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Why Amazon's Kindle Should Use Open Standards
Tim O'Reilly wrote in Forbes a while back that he thinks the Kindle only has another two or three years of life left, unless Amazon wises up and embraces open standards. He came to this conclusion, in part, because of his experience deciding how to publish documents on the web back in the mid-1990s.
"You see, I'd recently been approached by the folks at the Microsoft Network. They'd identified O'Reilly as an interesting specialty publisher, just the kind of target that they hoped would embrace the Microsoft Network (or MSN, as it came to be called). The offer was simple: Pay Microsoft a $50,000 fee plus a share of any revenue, and in return it would provide this great platform for publishing, with proprietary publishing tools and file formats that would restrict our content to users of the Microsoft platform. The only problem was we'd already embraced the alternative: We had downloaded free Web server software and published documents using an open standards format. That meant anyone could read them using a free browser. While MSN had better tools and interfaces than the primitive World Wide Web, it was clear to us that the Web's low barriers to entry would help it to evolve more quickly, would bring in more competition and innovation, and would eventually win the day."
Heh, ya actually think the DRM on the kindle works?
But you make a good point. Amazon has to at least pretend they are making an effort to "protect" the content.. it doesn't really matter that its trivial to defeat, the publishers don't know the difference and the authors obviously don't either.
How we know is more important than what we know.
A better analogue is the iPod and the iTunes Store. The iPod became the dominant mp3 player not because it supported proprietary and non proprietary formats. It became successful because it made the process of acquiring and transferring content (ripped and purchased) seamless and easy. The Kindle has something very similar in its ease with which you can purchase books and put them onto your Kindle.
The trouble with today's society is commercialism driven technology. Just as art is hollow when the artist cares only about money, truly creative science and technology cannot take place when its primary purpose is to line the pockets of some corporation. It's this care and passion for creation that makes open standards superior. Yes. We all know Microsoft can pump marketable features out, but ultimately, Microsoft technology exists to serve Microsoft, not us. As an added side effect, most DRM schemes rely on security through obfuscation. Hence a piece of technology based on open standards ought to be free of DRM. Even if open source DRM could be constructed, most people passionate enough about a scientific community would be very anti-DRM. Conclusion: unless you like being Microsoft's pawn, open standards FTW!
Excuse for why is your room always messy?
...Then chances are you aren't a decent enough writer and you will just add to the pile of crap which are most books. Seriously, unless you are writing a technical manual of some sort (then usually you have a company paying you and give up all rights to the book in the first place) and won't write for any other reason other than to make a profit, your book will be crap. I don't know of a single really good author who writes primarily for profit. Sure, there are some really good authors who write and make a profit, but most have some other drive to write, especially for fiction writers. If you won't publish it, fine. I'm sure the world will be better off.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
DRM, and other artificial restrictions (e.g. regional restrictions on sales) are some of the major reasons why "piracy" persists. Drop the DRM and offer products and services for a fair price using innovative business models and you'll find that the issue of piracy will be of little concern.
By reading this signature, you hereby agree with the content of the above comment.
The Parent poster is right, Art is not something which really works under the model that the GP suggests. There is an element of truth in that being paid to create art provides one with the ability to do so without having to work all day and improves the energy and time available to create the work.
But it comes at a cost that can be quite high. As soon as you start having to worry about being paid, one has to worry about whether or not the piece is going to be marketable and that is a terribly damaging environment under which to create innovative work. It's not really much of a surprise that most of the masters were doing portraits, working for patrons or downright broke when they were turning out works that would later sell for millions. It's rare to say the least to be able to be a professional artist without putting a muzzle on ones own creativity.
DRM isn't going to help that situation out much, in fact it's probably going to hurt by eliminating people that are likely to get work that's somewhat out of the ordinary or in other ways unconventional.
No way on Earth I would work hard writing or creating something to have it passed around the Internet for free.
That is fair and I'm certain you are voicing a very popular opinion among editors, artists, writers, etc. As O'Reilly mentions, though, Apple seems to have balanced this both with music (MP3s are pretty "open" to play on anything). I think what the article means by "open" is that it would be nice to be able to read this through multiple devices and not just the kindle. Your username starts with DRM and, although insanely flawed, there are ways to implement it so that numerous devices and programs can use it. Yes, I realize that a skilled developer could write a simple application with the sole intent of converting DRM files to plain text but I'm pretty sure those who want to are doing that already.
Once the Internet community stops ...
Let's just step back and look at the facts. Don't make any assumptions about what I'm trying to convince you.
I don't want to steal your book. But if I want your book, I sure the hell would prefer paying 2/3 the cost of the hardcover and having it instantly in front of me. And, I would be making far more purchases. I may not be the general populace but I think that's a pretty safe rule. The music industry is enjoying iTunes, you would enjoy it more since no one wants only Chapter 23 of your novel.
... being one of the largest tech book publishers and author himself, I'm going to side with him. Especially since everyone at work talks about how awesome the Safari book service is (two coworkers are toying around with full subscriptions).
With or without DRM/closed standards, people are stealing your work. Do you really think that making the standard in which they are saved/read/transmitted an "open standard" is going to increase your losses that much?
I don't know what your numbers look like but I would speculate that the increased sales from people walking around with iPhones and Palm Pres and mobile devices would outweigh that. I agree there will be people trading these files online. But you can't stop that now. Do you not agree that you, as a writer, would benefit from this move? O'Reilly seems to think so and he seems to think it's great for Amazon too
I wish I could tell you that you have full control over this but the facts indicate that you really just have the power to delay the inevitable.
My work here is dung.
Given that file sharing is not going to vountarily go away, this statement becomes "information will continue to be locked down until the entire internet is locked down", which is probably true. We can't stop DRM any more than you can stop piracy.
That's not quite true, pirates are much more likely to win than that. It's a matter of will, and if you get enough people cracking the protection schemes quickly enough at launch, DRM will eventually go away. DRM is about control and profit, if the schemes are broken fast enough there's definitely a question of why spend many thousands of dollars locking something down that'll be cracked within a few weeks. Sure it does help with sales initially, but you're typically having to sell a hell of a lot of copies in order to break even and it does put one at a competitive disadvantage to those that don't need to sell those extra copies.
Not to mention the fact that there's a surprising number of people that don't pirate software that doesn't have DRM incorporated into it.
Last time I checked, taking advantage of someone's enjoyment of their work by not paying them is called exploitation. How about, if because you like to program, your employer decided not to pay you.
Artists work. They deserve to be paid for what they do. If you don't want to have art on your computer, you can choose to not pay for it. But if it is valuable enough that you might be motivated to go out of your way to get some DRM breaking device, chances are, that means it is valuable, even to you. That means, don't steal it.
The question isn't whether, for example, Paul McCartney made a billion dollars off of his music, or Steven Spielberg made a billion dollars off of his movies. The question is, is a Paul McCartney song worth a $1 to you. If so, then pony up. Otherwise, don't listen to it.
It's pretty simple, really.
This is my sig.
This from the not so new news: Apple offering DRM-free Music in the iTunes Music Store. Have they positioned themselves avgainst the poor artitsts, or does it simply make business sense to give users what they want and not treat your customers like criminals?
There are two rules for success:
1. Never tell everything you know.
In my case, I have a free (tax paid, no memberships) public library 15 *walking* minutes from my house that lets me take the book home for one week.
Amazon takes at least 3 days to get the books to my doorstep, and as I'm never home in the morning when the mailman comes, I have to pick up the books from the post office.
Libraries clearly win in this case.
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No way on Earth I would work hard writing or creating something to have it passed around the Internet for free. I create for my own profit, not your entertainment.
And that's why I've heard of David Wong and Cory Doctrow, and would buy books by either of them in hardcopy if I spotted one in a book shop, but I still have no idea who you are.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
The thing is, Kindle = e-Ink + Amazon store.
e-Ink is really a crucial part of the Kindle experience. If you've never played with it IRL, you can't really appreciate it - it just sounds a bit ridiculous to say "Works in full sunlight!" and "Long battery life!" until you've gone outside in full summer sun and found it easier to read than it was inside, and then gotten through 3 or 4 long books before you have to recharge. If used heavily, the battery STILL lasts a week when wireless is off. No tablet based on currently available tech can touch this, and I know of no tech in the pipeline that will change that.
