document that can be displayed as a web page (pretty much any document that exists) can be read as an e-book.

The real problem is that there aren't any DRM-like controls on the documents. That's a good thing, but obviously it's going to take about a decade before book publishers finally agree to that.

so what?

[mutewinter]

Does anyone actually think that the lack of a single format is scaring consumers away from ebooks, and solely because of this they've been a flop? I'd wager to guess that ebook sales are going to be pretty dismal for quite a ways into the future.

Re:so what?

[Vaevictis666]

I don't know about that. If I had a decent device that was capable of viewing "standard" ebook formats, could hold a fair amount of text (say 6-7 novels the size of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books), was easy to read (and maybe backlit) I wouldn't mind picking one up for my bus rides to/from work. It would mean no need to muss marking my page, and a smaller package to stick in my pocket. Plus without paper production costs, I could see ebooks selling for $2 or so, compared to $10 or so for paperback these days.

Re:so what?

[orthogonal]

Does anyone actually think that the lack of a single format is scaring consumers away from ebooks, and solely because of this they've been a flop?

Well, I do, sort of. I have a Zaurus, and before that I had a Palm.

I liked to read ebooks on the Palm, and I liked it even better on the Zaurus. I read some classics, some popular science books made freely available by Dr. William Calvin, and some free Baen science fiction novels.

As it happens, I'd previously bought some of Dr. Calvin's books in soft and hard cover; reading his ebooks (actually, Plucked HTML) encouraged me to buy more. At least one of the Baen titles prompted me to buy its sequel in soft-cover -- and without having read the ebook, I'd never have heard of the author, and probably wouldn't have bought his book.

I went to fictionwise.com to get some books, but most of them were either in proprietary formats -- which the Zaurus can't read with any open source reader --, or in Palm .doc format -- which is technically lacking compared to, say, the Plucker format.

I signed up with fictionwise.com, and downloaded some of their freebies. Their version of .doc didn't play well with my reader on the Zaurus, so I emailed fictionwise, and explained I'd be happy to pay them for books, if I could read those books in Plucker format. I realized they'd only be willing to do this for books in unencrypted formats, but I figured that they could at least convert books in (unprotected) Palm .doc format.

Fictionwise, to their credit, did take they time to reply to me, but they reply was that they didn't have any interest in the Plucker format.

I haven't been back to fictionwise.com since.

I'm not a pirate. While I have about 10000 mp3s, all were legitimately obtained, most through the now sadly stunted emusic.com.

As someone who writes code, some of it GPL'd, I'm sensitive to copyright, and I don't want to violate anyone's copyright anymore than I want my copyright violated. As someone who writes code, some of it for profit, I know that artists and authors deserve compensation for their work, and I want to see them get that compensation, if only for the very selfish reason that I want them concentrating on creating their next work (so I can enjoy it) rather than concentrating on how to cadge some more Ramen noodles before malnutrition sets in.

Even if I didn't feel morally opposed to copyright "piracy", I really don't have the patience to browse KaZaa or whatever to find inferior rips and munged transcriptions of creative works. I have a few bucks in my pocket, and I'm not adverse to spending a few bucks on a good book or an good CD.

But that book or CD needs to be convenient to ne to. Publishers need to understand that DRM'd music files are worth less than nothing to me, because my portable MP3 player won't play them. DRM'd books are worth less than nothing to me, because my portable computer won't display them.

Were the music or the books in a accessible format, I'd put my money were my mouth is. I was happy to sign up with emusic (until they drastically limited downloads in November); I wanted to buy books from fictionwise.

But don't treat me like a dummy: I don't want it in a format I can't use, or must ask permission every time I use, or can't transfer from one machine or another, or (as with the PDF version of the ANSI C++ Standard) I can't copy at least small portions of to quote.

Do that, and I'll fall back on MP3s, and ASCII text, and in the case of the C++ Standard, the Draft Working Paper. Do that, and you've lost me as a customer. And once you've lost me as a customer, don't come weeping to me that it's piracy that destroyed your business model. Publishers have destroyed their business models all by themselves, by being more concerned about thwarting shop-lifters than pleasing paying customers.

eBooks didn't catch on yet

[Karamchand]

..because of incompatible format but because most people just don't want to read a book on the computer screen.
They want to take the book with them (and not everyone has a laptop), they want to read it on the toilet, they think it's uncomfortable reading long texts from screen, and with many screen and workplace setups it is unhealthy too.

