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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.'"
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.
I disagree. I rarely if ever will pick up book anymore. I can't do it while I'm driving, while I'm jogging, or while I do a host of other things. Living in the greater Seattle area, a commute that takes an hour is common place. If you can figure out how to get back a useless hour of your time, I think that it is very profitable.
Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today's events. - Albert Einstein
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.
Since the only ebooks I've purchased are Role-Playing Game modules, I'd have to disagree. Going cover to cover: yes, I enjoy physical books much more. But searching for a tidbit of information (for school projects as well, in which Google Books is quite the useful tool), I prefer the ability to search through an entire text for a single word instead of flipping through a book for the page I need.
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
Actually, the main problem with ebooks now that paper-like displays are seeing some progress is the cost. $400 for a Kindle is just nasty. When the cost comes down, people will snap those up like crazy, because it's all the benefits of ebooks without the eye strain that kept them away from the concept before. I know I want one, and I've always hated reading stuff on a screen.
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...
1. Searching: An index is nice, but I can think of times that I'd rather be able to search.
2. Portability: With an ebook reader, you can carry your entire library in a device the size of a piece of paper. Sure you have have to charge it, but you've got to sleep some time, right?
3. Commenting: The ability to markup the book without damaging it book in some way.
4. The ability to make as many bookmarks as you want. I don't know if any reader has instituted this yet, but this would be a killer feature that would allow you to mark all your favorite pages/passages so you can jump to any of them in a second.
5. Portable bookstore: Decide you want to read something but don't have the time to go to the bookstore, download the book to your computer or directly to your reader.
6. Unlimited selection: Everything ever published will eventually be available to be loaded on my ebook reader, but I have real difficulty with the selection available to me at local bookstores, especially with the lack of older titles available.
What is stopping me from getting into the ebook game now are the cost and features of the readers available. I never pay the early adopter tax, but within five years, I'll probably get a reader. I'm also not interested in paying the same price as I would at the bookstore for a new hardback, because the bookstore and it's share of the price shouldn't be necessary any longer, but as long as I can wait a year and get the book at half of the paperback cost, I'll be sold.
Publishers really need to pull their finger out and adopt a common book file format with no active DRM. The consequence of not doing so is ebooks languish. People who want books in an electronic format will just grab them them anyway through P2P, IRC or wherever and the publishers will get nothing at all. Once an industry standard format appears, the format has a good chance of taking off.
I also think the experience of ebooks and music should be a lesson for digital video downloads. People would have to be stupid to *buy* digital movies from Amazon, Sony, Microsoft, Apple, Netflix or whoever when the content is locked to a handful of supported devices and you are at the mercy of the provider to manage your collection. I don't want to have to own two or three software players, or only be able to play some movies on some devices. Just like with ebooks most people will just turn to P2P instead.
Drop the DRM. Piracy happens whether DRM is there or not. Dropping the DRM just means more people will buy their direct download videos rather than get it on P2P or copy it from DVD.
Actually, $400 is basically free, if you are a heavy reader. Kindle books seem to be uniformly, and significantly, cheaper than the non-Kindle editions. A heavy reader will make up that $400 in a year or so, and then start pulling ahead.
One of the big lessons we all need to learn is this: People are different!
Some get addicted to drugs; others don't.
Some have their health ruined by alcohol; others drink like fish yet remain fairly healthy.
Some get sick when they eat certain foods; others thrive on them.
Some lose weight by exercising; others don't (true; look it up).
And some will never give up paper books, while others will be happy to do so.
It makes life more complicated, but also more fun.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
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.
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...
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
Your comment ignores the plethora of free content for ebook readers. Never heard of Project Gutenberg? And it's not the only game in town, lots of publishers are trying to raise interest by free giveaways, at least in the science fiction / fantasy genre (Tor, Baen).
> if you are a heavy reader. -----> if you are a heavy reader of expensive enough ebooks.
There, fixed that for you.
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
As long as that remains so, they will suceed in some uses and fail in others. Notice how wood-pulp books are unlikely to improve much over the next few decades but Ebooks are certain to do so though, this likely means that ebooks will get more popular over time.
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
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
Unfortunately, for the some of same reasons an ebook is perfect, it also is lacking.
1. Searching instead of an index - I've stumbled upon countless, worthwhile side tracks while flipping to a particular page. It's sort of like finding a hidden treasure right there in the book you've used hundreds of times. You're digging through your perl book, looking for how to parse a string and you stumble on some database function that is EXACTLY what you need for some other project. That just doesn't happen when you search. It's serendipity at its best.
2. Commenting - buying a used book with someone else's comments is both entertaining and incredibly helpful. I don't think I would have made it through some political science classes without some of the notes scribbled in the margins of my text books. I had no idea what the hell I was doing and some of the summaries in the margins really helped me along. Today, when I borrow a cook book from someone and find all sorts of notes in the margin, it's like a gift of insight from a much more talented chef.
3. Bookmarks - On that one, I agree, bookmarks in dead-tree books suck. They fall out, they're not at all transmittable between copies.
What I'd really love to see is some sort of hybrid Ebook. A book with REAL e-paper pages and perhaps an input pad that you could write on with a stylus. You could write notes on the pad and insert them INTO the "margins" of the document where ever you wanted. I enjoy the act of turning a page; that could be simulated with a 4 page epaper book with some sort of ADVANCE> button that would display another set of pages. It wouldn't satisfy my desire for skimming, but the portability would be phenomenal.
This one's tricky. You have to use imaginary numbers, like eleventeen... --Hobbes
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...
I'd like to point out that at least one book publisher gets it. Baen sells their titles as eBooks in plain, DRM-free HTML as well as a variety of eBook reader formats (with infinite downloads) for a somewhat reasonable price ($4-6 for a book, $15 for selected bundles of 4). In addition, a selection of their books are online for free at the Baen Free Library, in the same formats.
(I have no association with Baen beyond being a happy customer.)
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.