Slashdot Mirror
Old-Fashioned DRM Protects Harry Potter Book
RMX writes "The Telegraph has a nice article
about the steps that Scholastic is taking to
protect the content of the print version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. They're delivering 10.8 million copies and need to ensure that this content isn't accessable by anyone before midnight. Technology includes high-tech (GPS to monitor delivery trucks progress and check that they did not deviate or stop.), low-tech (steel boxes & locks), social engineering notes (crates stacked up in the warehouses of delivery companies across America are marked: Please Do Not Open Before Midnight), and legal threats (As a final layer of security, booksellers have been forced to sign legal forms acknowledging that if they break the embargo, they will never again be supplied with a book by Scholastic). Think how much cheaper and easier it would be if they just used an E-book s with DRM.
I'm all for Harry Potter protecting his rights; but it seems we keep getting closer and closer to the world described in
Stallman's visionary The Right To Read article."
If the publisher wants to save money, they can simply distribute the book like any other book. No one is forcing them to have an embargo until an exact time; they have chosen to do that on their own initiative. So if it costs them lots of money to enforce it, that's their own problem. Why would you want to encourage the publisher to use DRM? How do you think it benefits you as a reader? Or do you have some other hidden agenda?
I'm baffled. If you don't want that world, why are you suggesting that the publisher should use DRM? To prevent it, you should not ask publishers to use DRM, and avoid buying DRM'd products. If DRM'd products sell poorly compared to non-DRM'd products, the publisher's decision as to whether to use DRM will be easy.inanicus librarius!
She's trying to make a few dollars (maybe more) on her work and you're trying to make it look like she's implementing one of Stallman's fantasies.
Agile Artisans
Why not just, I don't know, make the book available as soon as it is ready instead of keeping to an artificial release date.
RTFA again for the best results.
This isn't Digital Rights Management
There is no "Digital" in PRINT books.
ARGGGGHHH! Please Mr. Submitter, know the terms you are using. Yes DRM is bad, but the first DRM I am aware of is floppy disks with copy protection. That's the oldest there is, everything else before that was just "rights management".
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
As an additional layer of security, why not print the books with black ink on red paper so that most photocopiers cannot read them?
Christ, its a bloody childen's book not freaking gold bars.
I have heard from someone who eould know first hand that security at the print facility, secuity is insainly tight. random person searches, tons of cameras, lots of extra guards, it is like Fort Knox.
Well, I certainly hope they thought to use a counter-charm for Alohomora.
-Peter
You know, there are things in the world that don't have to do with OSS/GNU/Stallman. This is one of them.
I'm all for Harry Potter protecting his rights; but it seems we keep getting closer and closer to the world described in Stallman's visionary The Right To Read article.
What exactly is wrong with protecting your product? In a world of rip-offs and general immorality it's not very uncommon for products to be ripped off before release, or stolen from trucks/docks/etc
I myself know of workers who admit to stealing the cargo they're supposed to be loading.
There's a lot planned around the time release of the product, and realistically while they are securing to get the biggest "bang" for their own bucks, the publisher is also making things more fair for the distributers by ensuring that everyone gets the same release date, and thus no one store can steal the business from others early
I read that essay and this has nothing to do with it--and everything to do with a company trying to keep up the suspense of a massive bestseller right until the publishing date. And then after that all the locks go off and this will be distributed just like any other book.
The Cheese Stands Alone.
Alohomora takes care of the boxes. And why use lawyers when you've got the Unforgivable Curses?
Muggles. Peh.
This is a joke.
First, DRM of course means "DIGITAL", this is anything but digital.
Second, this has nothing to do with "rights". You have no right to a harry potter book. You have no right to a harry potter book before it's supposed to be released. You have no right to read a wrongly acquired book so you dont have to wait a few days.
Third, this type of crap dilutes the idea of a "right". You DO have the right to free speach, to freely assemble, to seek a redress of your grievances. You DO NOT have the right to steal someone elses physcial and yes intellectual property by getting a Harry Potter book (a) without paying for it and (b) against the express wishes of the author and publisher.
GROW UP.
Without a doubt the dumbest summary I have ever read on Slashdot. So many half baked connections and FUD, I can only think it boils down to this : Someone in Slashdot editorial wanted to put up a Harry Potter story to sync up with the building media hype around the release, and this was the best they could come up with.
Shameful.
- sarcasm is just one more service we offer -
This summary starts by talking about the new Harry Potter book, then somehow ends up talking about DRM and Richard Stallman. Even more interesting is how the post comes out in favor of DRM and is somehow sympathetic to Stallman at the same time. Good work! This should get a lot of posts Timothy, helping to increase that ad revenue...whoops, looks like I just got sucked in...
It's not digital rights management, because there's no digital product being managed.
Also, putting a sign up is not social engineering as others have pointed out. As the word "engineering" implies, usually more thought and cleverness is required before people consider something to be social hacking or social manipulation.
The reason you have release dates is so that ALL dealers have a chance to sell the book. Otherwise the stores with better distribution systems would get it in stock first, while the others would have to wait.
Then the publisher would have to worry about which store to ship to first, because the first store who receives it has a massive sales boost.
Eventually, every small bookstore goes out of business.
This whole submission makes no sense. It has nothing to do with DRM.
Anyway, DRM based on a "do not read before" timestamp would be hard to effect. It would require that any reader be set with an unhackable internal clock that knows the time zone the reader is in, otherwise people could circumvent the "do not read before" settings rather handily.
I think the argument here is a bit difficult to support.
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
I'm just trying to figure out if the submitter's ebook comment is a joke or not. It probably is, as the idea of a submitter on Slashdot coming out in favor of DRM is anathema to this entire status quo. :)
But seriously, I don't think ebooks have a hope of getting further than they have so far. I'm not saying that the book as we know it will never change, because they have (though extremely little in many centuries. Stone tablets to scrolls to bound books to printed books.) Reading on a screen will simply never replace reading on paper.Staring into a screen is like staring into a lightbulb while you're reading.
Ultimately, this story is just about tight security surrounding the biggest fiction franchise ever seen since the Book of Genesis. Calling it "old fashioned DRM" is really pushing it, like saying that a 300lb bouncer outside a night club is an old fashioned firewall.
Yup...
If actual DRM becomes widespread and gets applied to books, your former "right to read" will have been extinguished.
Wouldn't it be better to have goggles (with built-in hearing aids for sound decryption and reproduction to the ear) that everyone has to use in order view/hear content. Text in books, on web sites would be encrypted with visual representation of the cipher text that the computer embedded in the goggles would read, and decrypt with your unique iris scan data used for the private key, and the public key being downloaded over the cell phone network. Video and sound could also be decrypted for view/listening of only the owner. If someone stole the goggles, their iris would be different, causing them to have to create their own account with a provider in order to view content in pay-per-view, with the ability to prepay for so many views of a book, or anything that can be displayed on a CRT (video, text) (or sound) to be viewed so many times. Someday books and "digital" content will sell for the price of the medium, and then you pay for the license to use it. GPS could be also included so that content could not be viewed in countries it was not approved for.