Re:eBooks didn't catch on yet

[jared_hanson]

I agree with your point here. However, there is defiately a place for eBooks. In college, I longed for an electronic copy of my texts so I could search them on the computer. It was always a pain flipping through pages and skimming for info that I had read a week prior. Then, having to do it all over after realizing I had gone to far and must have missed what I was looking for.

It would have also been useful for printing out the problem at the top of the sheet of paper I was going to work the problem on. Its not fun having to flip back and forth between the problem at the end of the chaper and where it is detailed in the chapter's text.

Ebooks probably aren't suited for novels, but they could do wonders for school text books.

Format wars or something more fundamental?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have ebooks really flopped "largely due to format wars," or is it actually more to do with ease of use? I've yet to come across a mass-market reader that matches the flexibility of paper (sorry!) and that won't kill me if I try to read in the bath...

Wonder why it flopped?

[dus]

Largely because of the proprietary format wars, ebooks have flopped commercially, with only an estimated ten million dollars in sales in 2003.

Or maybe, just maybe, people prefer real books? Maybe the market just isn't there right now.

No one reads books anymore

[Amsterdam Vallon]

I read a Stephen King interview where he said that people just aren't into books anymore. And it's basically true.

DVDs and CDs and TVs and LCDs have replaced the printed word. Many househoulds don't even have ONE BOOK on display. Kids are going to start growing up without ever having read a book at home or had their parents read to them.

It's truly a sad state of affairs here in America.

same rules apply to...

[akaina]

text as digital music. Here's what uncle Steve had to say:

Because of their technological innocence, I would say. When we first went to talk to these record companies -- about eighteen months ago -- we said, "None of this technology that you're talking about's gonna work. We have Ph.D.s here who know the stuff cold, and we don't believe it's possible to protect digital content."

Why I didn't buy an ebook reader.

[DAldredge]

Do you know why I didn't buy a handheld ebook reader? I will tell you. NONE of them would display PDF's. Not a one, at least I was unable to find one that would.

Re:Why I didn't buy an ebook reader.

[Anonymous Coward]

PDF's are really all about layout and most PDF documents are for printing to 8.5"x11". Most e-book readers aren't going to be in a form factor that can conveniently display 8.5"x11" pages. You would constantly have to be scrolling around. An e-book should have markup that can be adjusted to reflow text and graphics to whatever the display allows. Not only does PDF not allow that, it's pretty well designed to not allow that since its main selling point is that what you see on the screen is exactly what will be printed out (given resolution limitations).

One word...

[hacker]

Plucker. It does ebooks and formatting better than anything else out there, and also does HTML content, RSS feeds, local text files, and lots of other formats.

The extensive Data Format is public, well-documented, and used in dozens of other projects. Lots of companies, commercial and non-profit, have adopted the Plucker format for their content delivery. Out of the other "free" options out there, Plucker reigns supreme (it is also the ONLY one out there that is publically documented, and "Free" to use).

Ebooks DID NOT fail.

[digrieze]

It's just that no one wanted what they offered. Look at the things that are the top sellers, they're mostly academic and reference books. Those things are PERFECT for electronic adaptation because they BEG for the search capability that the format provides. The thechinical specifics are pretty irrelevent.

But for pleasure reading nothing beats paper! You can get it in your choice of editions (Ever tried to read large type on a palm or pocketpc? You'll get half a sentence per screen.) The batteries never run out, the sun never washes out your screen (color) or "flash blinds" you (monochrome). The boot up is instentaneous, pick it up, turn to bookmark. You can even have it "on" during takeoff, you don't have to get freakin' permission from an anal-retentive control-freak stewardess to use it!

That being said nothing beats the 256mb reference library in my pocket when I need it.