And the Kindle has an edge - in some ways, to most people - in that you can shop wherever there is Sprint access. I'm in a 1xRTT area, and though it's slower, it works. So you get the big-buyer power of Amazon opening up the catalog, and the universal access, and it gets a major edge over other readers in some ways - especially if you're in an airport, e.g., that doesn't have free WiFi.
"No, the fact of the matter is that open standards and this anti-commercialism that you speak of is really just a geeks way of saying that they are self indulgent and want to create for themselves."
No, it is our way of saying that we are tired of being made into cash cows, and even more to the point, tired of being called communists, criminals, and terrorists just because we have a decent understanding of how computers work. We are sick of living in a society where everyone is trying to monetize everything -- now they even want to monetize our friendships with other people.
"It's the guys at Microsoft and Apple that have to sweat deadlines, do focus groups, sift through the complaints of millions of users, the genuinely work for everyone else. They get paid for it."
I am a Fedora contributor, and yet I get complains from Ubuntu, Debian, and Gentoo users all the time. Millions of bugzilla entries have been filed in various open source projects over the past year. The Fedora development list receives hundreds of messages a day discussing how to solve end user problems. We are not getting paid for it, but we still do it.
"Windows is for the people that use it. Mac is for the people that use it. But, Linux is for the people that write it."
No, Windows is for Microsoft and their investors. Mac is for Apple their investors. The fact that they have users is secondary to the fact that they can turn a profit. Linux is for anyone who wants it, for whatever they want to do with it. That is why we give it away, and grant everyone the right to use, study, modify, and share it.
"You can rip me all you want, but just look at all the project managers of various Linux things, and their postings, and the things that strike you is that they are all about 'me' first."
That would explain why the swfdec developers were so busy getting Youtube to work correctly with swfdec back when Torvalds sent them a message about how his wife was having trouble. That would explain why the Fedora developers took the time to create graphical configuration utilities even though we could configure our systems using ed as a text editor. That would explain why the Ubuntu developers bothered with creating an easy to use system. Yes, you certainly know what you are talking about.
"Stallman, Torvalds, etc, are all pretty self-centered people. Me. Me. Me."
Oh yes, that is why Torvalds had it out with Stallman over whether or not it is better for Linux users to deal with GPLv2 or GPLv3.
"This solution is evil, that technology is terrible."
Which is why the NSA uses it for mission critical systems.
"Everything to them is black and white."
Which is exactly why Stallman admitted that not everyone is going to take free software to the extreme that he takes it, and why Torvalds rejected GPLv3 for Linux because he wanted to leave open the option of using Linux for TiVo and similarly locked-down platforms. Yup, real black and white there.
Palm trees and 8
Yeah, I hear Cory Doctorow is starving.
Who else should they be working for?
You?
I trust the OSS guys to protect my interests a thousand times more than any random corp.
expandfairuse.org
Kindle took over when Oprah gushed about it on her show.
You think Slashdot has a wide reach? For every eyeball on the internets reading your Slashdot post, there are probably 10,000 old women watching Oprah on TV.
Well yes. There certainly is a chilling effect. You can't publicly make these tools and try to sell them. Which is what his employer was doing. But everyone knew this, long before the DMCA came into effect. It really does nothing to change the "scene", and that's where the cracks come from.
Why not? Where the tools were being made and sold (the Russian Republic.... not even in US jurisdiction or the jurisdiction of the court under question) the "tools" were perfectly legal.
In this case it was also about academic freedom and being able to make commentary about perhaps a sensitive subject to peers who are engaged in similar research (in this case cryptology). Ultimately what happened was that this person was arrested purely because of his speech, in an academic forum no less, but on the grounds of violations of the DMCA.
This legal issue, together with 1st amendment conflicts and other similar problems with the DMCA, still hasn't been completely resolved in a legal sense, nor has SCOTUS had their crack at trying to form an opinion on the topic either. The point here really is that this law continues to be a potential sword to hang over the heads of software developers that might seem to piss off a U.S. Attorney... for whatever reason that may be.
BTW, you asked if anybody had been prosecuted, and the answer was given to the affirmative. It doesn't matter if eventually the DOJ was embarrassed to the point of dropping charges in this case, it still was used and can be used in a heavy handed manner as demonstrated with this example.