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Why exactly are they doing this? If the book slips out a few hours early it's not like it will be ripped and reprinted in illegal copies before the real version officially goes on sale. I just don't see the point of this much security.
Are parents really going to line up at midnight to buy a kids book? Why bother? the kid should be in bed at that time anyways.
I'm sure after this book is about the last book that anyone cares they get from scolastic. ;-)
The fact that the book has such an embargo is for corporate advantage.Look at the publcity that one book can create if such measures as embargo is taken.Read the link for the telegraph.They spell it out for us. Street closures in NewYork, special story time for children read by the author ofcourse(oh please children should not be up at midnight)The publisher would make just as much money if not more by just releasing it like any other book.
Oh, wait, that already happened.
Has Steve Jobs taken up a position at Scholastic?
Thought he was the only man to go to such extremes.
-c
It's Harry Potter for god-sakes not some national secret or ancient priceless treasure. DRM'ing is out of hand in my book!
Regards, Joseph
Would the book be not as good if someone read it early?
Oh, I remember: last time, there were pirated copies in print before the official one came out. I guess this is just their overreaction to that.
Still, it sounds like a way to generate false interest. Rather than just saying, "Hey, we've got a great book coming out!", they go to all this trouble (and make sure everyone even the slightest bit interested in Harry Potter knows about it).
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
Is this what passes for quality these days?
:P
A bunch of monkeys using Apple computers could write better Shakespeare than this. Of course, if they were using PCs, they could make William Shatner look good.
There's already a fake up on torrent sites.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
This is all about protecting the product from theft in the distribution channels and ensuring a simultaneous release at all retail outlets. The article discusses efforts by the publisher and distributers and has nothing to do with rights or restrictions towards those that may want to purchase this book.
Once you have the book in your hands it is just a paper book, talk about a sensationalistic article summary.
And, not that they need it, but this 'security' is also a good way to increase perceived demand for the book.
Scholastic isn't trying to take away anybodies rights here. This is common practice in competitive markets for big title releases. For example: Barnes & Noble manages to release the new book 2 days earlier than anybody else. What happens? Since B&N only has a limitied quantity and demand is so high, they quickly sell all their stock and make a bundle. This would be good for B&N, but it would hurt every other bookstore in the market, thus being an unfair practice. This isn't new. Just look at how strict video game releases are.
Steal This Sig
DRM is referring to copy protection or replication manipulation and restriction in the DIGITAL computer age. Sure we could have had DRM on a "digital clock" before microcomputers became common and Sierra Games started fiddling with their floppies, but no one means that when they say DRM these days.
How would you apply DRM to a digital clock anyway? Perhaps have a colour filter that is required to be placed over the display so the red numbers will show up?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Just a little nit to pick but... uhm you see Harry Potter is a fictional character. J. Rawlings in the author of the Harry Potter books and she is protecting her rights. Now as to Richard Stallman being real or a work of visionary fiction, well, that is a moot point.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
....to make money in this "Stallman world"? Why does everything have to be 'free'??? Seems to me that the Stallman-esque crew has watched 'Star Trek-First Contact' a few too many times ....
In a 1996 newspaper column, James P. Pinkerton, discussing the new Star Trek movie (the eighth), Star Trek: First Contact (1996), quotes Captain Picard saying how things have changed in his day, "The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force; we work to better humanity." Perhaps Picard never stopped to reflect that greater wealth means greater material well being, which is to the betterment of humanity much more than any empty rhetoric. But this is typical of Star Trek. A first season Star Trek: The Next Generation episode called "The Neutral Zone," has Picard getting up on his high horse with a three hundred year old businessman who is revived from suspended animation: The businessman, naturally, wants to get in touch with his agents to find out what has happened to his investments. Picard loftily informs him that such things don't exist anymore. Indeed, poverty and want have been abolished, but how this was accomplished is never explained. All we know is, that however it is that people make a living, it isn't through capitalism as we know it. Stocks, corporations, banking, bonds, letters of credit--all these things seem to have disappeared. We never see Picard, or anyone else, reviewing his investment portfolio. And those who still have a lowly interest in buying and selling, like the Ferengi, are not only essentially thieves, but ultimately only accept payment in precious commodities. In the bold new future of cosmic civilization, galactic trade is carried on in little better than a Phoenician style of barter, despite the possibilities of pan-galactic banking and super-light speed money transfers made possible by "sub-space" communications.
If it were to be released electronically, it would be broken within minutes and distributed throughout the entire world minutes afterwards. But yes, they could keep their midnight deadline... DRM is unworkable.
strike
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
I think what they mean is that empty crates have been marked "Do Not Open before Midnight" so that a miscreant will be go for those crates first. It is a classic social engineering technique. Like putting out a junk laptop in the view of a theif that says "important data" so he will run off with that one and not go for where the data really is (the server.) I do agree that it is not really digital rights management, but nonetheless, GPS is digital. ;)
Powered by caffeine and sugar; BSD
"Folks, I'm pleased to announce that a new truckload of Harry Potter Books, chock full of watered-down occult claptrap, is already heading towards Springfield. The driver has been instructed to ignore all stop signs and crosswalks."
Why not just, I don't know, make the book available as soon as it is ready instead of keeping to an artificial release date.
They're trying to prevent two things:
1) Price gouging..."yeah, you can buy it 3 days early, it'll only cost you 10 extra dollars!"
2) Retailers who get the books earlier from having an unreasonable advantage over those that don't. This often translates to large retailers versus small retailers...Target already has an advantage on price, now imagine if they also had it on the shelves 2 or 3 days early.
Street dates are nothing new, and certainly not a bad thing. This has been an accepted practice on movies, music, and books for quite some time, long before Harry Potter was ever concieved. When you're releasing something like a book or a movie to thousands upon thousands or retailers, it's impossible to get it to all of them the same day...street dates are established so the item appears on everybody's shelves at the same time, thus promoting fair competition.
We do like fair competition here, right?
Technology includes high-tech (GPS to monitor delivery trucks progress and check that they did not deviate or stop.), low-tech (steel boxes & locks), social engineering notes (crates stacked up in the warehouses of delivery companies across America are marked: Please Do Not Open Before Midnight), and legal threats (As a final layer of security, booksellers have been forced to sign legal forms acknowledging that if they break the embargo, they will never again be supplied with a book by Scholastic).
Finally, Rowling has devised a truly innovative "DRM" technique which she calls "Quality-retrograded Mercantile Adjustment," in which the books are (apparently deliberately) written poorly so as to discourage theft. So far, the technique seems to have backfired.
As for the DRM - there are perfectly good equivalents. Haven't you seen the 60's Bond movies? Where the messages *always* selfdestruct? :)
I have a really elegant proof for Fermat's last theorem. If this sig was only a bit longer...
Hahaha. That is funny.
Stallman is a crackpot. No more, no less.
Publishers have the right to distribute their book now they want. If you don't like it, don't buy it.
Are you on crack, or just some deluded 20 something? First you have NO right to read anything. Just because someone writes it does NOT give you any right to it of any kind. Second, protecting property - in this case books - has absolutely nothing to do with digital copyright laws expressed in that absurd article.
I'm sure they're terribly sorry you won't be able to steal a copy of the book before it goes on the shelf.
Slashdot editors are doing a really pathetic job lately. They dupe articles multiple times, sometimes in less than 24 hours, and then push through crap like this.
would every /. reader please point at RMX and laugh for thinking Digital Rights Management applies to a non-Digital medium (i.e. a book)?
And please give Timothy and extra round of applause for accepting the story.
Mr. T pitied this fool on 27 July 1992.
None of these things really impede on our consumer rights.
The point of the embargo is so that if store A gets the book three days before store B they don't mark it up by 200 percent.
Now eBooks, more importantly DRM ebooks - there is some serious erosion of rights.
With the physical book I can read it, then I can give it to others to read. It is really a hell of an investment. What $25 - $30 and the usefulness is unlimited when you consider that once it is bought there is no limit to the number of individuals that can read it.
But the entire point of DRM eBooks is to force the public to purchase one book per reader.
I stand behind Scholastic on this one.
Besides, you are talking bad about Harry Potter. Rowling deserves a medal. She has written a series of books that CHILDREN WANT TO READ. That is so cool.
then you have the right to deprive me of compensation for something that I worked for years on. Soon I won't be able to put any time aside for writing, as I'll be too busy working - my former venture made unprofitable by piracy and theft.
If people didn't fight so hard to break the rules the steps wouldn't be nessaccary and trust me they wouldn't waste the money. All the extra security costs everyone. It's become a game to see who can be the first to post something for free but it's costing all the paying customers in extra expense and hassle so some one can be the first one on their block to crack something and upload it.
This has now been officially declared to be the most stupid article ever posted on slashdot.
Think how much cheaper and easier it would be if they just used an E-book s with DRM. ... but it seems we keep getting closer and closer to the world described in Stallman's visionary The Right To Read article."
What the hell are you trying to say - the two sentences above don't make any sense.
immortality does not equal amorality. sorry, you failed it!
Don't print them at all.
Name an "RM" (since this is far from digital) scheme that ever worked. Please... Copyright is still important and valid, despite what cranks like Stallman say.
Seems like a very nice way to get a little additional revenue & a lot of extra profit.
And before complaining that this isn't fair to poor people, please consider that this is exactly the same as what they do when they sell a hardcover first and a paperback later.
C'mon dude, not wanting your book sold before the date you planned, well, that's only slightly control-freakish and hardly objectionable, even by my own standards. If they had the book go up in flames, mission impossible style, once you've read through it once, or sued people selling used copies, maybe I could get a little pissed. If I wrote a book half as popular as this crap, and it was important that Barnes and Noble didn't sell it before Decemberween the 19th, you can bet I'd be pissed if they started selling on the 17th, undercutting all my other retailers.
They have medication for your mental illness nowdays, go talk to a doctor.
Those are gold galleons. The silvers are sickles and the bronze are knuts. (Well, the original submitter is knuts, too, but we won't get into that...)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
"Haven't you seen the 60's Bond movies? Where the messages *always* selfdestruct? :)"
Don't give the MPAA and RIAA any ideas please. Can you imagine what the next home rental media will look like if they read that!
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
...but it seems like everyone's spending time ripping on the stupidity of the story. Hey, that's all well and good, but what about how FUCKING STUPID the protection and embargoes and all of that are? The book is going to make a lot of money, just like all of the others, and frankly, fuck if I know that the book got to one store 15 mins earlier than the other -- what difference does this really make to the publisher? Are they that greedy that losing a couple hundred bucks worries them?
Secondly, this is Slashdot -- I know someone here stood in one of those Star Wars movie lines at one point or another. Why? I had the opportunity to see it at midnight the day before it came out, as a friend of an employee at the theatre, but I had work the next day. Why does everyone have to be first at everything?
Without a doubt, the lamest post in many months. RMX, you are an idiot for trying to make this spurious tie-in. Timothy, as an editor, one would hope that you had better sense than to allow this shite to make it to the front page.
"My God...it's full of trolls!"
I know as a librarian that libraries are getting HP VI two days before everybody else. We signed a contrat stating that we wouldn't lend the books out to patrons, but it doesn't say anything about keeping them inside the library and reading them there... ;)
Well, at least you can still sue them for distributing a dangerous product (at least in Europe you would - my impression of american 'security' has been that it basically mean you more or less wrap the thing you're selling in warning labels... ;-) )
I have a really elegant proof for Fermat's last theorem. If this sig was only a bit longer...
I fully support Scholastic's decision to take what steps are necessary to try to ensure that everyone gets an equal shot at reading the book before it gets spoiled all over the press.
It is too bad that they need to do all of these things to give everyone an equal shot, but that is hardly Scholastic's fault. If they didn't take these measures, we would be calling them morons for not taking reasonable precautions. In fact, they would probably get their asses sued off by unhappy readers.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
I can't curl up on the sofa with my desktop. If I want to read a few pages before I go to bed, I don't want to have to get up and go to my computer. I know that there are probably handheld devices out there just for e-books, but...
I don't have to worry about buying batteries to read or running out of juice in the middle of a chapter. I don't have to deal with glare when reading outside. If I drop my book, I might have a few bent pages, but it won't break like a piece of hardware can.
I'm seeing lots of comments about this not being a DRM issue. While the original post is just plain goofy, the problem with releasing this book in a digital form that magically "opens" at midnight Friday, is of course that nobody wants to read this long of a book on their computer, nobody wants to spend the money to make it a digital book, and finally somebody would probably break it open before the release date...
Somehow this blurb came out in favor of DRM and Stallman at the same time...I think that, despite all the comments about the sensationalism and general idiocy, the sheer talent it took to manage that makes this a worthwhile post.
The Braying and Neighing of Barnyard Animals Follows.
Ill just wait for the movie. No reading, ill be done with it in a couple hours then I can take a nap.
...exactly how much money did they save by doing this?
Harry Potter can't go to his school in Book 6 -- King's Cross Station was bombed.
/me ducks.
Mod me down, you know you want to.
Let the commencement BEGINULATE!
Or you can wait until November when it's available in print. The trick is that the download is an "Advance Readers Copy", which they say is unproofed and may change before final publication.
Translation: Buy this one because you can't wait, and then buy the "release" downloadable version in August, and then buy the hardback in November.
At least on the site they admit up front they're taking advantage of you. But either "pre-release" or "strict release", the idea is to drum up interest and business.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
And here I am scanning bit torrent sites to see if the book is out there alreadr, even though I've already preordered it =p
While I'm sure the OP's comments were tongue-in-cheek, DRM is awful. The risks, posed to any form of DRM, would leave Scholastic stockholders and distributors confused and angry.
By making such a demonstration, Scholastic is saying how much the investment is worth to them. Violating their efforts takes physical, human force and that is something a majority of people can comprehend.
It's really not that expensive either, in my opinion, because the money they would have to spend defending their copy protection in courts, board rooms, and television would leaves their funds equally depleted.
At least this keeps their distribution ability in the confidence of authors and any other party involved. Any publicity is bad publicity, especially when you're trusted with the defense of such a franchise.