The problem with the ebook crowd isn't the product, it's that they (act like they) don't know what their customers want. Microsoft was roundly derided for surveying LINUX users about what they liked. Other groups should take a cue from them. Maybe if the ebook publishers PRODUCED WHAT THEIR CUSTOMERS WANTED TO BUY they could sell something (notice that Microsoft mostly publishes SEARCHABLE REFERENCES)!

What a concept, ask the customer what he would buy-then sell it to him!

RCA eBook Reader

[eGabriel]

I got an RCA eBook for my girlfriend. There is nothing wrong with it. The screen is nice to read, the battery lasts long enough, and it is comfortable to hold and turn pages.

It's just a pain in the ass to use with Linux, and the selection of books when you plug in via the modem is pretty bad, and you get this "bookshelf" hosted by some company you aren't sure will be around, and if they fold you lose your books, have no way to back them up to your Linux system, and are pretty much SOL. There are a few projects for creating new eBooks, but it isn't trivial to get them copied to the unit.

This really sucks; I'd love to replace certain types of paper books I have with one of these readers. I don't have any particular attachment to paper books for most purposes. And I'd love to be able to grab gutenberg's books and put them on her reader easily.

the ubiquitous price-drop-to-come

[webwench_72]

Exactly! eBook prices would be much lower than the cost of an equivalent paperback, much like CD prices were significantly lower than cassettes and vinyl albums due to reduced production costs.

Oh, wait...

Maybe it's just me...

[katsushiro]

But I've been using and reading e-books for years now, and I love them, to the point where I barely buy paperbacks anymore. I read them all the time on my old Ahndspring, and a while ago when I upgraded to a Zaurus, I kept right on reading them. I've been an avid reader since early childhood, and am often reading several books at once. Carrying several paperbakcs in my bags all the time tended to create some serious wear and tear on the books after a short while.. the bookmarks would fall out of step if I bounced my bag a bit to much (which happened a lot during my college years), and I generally found paperbacks to be somewhat inconvenient.

Enter the e-book. Now I carry a whole reference library (Dictionary, thesaurus, etc.), plus 5-7 random SF, Fantasy, and other novels and books, all in one pocket, in my Zaurus' CF card. When the urge to read strikes, I just hit a button to turn it on (instant bootup PDA), and within seconds I can choose any one of the books I'm reading, and they pick up exactly where I left off (qtreader is great), I can have multiple bookmarks, and I can search those books that need searching. Reading is comfortable and easy with the Zaurus' high-contrast screen (and I use glasses with a fairly high (-7) level of miopia, but I still find it easy to read and adjust the font size while still fitting ina couple of paragraphs of text on a screen), and if I don't want to keep hitting the 'down' button to flip pages, I can set it to a comfortable level ofauto-scroll and just lay back and let the text wash over my eyes.

In short, I love e-books, and I'm exactly the sort of person ebook publishers should be trying to target. However, the vast majority of e-books I have, I will admit, are pirated. I do have paper copies of a lot of the books in my e-book collection, but e-books are so much more convenient for me than regular books, that I'd rather have an electronic version than a paper one. And for the most part, most books I want to read are simply not released in e-book formats. I *want* to have e-book versions of the books I own. However, due to the small availability and constant format/DRM wars, there are very few places online where I can buy an e-book in a format that I can read on my Zaurus. Meanwhile, the folks in newsgroups and several places online are busy scanning and typing in hundreds of thousands of books and putting them online for free.

To e-book publishers: while you wrangle and try to find a way to lock down the user and make 'sure' that no one pirates your e-books or gives them away or lends them or does anything out of your control, there's a whole bunch of folks out there happily scanning the paper editions of your books and putting them online for free in simple, unlocked formats. While you continue to deny those of us who *Want* e-books the freedom to choose what platform we want to read on and what we want to do with our books, these people will continue to provide your product for free without your permission. Make books available in electronic formats, formats that are compatible across all platforms, with a minimum of hassle and DRM, and give them away free with the paper edition of the books, or sell them at a substantially reduced price from the paper edition (face it, they cost a lot less to produce in e-book format, and I can't help but laugh whenever I see an e-book version of a book selling for as much, or sometimes more, than the paper version), and let me choose what I do with my books, and you will have an eager customer for life.