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Book Publishers Abandoning DRM
tmalone writes "The New York Times is reporting that book publishers are beginning to phase out DRM-protected audio books. This month the world's largest publisher, Random House, started offering DRM-free mp3s; Penguin has announced that it will follow suit. Their logic? DRM just doesn't work. 'Publishers, like the music labels and movie studios, stuck to DRM out of fear that pirated copies would diminish revenue. Random House tested the justification for this fear when it introduced the DRM-less concept with eMusic last fall. It encoded those audio books with a digital watermark and monitored online file sharing networks, only to find that pirated copies of its audio books had been made from physical CDs or DRM-encoded digital downloads whose anticopying protections were overridden.'"
ebooks are an example of technophilia overwhelming common sense. they haven't yet succeeded, and they will never succeed. ebooks are NOT, repeat are NOT superior to wood pulp. sure you can use them in low light situations, but they aren't as durable and they require batteries
every new technology satisfies a need that was not satisfied before. there is no need to improve upon wood pulp when it comes to book. a paperback book beats an ebook in any way, any day. technophilia informs some people that they are an improvement, but they aren't thinking like a consumer does. a consumer looks at a paperback and an ebook and he or she chooses a paperback, every time
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
the blindingly obvious usually will win out in time.
I understand this was originally causing quite a stir with Audible.com. Audible stats that it will not allow any non DRM books to be placed on there site. Even if the author requests that they do so. I know of one author mentioned on TWIT - This Week In Tech. (I believe was John C Dvorak, but can't remember) that we was not going to put his book up on Audible.com just for the reason he wanted it not DRM'd. With all the major book companies shifting to a none DRM format, I wonder if sites like this that are smaller will change there attitude.
Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today's events. - Albert Einstein
I realize almost everyone here knew this back when this whole thing began, but I fear that the music and movie industries will largely ignore this, or, worse, try to improve upon it somehow. The current models are failing, but they don't want to admit it. They'll probably continue investing more into an arms race they can't win. Maybe a mixture of diminishing sales and wasted money will cripple them enough that others can rise up and take their place.
From the article: "Our feeling is that D.R.M. is not actually doing anything to prevent piracy," said Ms. McIntosh of Random House Audio.
:-)
Wtf? A business person actually seeing whats been f...king obvious for years now?
How often does a company actually get the queue and do something right? The fact that they tested their assumption and made a move based on evidence is praise worthy. Not that they will give up, but at least they figured out how they aren't going to win.
Maybe these books that everyone talks about actually do make you smarter.
Baen Webscriptions, Baen free library
that so many people listen to audiobooks in their cars? Who would have thought that poor transportation and urban sprawl lead to appreciation for literacy? Then again... automotive accidents are always on the rise, and surely most of them are due to distractions. Yet if we fix this problem, the economy fails! Efficiency is a bitch...
I think you and the parent are talking about different things. eBooks SHOULD be digital books, text documents. You are talking about AUDIO books, books being read by someone. Note how he talks about low-light, while you talk about driving.
Granted, the original article gets pretty confused about it as well.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Long time lurker (many years), first time poster. I just created a slashdot login, just so I could comment on this story. My comment beside what I've said so far is thus: HELL YES! VIVA LA REVOLUTION! FOR RANDOM HOUSE IS A JOLLY GOOD FELLOW! ETC! Finally a story worthy of my awesome posting powers.
As the unwilling DRM expert in the school district I work for, I've told all the Librarians to NOT buy from either the Apple iTunes store or Audible.com, to instead buy the books as CD's or even Cassette Tapes and then make their own DRM-less MP3 files for use on the players the district checks out to students.
We don't do this to get around copyright law, we buy as many copies as are made available, but it is simply NOT WORTH THE TIME AND TROUBLE to deal with DRM.
What the publishers need to do is make an agreement with a few distribution channels to get their books out there in PDF format incredibly cheap. If I could buy a typical $8 paperback book on the iTMS and sync it to my iPod Touch for $3, I'd buy a lot more books. Not only that, but if you got it down to around $3, the publisher would have much fewer worries about piracy because it'd be clearly discounted for internet sales. One of the things that is just asinine is that most ebooks cost as much as the printed copies!
I've debated a few IP expansionists on a subject that would do much more to hamper piracy: bringing IP under state property laws. You catch someone making a business off of your IP without you releasing it for free? How does grand theft sound instead of "copyright infringement" if it's really property? You want to get rid of serial piracy, especially the for-profit kind? Throw the punks in with the guys who commit real felony property crimes.