Think how much cheaper and easier it would be if they just used an E-book s with DRM.
Think how much cheaper and easier it would be if they just shipped it out like other books and didn't fucking worry about it.
Naww, crazy idea, don't know what came over me!
Can you imagine what the next home rental media will look like if they read that!
Yeah, they tried that... remember DIVX? (It was a horrible thing that thankfully failed miserably.)
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
I was thinking of mentioning Divx, but I was afraid I'd confuse the younger generation who is used to that being a codec [possibly even forgetting the illegal hacked verion 3 of Divx]. Thanks for providing the link. At least they just deteriorated, or were locked or something, and it wasn't a matter of them blowing up as if you'd placed them in a microwave or hit them while spinning at high speed.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Like, Oh... My... Gawd!
Scholastic has totally failed to take time zones into consideration! Just think about the billions they will lose from people living on the borders of time zones, buying in one and selling at a huge markup in the other - At only 11:04pm!!!
Oh, wait... Scholastic still gets its cover price. Rowling still gets her cut. Everyone (legitimately) involved still gets paid, including some otherwise-uninvolved middle-man who gets a few bucks from parents with more money than sense.
I think I've lost my faith - Someone explain to me again why this matters?
Turns out somebody beat everybody to the punch. over here
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
"GROW UP."
WHAT?! And reduce the Slashdot population?
Please seal your customer records under this kind of lock and key because your present method sux0rz. Thanks.
But about the story too.
Scolastic and Rowling are going to great lengths to make sure that story spoilers are not spread about before the official release date.
1 Slashdot article beneath your current threshold.
So I'll just have my reader connect to a DNS server I manage, which resolves time.gov to a time server I manager
Your server's SSL certificate is not signed by the device manufacturer. You fail it.
uh...the new testiment is Satan's Bible...
Think about it...the new testiment cancels out all of the laws of god as described in the old testiment and makes christians think its ok to continue to sin and be hypocrates.
What better way for satan/the devil/etc to get revenge than to taint god's word with his own?
Then I couldn't read them!
People whose eyes have no red cones can wait for the plain paper hardcover edition, just like blind people wait for the spoken edition.
We have one of those legal notices sitting on the notice board at work for the book. Pretty much the books have to be locked up until 30 minutes before the release date. Boxes are not allowed to be opened, even by the store manager. There seems to be some special covering ive been told on the books too so that the people unpacking them for the release cant see the cover.
The best ARM (Analog Rights Managment) is to simply leave books in dead tree form. So no it's not "unworkable".* The best that the movies, and music industry can do (aside from going back in time) is to make the digital about equal to analog in quality.
*The amount of work (and more is still needed) that goes into the Gutenberg project is proof of that.
This is marketing, plain and simple. It's showmanship. There's no security risk, there's no threat of damage if some books fall into greedy hands early, and any retailer who wants to stay in business will respect the release date without locks and armed guards.
Why do they do it? Could the flood of news reports give you a hint? Would we be discussing Harry Potter on Slashdot right now if they shipping business as usual?
Apologetics save the day once again!
You're a credit to pedantics everywhere.
This isn't about the "right to read" it's about the right to sell things before the offical release.
I used to work at target, we got boxes (movies and stuff) marked "do not open untill" all the time, the preperations of the release of this novel are really not all that novel.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
crates stacked up in the warehouses of delivery companies across America are marked: Please Do Not Open Before Midnight
What are you fucking kidding me? Of course I've got to break open the crates now.
You're a credit to pedantics everywhere.
No, he's a credit to pedants everywhere.
Or they could, y'know, not offer the frickin' thing for download until its release date. Or, alternatively, provide the download, but in an locked format (say, a password-protected zip file), finally displaying the password on the website at the fateful hour.
What's all this crap about time zones and atomic clocks?
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
To me, video games (generally) are more involving than books. I love to read a good book now and then, but I don't think I've EVER read the same book twice. Books have almost zero replay value, whereas games like GTA have quite a bit. And books are not interactive. You just sit there and read it. GTA has missions, but you are free to do other things out of order. On the other hand, books probably promote imagination alot better than video games. Why not do both?
This whole thing is an exercise in publicity and marketting.
Nothing more, nothing less.
I work for a national book chain. What cracked me up is that all of the pallets containing the new Harry Potter came in black shrink wrap (not unusual) and the delivery bill from the shipper said Hannukah on it!
IANAJ (Jew), but if I were I think I would be a little ticked off here -- what was the warehouse thinking? "Hmm, what loser holiday does NOBODY care about and will therefore encourage absolutely NO ONE to look inside the boxes?"
FYI: The next time your place of business gets 6000 pounds of Hannukah books for real... call the police because it's a PLO plot!
Thomas Jefferson said it best:
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
...but it seems we keep getting closer and closer to the world described in Stallman's visionary The Right To Read article.
Once again the ugly head of FSF Fanaticism intrudes where it doesn't belong.
Geez, you guys, get a freaking life already! This story has nothing to do with the right to read. Don't be silly. The bookseller isn't the customer. The lorry driver isn't the customer. The thief breaking in and stealing a book isn't the customer. Nothing in this story whatsoever affects the customer's right to read a book he has purchased. Hell, there ain't anything here that would even trivially inconvenience them!
And you guys wonder why the general public doesn't take you seriously...
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Or, maybe it's a troll. Either way it's a stupid take on an old and reasonable practice.
It's "testament" with an A. The first two syllables of Testament and Testicle do sound the same if you say them fast, but they're spelled differently. ;-)
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
The truth is this is just more fuel to fire the hype machine. Whether true or not, it'll just get more people wanting to read the book. In a way, it's a smart marketing move by the company if they didn't spend too much on it.
There was another attempt... those DVDs that degrade after contact with air, after about 24 hours...
it seems we keep getting closer and closer to the world described in Stallman's visionary The Right To Read article.
No, they want a big release. Since when has building up a little anticipation been a crime? Scholastic is enforcing this in a fine fashion. They are stepping on nobody's rights, all they said is "if you mess this up for us, we're not doing business with you again.".
This is stupid, the article has nothing to do with DRM, aside from a footnote promoting it's use.. it's little more than a rant by someone who lacks common sense. There's nothing wrong with a publisher trying to ensure the release date of it's books, they want to make sure the large book chains don't get all the profits and things are done fairly. The article is interesting in the sense that it gives an eye into how scholastic is going about this.. but this is clouded by the author's ranting, which, from what I can tell lacks any real meaning. I'm not sure if he's referring to locked crates and GPS tracked vehicles as being DRM, which it is not (hence the Digital in Digital Rights Management), or if he's trying to encourage the use of PDFs (which is stupid for a novel to say the least) with DRM (also .. this is slashdot, does this guy even know which side of the wagon he's getting off on?).
Okay, so maybe it's been a slow news day.. but heck, a dupe would be more interesting than this.
What exactly is wrong with protecting your product? In a world of rip-offs and general immorality it's not very uncommon for products to be ripped off before release, or stolen from trucks/docks/etc I myself know of workers who admit to stealing the cargo they're supposed to be loading. There's a lot planned around the time release of the product, and realistically while they are securing to get the biggest "bang" for their own bucks, the publisher is also making things more fair for the distributers by ensuring that everyone gets the same release date, and thus no one store can steal the business from others early
In my opinion, novels and movies are the ones that should really, really put an effort to have a good security on its initial release. Why? Unlike songs and non-fiction books, once the story is leaked or spoiled, the interest just dies down. I wouldn't blame Scholastic for being paranoid to protect their business.
Need a color? Try 100 random colors
Thanks a lot for sullying the name of Timothy just to capitalize on the popularity of a stupid children's book. Jesus Christ. Next time, save it for a fantasy author worth mentioning like Tolkien or Gaiman.
These restraints aren't DRM. They are security. And security for good measure I might add. I don't want the story spoiled for me before I read it myself. Scholastic's fortunes rest on that same truth -- that if the secrets (at the very least) revealed in the new book are published before their time they will be financially damaged.
They may even be damaged --in terms of short term sales-- by loud mouths making and distributing copies to the press (or, God forbid, the Intarwebs).
I don't see anything wrong with keeping the djinni in the bottle until their ready.
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
Sheesh. In my red haze of rage at the retarded submission text I made a stupid typo.
:-D
Anyone tempted to reply just to correct my "their/ they're" faux pas need not bother.
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
But online sellers are not convenient. I know several people who have already reserved their copies of HP. They are so anxious, it is almost scary. These people are more than willing to spend the extra bucks to go to the store (they would probably wait in line if they had to) and get the book ASAP.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
A new Harry Potter book is a big event for young people. Young being 9-15 years old. In my city the huge local bookstore stays open on a Harry Potter release night until about 2am. Children and young people show up by the hundreds; dressed up as their favorite Potter character. They actually convince their parents to bring them downtown and let them stay up until 1am when they fall asleep in car on the way home with their new Harry Potter book in their hands.
A new Windows release midnight sale is just a dud fest for insomniac nerds. But a new Harry Potter release is a big event for young people, bigger than Christmas. For most suburban 12 year olds, it's the first time being at public gathering late at night outside their home. They probably won't be downtown again after midnight until they're old enough to sneak into clubs with fake ID.
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
DRM=Digital Rights Managment. Book!=Digital
who pick up their books at midnight from their book sellers, and then each one of those people scans in one page... Then they each OCR their page and post it to a undetermined newsgroup...
:)
Then what, by 12:15, the book is electronic and free on the net. What was that about DRM?
I wonder if something like that could be pulled off, and just how quick everyone of those posters would receive their legal notices. Yikes! =8^O
Well, screw it, Amazon is delivering my copy, and it's hiding away till my kids birthday at the end of the month.
This story has nothing to do with DRM or the "right to read". It concerns a publisher protecting it's assets before they go on sale. If you think a publisher shouldn't be able to decide when to start selling it's books, you're out of your fucking mind.
After you buy the book, your rights are the same as with any other book.
Your rights are not being infringed upon.
There is nothing to see here.
Have a nice day.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
BBC news had an article this week about a Canadian printing company that has printed the new Harry Potter book on recycled paper. I assume, but am not certain, that recycled paper costs more. Since these books are written at a level that children can handle, allowing the recycled version to be sold first could have significant benefit.
1) The author would be recognized as environmentally conscious.
2) The target audience (kids) would be learning or reinforcing a critical lesson for their future health.
3) The retail profits could be higher on a per-book basis than if consumers purchased from a strictly financial standpoint (some would rather have the book early for a higher price than wait.)
4) The people who really don't give a rat's ass about the environment or being first to read the book could still purchase it the next day.
preservus environmentus!
I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.
Never read any of the books or watched any of the movies, never will. Rowlings doesn't get one cent from me. Heck, I wouldn't read Potter if I got paid for it.
Just watch the papers people...
.deviatefromtheabsolute.
I'm not going to buy the stupid book anyway.
I don't think a non paper issue of any book is going to sell well. The difference between a physical book in your hand and an e copy is still too large.
I might go for it is it was the size, weight and shape of a paperback and had 4 colour 600 ppi, but I would still resent the powering of the thing.
Book are an okay form. Leave 'em alone.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Wait, hell no! Not until digital paper is fully available. I already have to have a separate pair of glasses to work, now you want me to have one to read?? Maybe, just maybe, when computer monitors(LCD or CRT or otherwise) are good enough to read for long periods of time. For work I need a 15min break every hour just to keep my eyes from going into shock!
You buy the books, which is why the "intellectual property" is so valuable.
Create and/or participate in a non-commercial culture if this stuff bothers you.
than a sparkler. (legally anyway :)
It is largely ignored for the smal stuff but still...
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Seems a bit... pointless.d _The_Half-Blood_Prince.pdf|3303751|255212C6AAB645C 930DF54776D1B382C|/
The thing is already all over the P2P networks.
ed2k://|file|Rowling,_J._K._-_6_-_Harry_Potter_an
Hello,
The 60's spy-secret agent films that had the self-destructing messages were actually not James Bond movies. This plot device was from the original Mission: Impossible television show (1966-1970).
Each hour-long episode would always start with Peter Graves retreiving an envelope of photos and a small hand-held tape recorder that had been previously stashed discretely in a public place.
The tape recording would say "Good afternoon, Mr. Phelps. The man you are looking at is -some Slavic name-. He has either developed a major scientific discovery vital to the free world, or is the leader of a critical resistance movement in -some Eastern European country-. He is being held by this man,-some other vaguely Slavic name-.
"Your mission, Jim, should you decide to accept it, is to rescue -the first guy- and bring the documents of the new discovery to the free world.
As usual, should you or any of your IM force be caught or killed, the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions.
Good luck, Jim. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds". Then there was a close-up of smoke coming out of the little tape recorder.
The rest of the show was straightforward. Greg Morris would design and build some advanced custom electronics. Barbara Bain would vamp someone. Martin Landau would create a latex face mask that made him look just like someone else. Peter Lupus would carry away someone hidden in a box.
The elaborate plan would go wrong about 2/3rds of the way through every episode. But teamwork and intelligence and lots of good luck would always save the day. The last scene was the original guy in the first photo from the beginning of the show shaking hands with the Impossible Mission force while riding on the airplane or in the back of the truck to freedom.
The 1960's Mission:Impossible television show had nothing in common with the 1990s movies of the same name starring what's-his-name.
The James Bond character was a borderline psychopath who happened to be a super-handsome 'babe magnet'. He enjoyed killing and never avoided an opportunity to do so. He rarely planned his moves and usually worked alone. Sex and alchool were just 'fuel' to him. This was much more so with the original Bond (played by Sean Connery) than the other Bond actors.
The Mission:Impossible team never deliberately killed anyone as part of their elaborately detailed planning and were too disciplined to compromise the mission with sex and alchool diversions.
The Austin Powers character attempts to mix the secret agent with the swinging 60's youth and music culture. But these two cultures were like oil and water. They never mixed or crossed over.
Austin Powers only works on young people who can see both the secret agent char and the Mod-pop star as equally ridiculous period characters. Middle-aged people can't understand the concept behind Austin Powers at all. It just falls flat.
The only successful attempt to mold together secret-agent and pop-Mod genres was the original '60s "Avengers" television series with Diana Rigg and Patrick MacNee. And that show only worked because it had no politics, no real violence, no real plots, and no pop music. All it had was two great lead characters.
if that's not the most messed up twist on scripture I have ever seen, I don't know what is.
elgee: Stallman is a crackpot. No more, no less.
Tell that to the MacArthur Fellowship people.
They gave RMS one of their 'genius grants' back in 1990.
Strange, a year later, Linus Torvalds began work on the software kernel that 'bears' his name.
Is he a crackpot too?
IBM doesn't think so. They invested heavily in Linux making it more that some obscure 'hobby OS'.
Then there is '(Ex) Chairman Bill' who happened to be at the right place at the right time and made the 'deal of a lifetime' at the dawn of the PC era that eventually made him the world's wealthiest man.
Is Bill Gates a crackpot?
Crackpot or not, the USA decided not to break Microsoft up like they did AT&T back in 1984.
That should give you some idea how much clout some people have in the world.
Too bad 'money makes the world go around' instead of something less...monetary....
I have a skid of the books sitting in my store already.
Here's the backcover text:
It is the middle of the summer, but there is an unseasonable mist pressing against the window panes. Harry Potter is waiting nervously in his bedroom at the Dursley's house in Provet Drive for a visit from professor Dumbledore himself. The last time he saw the headmaster was in a fierce one-to-one duel with Lord Voldemort and Harry can't quite believe that professor Dumbledore will actually appear at the Dursley's of all places. Why is the professor coming to visit him now? What is it that cannot wait until Harry returns to Hogwarts in a few weeks time? Harry's sixth year at Hogwarts has already got off to an unusual start as the worlds of missile and magic start to intertwine.
It really would do them good to sell it as an e-book seeing as it will instantly become one anyway.
There's two things wrong with this idea. Firstly, what format are they going to put it in that doesn't have some "workaround" available? Secondly, I've heard that Rowling hates the idea of ebooks and that this is why none of the Potter books have (legitimately) ever appeared in ebook format, which is a bit of a shame really.
Why does this even matter? It's their book, they can do whatever the hell they want with it. It's not harming anyone. I say, let those idiots waste their money and squander their profits on such ridiculous security measures.
I like my women how I like my sugar.. granulated.
Yeah, except that e-books are only used by a small and to my mind somewhat confused micro-minority, and for good reason -- you are not going to sell 500 trillion of them, or whatever the number is they are aiming for this Harry Potter (full disclosure: I have the whole series, too). E-books are a pain to read in the sun, are a risk to read in the bathtub, can't be dog-eared (my book, my rules), won't survive having your backpack thrown in your locker, writing a note on the second page when you give them to your kid sister is sort of hard, and you can't include them in your Delicious Library, just to name a few real-life problems. In other words: E-books are good for the publishing company, but not for the customer.
I would like to predict they are going to die like web push technology. But unfortunately, capitalism in the 21th Century is not about what the customer wants, it is about what big multinationals can get away with. When you buy an e-book, you are helping them screw you. If you want a tech toy to look cool, get a frigging iPod, that's what they are there for. But please don't support the attempt to kill something that has served the human mind for more than 2000 years.
I refuse to read the American English version, so all I care about is getting my hands on the original book imported at some point.
What's the point of all this security really? I understand that with movies studios are afraid that there will be some miniscule, but real loss from commercial pirates. But what's the problem if the next Harry Potter book is leaked? It's not like someone is going to print a few millions copies and start competing with the legit publishers. There are no book pirates anymore.
And if someone wants to read a pirated ebook copy, he will. There isn't much social pressure to "read the book on the opening night", as with movies. I am perfectly willing to wait a few days for my copy of the next Harry Potter book. Especially, since the experience from the last year shows that the first OCR copy appears on the same day and a proofread one the day after that. I am not interested in buying, loaning or even printing a hard copy - I read all Harry Potter books on my Palm and I expect to do the same this time. What exactly does all that security achieve?
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
After reading the article, I really think the author doesn't know what the D in front of DRM means.
My quality social news site.com.
- The bell curve says that a couple of (random) stores would get copies way before everybody else. This would result in bedlam (and a few turned- off customers), plus the next reason
- If it's a dud, all the big fans will have bought before anybody manages to read it. This is part of the reason why I try to avoid any movie released on a Friday. If they thought it was good they'd release it on a Wednesday and wait for the word of mouth to build.
- The pressure of the wait can produce it's own PR... Witness this article.
Nonetheless, there's nothing in these books that restricts when/how someone can use them -- other than the fas that they're on paper. DRM would be things like photocopyer-fouling paper forcing people to manually type in some pages if they wanted to copy or digitize the books.Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
1. receive truck load of harry potter books
2. sign legal document declaring they will never give me any more books if i break the contract
3. start massive advertising (pre-planed) campaign: Internet, tv, driving a van around with a poster and megaphone all within minutes of getting the book in stock
4. offer the books to the absolute highest bidders, take advantage of rich kids, yank the prices up as high as they can possibly go.
5. Call up scholastic say: "If you want me to stop selling these books I will sell you my remaining stock.. for a fee, and even give you a list of people I sold them to."
6. Proffit
This isn't real DRM, and it certainly isn't to stop piracy, this is just their hype machine and if you play it right you can make some serious profit off it and probably quite legally except for that pesky civil court.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
You have a sick, twisted mind. Please subscribe me to your newsletter.
I'm sure there are some true fans of the Harry Potter books but the majority of sheeple just let themselves be dragged mindlessly into the craze purely because it's a "cool" thing to do because everyone else does it.
The reality and sadness of the matter is had these people read any Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Philip Pullman, Roald Dahl or even Terry Pratchett, they'd realise that there's hardly a single iota of an original idea in any one of Rowling's books.
It's very clever manipulation by the corporations involved to use "oneupmanship" as the way of getting the sheeple to rush out and buy the book at the stroke of midnight next Saturday ("I must finish it before Johnny down the street does") but those of us with even a little common sense realise it's clever marketting wrapped around a sub-standard product.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
There is only one thing that came to mind after reading that summary. Sometimes Things Cost Money.
" Yesterday upon the stair I met a man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today. I wish that man would go away."
Incidentally, in the UK at least, regulations require lorry drivers to stop for breaks every so often. So I've no idea how the GPS tracking would help here...
Driving for 10 hours straight would, if not illegal, carry a high risk of the company getting sued when a lorry driver loses concentration and crashes into a car. (Besides, what about traffic jams? They would force the drivers to "deviate or stop".)
SHITTY "THE BOOKS OF MAGIC" RIP-OFF!!!
Harry Potter sucks. It's boring, stupid, the characters are retards with no personality. It's worse than cliches, the characters are so awful, they're even more pathetic than any cliche. Gandalf could disintegrate all those losers at Fagwarts in a second if he tried! Darth Vader could kill them all. Fuck, even Audrey from "The Little Shop of Horrors" would eat all those wimps before they realized what was going on.
the masses. First off, everyone is talking about the Harry Potter books as if Harry Potter wrote the books himself. Sorry to say, but he is a fictious character. So "He should sell it under DRM..." only shows the ignorance of these posters. I have never read any of these books and I don't have a child that does, but I still know that the author's name is JoAnne Rowling. Usually that name means it's not a "he". Also, when her book is sold to a publisher, it's pretty much under the publisher's control as to what happens with the book.
/. readers are thought to be a bit more intelligent than the average computer user. But more often than not...lately I'd rather listen to the average computer user's constant questions about spyware than the dumb shit that's being posted here. Atleast their questions are out of honest ignorance....here comments are made out of ignorance intended to be played off as knowledge and truth.
I have to say this just to get it off my chest.
Stallman would say you are crazy to think this is anything like what he was talking about.
That DRM does not work. I mean, mathematically, cryptographically, does not work. So, even /. should get over it.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
I work for a book binding company here in the states, and with the last title we all had to sign contracts stating that if we even told anyone we were printing the book, we would be fired and legal action would be brought against us. We wrapped all the pallets of books in black plastic and had people guarding the trailer where they were stored, so this year when they came to us to print Half Blood Prince, we kept raising our price until they went away. Too much of a hassle for a title we only do every other year or so.
Think how much cheaper and easier it would be if they just used an E-book s with DRM. Think about how much it really, really sucks to read a book off of a computer screen.
Well, almost nobody. Publishers aren't generally seeing any value in eBook rights, and are sitting on them... except for Baen Books, who are going into non-DRMed eBooks in a big way.
I've bought over 60 eBooks from Baen and over 600 non-DRMed eBooks (mostly short stories) from Fictionwise, and one DRMed eBook (the annotated version of A Fire Upon the Deep)... and the DRM on that was so annoying to deal with I ended up finding a pirated copy online to sit alongside it.
As soon as the public demands something this much, the supplier can do whatever arbitrary things they want. I'm sure if the price was $100 for the hardcover, people would buy it. They just have to find the right price, and the right amount of restriction, that will result in the highest sales. Given the demand for this book, they could do almost anything. Be glad they chose to be somewhat reasonable. Also: this is not DRM, because books are not digital. This might be RM, but I'm inclined to think that ensuring that your book is not released until the release date is entirely reasonable.
obviously trolling is not considered wrong by internet kings because it is distruptive, but because it is competition for their own writing.
It's a pity more stores (and more book buyers) aren't in to print-on-demand. The DRM could have been in the book module the stores would receive to do the printing so as to be non-printable until the specified date, thus avoiding all of the costly security precautions, and the final printed product would be a normal book, thus avoiding all of the DRM cautionary tales.
Not to mention all of the usual advantages of print-on-demand (no overstock issues, etc).
Of course, then you miss out on the huge mountain of books that provide not only inventory but advertisement for the book.
Oh well.
A publisher goes to great lengths to prevent early leaks of a created work. It is finally released at midnight, sparking universal celebration. Adults and children alike take part in an incredible, magical social event and share this experience with like-minded individuals the world over. Embargoeing a release to spoil the spoilers has nothing to do with DRM, but everything to do with preserving a social phenomenon. Think "Star Wars" or "Cabbage Patch Kids" in the above scenario. What's so draconian (let alone illegal, unfair, or just plain wrong) about trying to make sure that everyone shares in the release at the same time everywhere? And since when does The Average Joe Consumer have a claim to ANY rights before an authorized release? Scholastic deserves congratulations for trying to preserve the magic of the Harry Potter release, when a kid cracks the book spine and reads the first words with wide-eyed wonder and breathless anticipation. And further congrats for creating the hype usually associated with your typical Hollywood blockbuster. When was the last time a book created this much excitement? Oh yeah..."Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix."
oh man. I just tried to read that "visionary" Stallman story. oh man..it was like trying to read a story written by a 12 year old.
"I remember a time when ANYONE could possess a debugger"
give me a fucking break.
Then something is fundamentally wrong here..
What is next? Are you are going to tell me Mickey has a roth retirement account, and Santa Claus uses SQL-ledger to manage his payroll?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Assuming nobody manages to get ahold of an early copy, the book will be scanned and posted within an hour of the midnight release date. Does a few hours really make a difference? Is it a big enough difference to justify all the added costs? (though they probably just pass on the costs to us...)
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
To do away with the imoral copyright and get a real job ;)
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Anticipation yes, restricted supply no. They get as many books out there as they can, so they're not playing the whole "beanie baby" trick where you sell someone a piece of shit, but they want it because it's "rare." Scholastic gets as many copies of HP in stores as they can. In fact, one reason they choose the date is because they *don't* want a restricted supply issue - they don't want either 1) pirates or 2) stores who get the book first to have an advantage.
They want supply to go from 0 to near infinite immediately, so everyone can get a book, pirates have no mathod of making money, and they don't have to play favorites as to which stores get the book first. That way no one gets pissed off.
A customer of mine is a book distributor. The crates are ALSO marked "Hannukka".
meh
WRITTEN GUIDELINES FOR BOOKSELLERS
:
Dear Bookseller,
Now that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is arriving or has already arrived in your warehouses and stores, and especially with the weekend before the release upon us, we want to ask your continued vigilance in maintaining the highest level of security around the books. We do not want any "spoilers" to change the readers' experience of the new book!
We ask that you confirm that all procedures are in place and, in particular, that the following steps are implemented
* Insure the product is segregated from all other stock
* Insure all security measures are in place in all stages of the process, and that access to the product and processing areas are appropriately restricted
* Insure your entire staff is aware of the restrictions that are in place
* Particularly over the weekend, insure appropriate staff, including security personnel, are on site
* We recommend you implement, if you haven't already, the following in the secured staging areas and communicate this to your employees: no cell phones or recording devices and no lunch boxes or coolers, only clear bags
* Please contact us prior to any communication with the media or other third parties, concerning your operations and security
We greatly appreciate your cooperation and look forward to a successful launch of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on July 16th for all booksellers!
Sincerely,
Scholastic Sales Management
meh
this doesn't sound too out of ordinary to me. publishers and distributors already have been dealing with this type of issues through legal approach, just like film/entertainment companies and distributors. knowning distributors take big chunk of gross profit, i can understand why publishers/film/entertainment companies would take legal approach in order to protect their copyrighted content. after all, entertainment/publishers make the most money through well executed public-hype/marketing.
i'm not sure what the big fuss is about anyhow.
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
Pictures of the boxes:
http://www.bigattichouse.com/hpbox.jpg
http://www.bigattichouse.com/hpbox2.jpg
http://www.bigattichouse.com/hpbox3.jpg
meh
There are so many practical and esthetic reasons that a physical book is so much better than an e-book. Holding and reading a physical book is one of the great joys in life, and it is a great way to access and retrieve information. I can think of only one way an e-book improves on a conventional book (and it's not DRM, it's the ability to carry many books in less weight and space) but in every other way the experience is less appealing and satisfying than a real book.
San Francisco Photographers
Street dates are good in principle at protecting small retailers but the reality is that the titles just don't get shipped to the small retailers by the street date and the big ones get their shipment. It's more of a way of controlling customer's purchasing habits now. You tell them they can have it on a particular day and then they show up to buy it on that day specifically.
(1) Generate some 128-bit key and encrypt the content.
(2) Distribute.
(3) Announce your key at midnight.
But seems Harry is not published in digital format.
http://www.ieaa.org/~adrian/
I'm too lazy to read 313 comments to see if it's been mentioned already, but to the best of my knowledge Scolastic is not allowed to discontinue future distribution through a store based on a break in the street date. I used to work at a Target store and we had street dated material every week. If we broke it they are allowed to fine us obscene amounts of money ($5000 per copy of Windows XP sold before release date etc etc) but it was explicitly stated in the corprate material concerning new releases that they are not granted right to deny us future releases either in timing or quantity.
Any bets that the above Usenet (remember Usenet?) newsgroup will have a fully proofed copy of the latest Harry Potter book within twelve hours of its publisher release?
How about #bookz on Undernet?
With a free download you can print them, recite them, do text to speech, put them on your PDA or on your favorite portable reader.
How exactly will this be stopped?
Nobody really cares about whether or not somebody reads it ten minutes too early.....the important thing is the hype being generated by all this.
No sig today...
J.K. Rowling wants all of the people who read this book to read it at the same time. That's just her plan, and I think it's a good idea. All of the children who will be reading this book... well, it's fair to all of them to read it at the same time.
Starmen.net
I knew someone who worked for a bookstore for many years. Even since book 4, there have been lables on the boxes that the stores get that say "Don not open by blah blah midnight." Every year we opened the boxes just to see what happened. Also, I finished the books before they ever came out. Its nice have bookstore friends. Its also nice to know that "social engeneering notes" don't work on me.
"Love is like a trampoline, first it's like "SWEET!!" then it's like *BLAMM!*"
http://www.mininova.org/tor/70146
I've actually seen DVDs for sale that do that. I read about the technology and heard that my local area was going to be a test bed for it.
Basically, you pay about $5 or $7 for a DVD. The disc has a special chemical coating on it that turns opaque after it is exposed to the air for more than about 24 hours.
Work. Of. Fiction.
Not biography. Not documentary. Not non-fiction. The "right to read" only applies to things that directly impact your ability to survive. Imagining the wonderful adventures with Hermoine's panties isn't part of your ability to survive, although you might very well be socially imbalanced enough to *think* it is.
Wh00t for JK Rowling and her success. I find the stories rather redundant, in comparision with all the other British royality stuff like King Arthur and Henry V, but people like it and she's enjoying the money. A far cry from where she used to be.
Go fuck yourself. -- Dick Cheney
Ghaa! Who stole the 4th wall ! ! ? ?
Yeah, but DRM is evil.
cause e-books suck?
Your logic sucks.
Darth Vader is Harry Potter's Father. There. Now you don't have to buy the book.
Seriously, I don't envy these guys. All it takes is one minimum wage warehouse worker who doesn't care about losing his job, a crow-bar, and a Xerox machine. Pssst... hey buddy... yeah, you. Didn't you just start here last week? Wanna make $500? Get the picture?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
He can't really protect anything.
+++
My last.fm page
Lesson 1. Social Engineering
Lesson 2. Reverse Psychology
Students are advised that skipping lectures may be detrimental to your future career.
Books are not protected by DRM. Author's interests are. Books would be much better off if they could be disseminated as freely as possible.
No, he's a credit to pedants everywhere.
You sir, are a true credit to pedants everywhere.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
I'm really into chicks who think they're witches, primarily because they *never* say no to anything in bed.
They think they're being wicked. It makes me chuckle. I mean, afterwards.
...not ship the books out until, you know, they're ready to be released?
Nah, that would be too *straightforward*, and it might actually *work*, and above all it wouldn't give them anyone to *sue*, so obviously they couldn't use that plan, now could they? Sheesh.
OTOH, while this particular quirk of the book publishing and distribution system it bizarre and unnecessary, it's not DRM in any normal sense of that term. All they're trying to control is the initial distribution until the release date. The book is still just an ordinary book once you do get your hands on it.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
One thing I find surprising is that bluesq.com is still allowing betting on the plot points of the new book (the identity of the half blood prince and which character dies). Enough people by now have had access to copies of the novel that it would seem likely that one or more of them could make a killing by betting large sums of money on the characters in question with no risk whatsoever.
d =2099 (spoiler warning: by this point one character is a VERY heavy favorite, so it's quite possible that he is the person going to die and people have already made inside bets)
You can see the current odds at http://www.bluesq.com/bet?action=go_events&type_i
Analog Rights Management, or ARM. Since a lot of effort is being made, you could say Scholastic is strong-ARM'ing the book.
Or maybe we could call it Analog Reproduction Rights Restrictions, or ARRR to highlight the piratical practices of the Potter publishers*?
*I couldn't resist: a penchant for poetry prevailed over petty precicesness.
Well, yeah. A commercial web host can take the hit from any traffic spike short of 9/11. Free, no. Cheap, no. Budgetable, sure.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Turning opaque is hardly on par with exploding, but I understand you were talking about DIVX DVDs that didn't get the market share the MPAA was hoping for [thank goodness]. What a waste of material that idea is.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Agreed, but I think it's a publicity stunt, pure and simple. Anything that you "can't open until X" generates anticipatory demand in the consumer.
I once tested a DRM'd download-on-demand ebook for a client. Not only did the stupid thing require an internet connection every time you wanted to read it, it became unusable when the "publisher" went tits-up, after less than two years in business. 'Nuf said!!
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I like a lot of Baen Books's policies regarding electronic works. They offer free books, copies in DRM-free forms of the early books of many of their authors and series. With many series, if you buy a later book in the series, you receive a CD with (again DRM-free) copies of the books that came before in the series. Lastly, they've been running Webscriptions where you receive advance copies of books as they're being developed. Someone later in the thread says you're paying thrice-over for this, but that's not the case. Basically, you pay per month. In any given month, you're getting about a fourth of 8-10 different books currently in progress. Paying for four months, about the price of a twelve paperbacks, nets you 8-10 full books, and partial copies of another 24-30. Personally, it's not my cup of tea, but for those who have a wide variety of interests, and particularly for those who like ecxlusive early access, it may be worth it.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
A store in Vancouver apparently sold some last week.
Reuters article
If intellectual property isn't a valid concept, then the GPL no longer has a leg to stand on.
Well, of course GPL depends on IP law. Without these laws, GPL is UNECESSARY! It is because of the law that GPL was written. As a self defense mechanism. When the enemy is defeated, the army can disband, or dis-arm, whatever you want to call it. Then we must remain ever vigilant against attacks like the laws we have on the books today, on real innovation. But then, of course, you're not really listening. I really need a bot to respond to your endless repetition. Or maybe, you're the bot?
No, these are different from DIVX. DIVX required online activation to work, these actually were physically unusable.