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O'Reilly To Release DRM-free Ebooks In July
andrewsavikas writes "Starting in July, O'Reilly Media will pilot select books as DRM-free ebook bundles (PDF, EPUB, and Kindle-compatible Mobipocket) priced at or below the cover price of the book.
David Pogue comments on the pilot in the wake of his own recent dustup about ebooks and piracy, covered previously on Slashdot."
I'm really surprised that we are actually seeing DRM free eBooks, I though this would take much longer to come about... I plan to buy a few to at least support the concept. I hope though the final title list presents some more interesting titles...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There is another choice, one that no publishing company seems to be willing to explore. What about moving to the 'ransom' model of book-making, where you release the book free-of-charge after enough people put money towards it? This could work well for books and music, and probably movies as well. How many people would have been willing to pay $5 for another episode of Firefly? $2? $1? Add to that a tipping model for after-the-fact donations, and you're set. All of this assumes, of course, that what you're making is what people want. Hint: if nobody is willing to pay the money, people probably don't want it.
"... priced at or below the cover price of the book ..." [emphasis added]
Well, that's the problem - "at or below" is not enough. If I am to get only the raw information without the physical thing, without the possibility to go to a park with my book (and not looking like a dork with a laptop, or worse yet - a Kindle), without being able to decorate my room with a book, et cetera - it has to cost at least 10 times less (which it doesn't) or be 10 times better (which it isn't). This is the same reason why the idea of selling mp3s was such a failure. In other words, great idea but it is sadly going to fail because it doesn't follow the "ten times" rule. Probably once again the marketing department wasn't listening to the engineers. What a shame.
Karma: Positive (probably because of superiour intellect)
I think this is great, right now, you can search for almost any o'reilly books on Torrent and Rapidshare, so this wont add anything to the already existing books in the pirated world. But this will give a chance to people who wants to buy their books but think that it is too expensive.
-- tinyhack.com
Technical books have a much smaller audience than popular titles do. This drives up the cost to the reader, as fewer people are paying for the costs of the book, many of which do not have anything to do with distribution (i.e. research, testing, editing, etc.).
Ever try to sell your old textbooks? You are lucky to get 1/3 rd the value the next semester. The kind of O'Reilly books you would sell won't get you much more. If you don't want it anymore, most people don't want it. You are not going to be losing much this way.
If I'm willing to pay for a print book, I'm willing to pay for the electronic copy. I want the information, not the paper. The easiest place to find it will be the publisher.
DRM isnt the super-breakable trick everyone claims here on slashdot.
One could devise a DRM which procesess all state information within a signed VM. You have multiple exterior checks on the container to guarantee integrity, and once processing the VM, the VM itself checks itself. And if one was to go massively paranoid, a service could be required that satellite service for exterior verification.
Look at this in similar terms of Xen running SElinux with communication via satellite.
Is it crackable? Of course. Will you be found out? Most likely.
Yuo just wait... The next movie player will require a network connection to play videos and music. Blu-ray already uses the VM schematic. All they need is a continuously on connection. All they need is SSH or something similar and the thing'll be damn near unhackable. One would probably have to hook up to the TV lcd chips to record a signal.
"... why shouldn't O'Reilly sell them at that price?"
Because it is evil, immoral and wrong. Yes, that's right, excessive profits are actually theft. All the cheap talk about economic theories amounts to nothing more than justifing taking more out than you've put in. A actual profitably transaction enrichs both parties. An unprofitible transaction impoverishes either or both parties. Clearly then, charging people more than a reasonable profit on an item is to take more than one has earned by performing the transaction. Indeed, current profits on media are a complete windfall for the wealthy. The sum total of such parasitic and predatory pricing is poverty. Recent economic reports clearly show that the poor, and that includes you and I, are getting poorer.
As well, economics dictate that, in a free market, as production increases and material costs fall, profits should increase at the rate that prices fall. Sadly, the free market is clearly a myth.
I tend to read a lot of Pdfs (articles and so forth), and they are fine for quick reference. still nothing beats good old fashioned paper. I find it more relaxing for my eyes. Could be the way I was taught though. Ideas on this one?
I take my children to see Madonna(..), but I never for once ever thought I was in the same business.Chris Rea.