Of course that's assuming IP is real property...
Coming soon, to a website near you.
Quote "It encoded those audio books with a digital watermark and monitored online file sharing networks, only to find that pirated copies of its audio books had been made from physical CDs or DRM-encoded digital downloads whose anticopying protections were overridden."
Did I miss something, they encoded to trace but wait, they found that the CD's were ripped and the DRM encoded ones were overridden
well if then how did they trace it, nothing to trace on overridden encryption and nothing to track from a CD ripped.
My take on ebooks and readers:
http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/2007/11/ereaders-and-ebooks.html
Summary:
You need a great reader at a great price.
eBooks should be way less than regular books people.
Have every regular book come with an eBook in a sleeve in the back or have a code printed in it that allows for a free download of the book.
A bit more at the link and a place for more permanent comments.
all the best,
drew
http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
7. Variable type: With an ebook reader, you can zoom the font size to suit your needs and/or abilities. Invaluable.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Since the watermarks survive, as the content plays indistinguishably with them in there, but don't prevent copying, why don't they just watermark everything?
If they charge your credit card when you download the watermarked content, they can just watermark the content with your card ID. Then if they catch a file out there in the wild, they can see who it came from, and investigate the cardholder and the contentholder with violating copyright law.
If it's even worth the bother. They'll realize that people distributing some of the content for free to their friends the best advert for more content. And even if they give all the content away free, they'll realize that the content is just a way for people to connect to its author, so the content is advertisement for all kinds of other products: presubscription premiere releases, physical copy collector's items, schwag like T-shirts/posters/actionfigures, personal appearances, "author's picks" compilations of other content, recommendations of other authors, branded SUVs with the author's signature...
The audience has already moved into the 21st Century "free content" economy. These dinosaurs are still selling CDs as if they're still in the business of selling plastic discs, that they emboss with content-encoded patterns as a marketing stunt. Well, they can't custom-watermark CDs so easily, and the costs of trucking them around is more than they "lose" on free downloads. They should get with the program before they're nothing but an obstacle.
--
make install -not war
I think that even Homer Simpson would have been able to understand that: Protecting digital content from someone who *already* paid for it makes no sense. It's like taking out insurance for the purpose of protecting you from yourself if you develop multiple personality disorder. Sheesh... (or as we say in our native language, "bliksem!")
I was briefly excited until I realized that this had nothing to do with multi-format eBooks.
Guess I'll stick with Fictionwise and Baen for a while more.
would it have been that hard to prefix it with 'audio'? I don't care about audiobooks
I thought you were talking about #bookz on undernet for a moment there.
has been the ability to get books on a reader. At this time, I have been unable to load anything interesting on an ebookwise reader. IOW, it was 100 poorly spent. Once the DRM gets dropped, I would load many different books on it. But I also do not want to 400 for a reader. That is ridiculous. Once a real reader is available for ~100 AND they have the ability to easily load books AND the books are available, then we will see a massive take off. And yes, the publishers will back these. Why? Because book printings costs money. So does the equipment, the ppl, etc. In fact, once these take off, we will see paper-backs disappear slowly. Hard and leather covers will make a resurgence. Companies like Easton press will actually do BETTER, not worse. But the all the paper back companies will disappear within 10 years of the above condition.
BTW, the reason why easton will do better is that paperbacks compete against them, while e-books will actually show what books to print.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I bought serial number #1 from them, "The Pleasure of finding things out", on MP3 CD.
Then, they went DRM.
From: Doreen Moore
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 12:21:58 -0700
Dear Mr. Richardson,
We just created our first MP3-CD recording. It is available for purchase
only
for 19.00. The title is "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out" by Richard
Feynman.
It will be a slow process initially, but hopefully within the next few
months we can release an initial batch of about 50 or so titles to start,
then expand the collection from there.
Within the next few years I'm sure we will get involved with streaming audio
formats as that technology becomes more feasible and more widespead.
Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Doreen Moore, Customer Service Representative
Books on Tape, Inc.
www.booksontape.com
Phone: (800) 626-3333
Fax: (714) 825-0756
I'd buy MORE books if the publishers stopped giving me 40% off hardcover price and include the ebook and MP3. Paying $30-$40 for all three is tolerable, IMHO.
This is actually very important. Like school books, these are a huge costs to societies to maintain books. In addition, libraries suffer in that only one person can access a material at a time. For schools, that has normally meant that children are competing for a resource. Now a resource is infinite and at little cost to preserve.
Just thinking about it, I wonder if some form of DRM should be developed and made free for readers that will enable a time limited access to a resource. That would enable a library to buy an e-book. The only problem is that companies will take the idea, pervert it and destroy the concept before it has time to take hold.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
This is a nerd site, not an RIAA lawyer site, Mr Troll.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I'm exactly the kind of consumer marketers want to get. I buy things only when they make sense and I usually influence friends and family to buy the same thing because I make smart choices. I'm about 15% away from buying an e-book reader, and if the Kindle looked like the Sony reader or if the Sony had the instant download and instant buy feature of the Kindle, I'd have bought one.
My wife is a doctor and she lugs huge books around with her - up to 20-25 pounds at a time. If she could put those books into an e-book reader, she'd do it in a minute.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
I've made a three-stage theory on DRM:
1) DRM is introduced, many bold claims are made about it, manufacturers are very excited about it, cracking efforts begin.
2) The DRM starts to get cracked, new schemes are introduced with equally bold claims, many legal threats are made, but it starts to become clear that this isn't working.
3) Investigations are done into how beneficial DRM is, and the results aren't favourable to DRM. The DRM is deemed to be costly and useless, and is promptly abandoned.
e-books seem to be moving towards stage 3 right now. Of course, there is the possible stage 4 to be concerned about.
4) Stage 3 is somehow forgotten, DRM is re-introduced, many bold claims are made about it...
"A heavy reader will make up that $400 in a year or so, and then start pulling ahead."
Use the library. The Kindle falls behind to start and falls further behind with each book you read.
Plus, librarians are sexy! They're fighting for our 1st amendment rights.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
It's a shame it took them this long to figure that out. They could have asked any one of us and we would have told them that for a $20,000 consulting fee.
(apologies to Mr. Black for ripping him off)
Yay! Yay! Yay!
Do I sound sufficiently excited? I thought my audible.com subscription; up to 5 books/mo for $20, was a great bargain; unfortunately when I dumped the last Windows box in my house I lost access to their library (and iTunes, but Amazon's DRM-less mp3 store is proving an adequate replacement). I would *love* to be able to subscribe to audible again, especially now with my new Palm Centro which is slowly replacing my old cell, my palm and my iPod. They keep sending me email inviting me back, and I keep responding that I can't until they drop DRM; no response from them on this request however.
I found out from this guy that book publisher Tor is giving away free e-books. Not just no DRM.
The computer software industry generally realized twenty years ago that copy protection schemes cause more problems than they solve. (When was the last time you had to look up a word in a printed manual, or attach a hardware dongle, in order to run a piece of software?) Copy protection is rarely difficult to circumvent, adds to the costs of media distribution, provides no benefit to the legitimate customer, and often drives legitimate customers to become illegitimate for the sake of convenience.
It's nice to see a sign of hope that other digital content industries may finally be coming to the same conclusions.
> Since Kindle has DRM
Ebook DRM has the same analog hole as the others, all you need is a digital camera and OCR software.
And enough time, of course (which is probably why people tend to illegally trade their non-DRM ebooks with each other, it distributes the work over more people).
Non-DRM books: merely a few centuries of proven success, only adding up to a few trillion dollars of revenue to date.
DRM books: a few years of lost revenue, customers complaints about interoperability problems, and watching your non-DRM-using competitors eat you alive.
C'mon, you can't compare a few years of loss to centuries of success. That's apples to oranges! Clearly, the jury is still out of telling customers to go fuck themselves because you don't need their stinking money. What would you do with their filthy stinking useless money anyway, other than spend it on tech support for the DRM-caused problems? It's still an untried business model. How disappointed I am, that they gave up on the grand experiment of turning away customers. I'm sure telling customers to go fuck themselves and give their money to competitors, would have eventually worked out, if only they had persevered.
Quitters. Cowards! The anti-DRM crowd is just a bunch of lame asses who only care about raking disgusting heaps of profit. Businesses doesn't need that type. The publishing world will soon forget your puny centuries of accrued wealth and prosperity. The poverty revolution is still coming, and soon the publishers will renew the race to see who can lose money the fastest. You anti-DRM hippies will be left out in the cold, shivering in your piles of cold hard cash.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump