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Will Books Be Napsterized?
langelgjm writes "An article from yesterday's New York Times asks the question: will books be Napsterized? So far, piracy of books has not reached the degree of music or movie piracy, in part due to the lack of good equipment on which to read and enjoy pirated books. The article points to the growing adoption of e-book readers as the publishing industry's newest nemesis. With ever-cheaper ways to conveniently use pirated books, authors and publishers may be facing serious changes ahead. This is something I wrote about three months ago in my journal, where I called the Kindle DX an 'iPod for books.'"
When MP3's got big, they could be burned and listened to on any cd player or computer. Later MP3 playes got cheap. E-books can be viewed on any computer and most phones, but it sucks. There are no dirt-cheap readers out yet.
I've tried them onmy iphone, my netbook, my desktop and a palm. Each and every one suck equally when reading. Changing the contrast, brightness, it doesn't matter.
Gone!
Back in the 1980s, My college bookstore sold "books" that were copied from the original and binder-clipped together. When I asked about it, they said it was legal because the book was out of print and the professor insisted they sell it. Photostats have been around for a hundred years now, and the book publishers never imposed any kind of technology limits on copiers.
Apparently you aren't in an academic environment. You should see the USB sticks full of pdf and djvu textbooks that are being passed around. Convenient reading, maybe not. But search functionality? Hell yeah. Have you seen the indices of most technical (Ph.D. level) textbooks? They're usually shorter than the table of contents. I don't know about you, but I need to be able to search my textbooks. Most of these seem to be coming from library scanning operations in countries more relaxed about copyright, and can be found on some torrent sites if you know what to look for. If publishers were smart, they'd start distributing a CD/USB key with the pdf/djvu of the text as well. There's also a growing movement of free and open textbooks, and "print on demand" services. Authors don't usually make much money from the publishers anyway, and do the writing to further their own career, rather than for cash. So it makes a lot of sense to do free publishing.
I think in 10 years time, the printed textbook will be an anachronism, and getting paid by a publisher to write your textbook will be too.
1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
It's still an economy driven by free samples. If I can download the free sample, that's easier than if I have to go to the library to get it; both also lend themselves to random discoveries. But both books and music are too pricey for most folks to buy a pig in a poke. You must understand this yourself, since you've got plenty of "free samples" up on your own website... without which I'd probably never have read your stuff. Now I might, and if I like it, you might make money from me in the future.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I was into reading ebooks on my PDA before it got popular.
Reading from smaller backlit screens is certainly not be for everyone, although I liked the form factor and the fact that I didn't need to rely on external light. For almost everyone else though, the new e-ink readers should fix most of the problems such as small screen size limited resolution by making the screen look just like paper.* If the devices aren't quite there yet, I think they will be soon enough, it's just a matter of making small improvements to the existing technology. Then there would be little preventing people from just grabbing some books off emule, unless the devices are completely locked down with unbreakable DRM to disallow anything not digitally signed.
I actually also wrote a short-ish essay on this topic for one of my classes years ago. It wasn't too detailed as it wasn't a business or economics analysis, but it clearly showed that getting a cheapo Palm device and then just warezing the books made sense financially if the reader could either tolerate the reading method or actually preferred it. As I recall, I also made some comparisons between book vs album prices and mp3 player vs PDAs, assuming a desktop PC with internet connection was a fixed cost. The conclusion, I think, was that pirating books is going to be viable on a larger scale in the near future assuming even more suitable devices appear at a reasonable price.
The only problem for now is that these e-ink devices are pretty expensive. While various PDAs were also not too cheap, they were very versatile, so for instance I used mine mainly to keep track of all tasks, assignments, meetings, and other organizational stuff, then play some Worms or Quake on it, then check my mail or browse the web. As far as I know, the Kindle just has a broken web browser and an mp3 player. I don't think this is going to be a long term problem though, the technology is still pretty young and therefore expensive.
*- Preemptively acknowledging the few nuts who would just love to rant here about how anything that doesn't feel like dead trees or involve physically turning the pages is unusable
On the other hand, a well stocked digital library that functions like Netflix or like a physical library with a reasonable monthly fee could nip mainstream e-book piracy in the bud.
This isn't quite like Rhapsody or Zune Pass or similar music subscription schemes where you would end up with an annoying pile of encrypted data when your subscription runs out or the company folds. Well, it is, but most people are content with checking out a book once, reading it, and checking it back in.
Of course, something like this could only be possible with DRM and e-book reader support for that DRM, which despite what you hear on Slashdot, can be useful when implemented properly.
eclecti.cc
Or this could work out in your favor (and the environments no more dead books!). What if we completely cut out the publishers? Set up your own author's webpage with your works on them. All author's pages catalogued on servers, could even be a decentralized server to cut out more middle men. Have your works freely downloadable or for a nominal fee (say the amount you get paid per book by your current publisher). Have a micro-payment system so that individuals can easily pay you small amounts, whether for the book or as a donation. Perhaps even be totally open about your expenses and have a running total of donations vs amount needed to survive/publish the next book in your series.
I think this might be a better system than the current one because there's a bunch of crap out there and once you buy the book you can't do anything about it. Here, you would be supported by people who genuinely appreciate your books and not simply by how many fools your publisher can convince to buy your book.
If the system was wide-spread, there could even be deals made with instant book printers, and people would still be paying less than they are currently.
I don't think this will be nearly as widespread as music pirating. The reason is because with music, the medium changed, but the experience didn't change for enjoying it. Years ago, before iPods were really popular, and MP3s were still being pirated widely, people would routinely burn CDs and listen to them on their CD players, portable or otherwise. Once the iPod revolution came about, people actually started taking their CDs and moving them to MP3s, to listen to them on their MP3 device. Put another way, there was an easy translation ability from the new way to the old way.
Books, on the other hand, for the next 10 years (at least) will still predominantly be read on actual paper and not on e-books. Further, people can't take an e-book illegally downloaded and turn it into a real paper book, like you could with CDs. Until ebooks can recreate the experience of flipping pages, and bookmarking a physical part of the book, they probably will never get people to completely switch. The physical part of a book is an important experience. The physical part of music (swapping disks, repairing scratches, rewinding tapes) is nothing more than a hassle.
Disagreeing with me does not mean you get to mod me troll.
When dealing with physical books it's almost inconceivable that you mishandle the book and accidentally "turn the page". When using an e-book reader it's very easy to accidentally push a button and lose your place. Or maybe there's a fear the device dies on you while reading.
E-book readers are $300 or $400 device you have to get to to read electronic books, why do that, when they can buy real physical ones at the bookstore for relatively little expense? If the book is for educational purposes, you will want it physical for easy access, and the ability to scribble free-form notes (typing is too cumbersome/inconvenient for such notes)
For entertainment purposes, it's almost inconceivable that you read more than one book at once... so what's the benefit in having a device that lets you store multiple books? To boot, the DRM-laden electronic books are almost just as expensive as the physical ones, and you can't lend them to friends. To boot, you can't place them on a photocopier and make copies of particularly interesting sections to use in a paper, personal momento, etc. You can do less with the e-books than you can physical ones.
I think there's a stronger feeling of ownership and control over a printed book. as if the text belongs to you, and reading is a very tactile experience, where you are involved.
Versus Music, DVDs, where you are basically a passive listener, just enjoying the sounds and images the machine is making.
You can rip a page if you don't like it, you can doggy ear, or bookmark pages with significance to you.
The book is on your shelf, it's more secure that way, you can always get to it whenever you want. Your dead tree book can't fail you, the batteries cannot die. No one really wants to steal it, and it's easily replaced, you can take it in public without fear.
It's easy to lend to friends.. just hand them the book.
You get two pages of text side-by-side. Typical e-book readers just provide you one continuous page, so the experience is completely different.
What are most people's iPods filled with? We'll not kid ourselves: pirated music.
The only person you're kidding is yourself. My iPod is 100% legit music. And yes, I'm more than tech. savoy enough to find everything I want for free. I'm willing to bet out side of one small demographic, most people's MP3 players are filled with legit music as well. You're making the same assumptions that record companies make. Congratulations.
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
I write too. Are you paid by a publisher? If so, you're polishing the handrails on the titanic - just like those old school rock stars and wannabe rock stars.
What most creative types don't seem to get is there's no reason for them to exist. There's so muc recorded music already if there were no more new artists we'd still have mroe music available than any of us can listen to in a lifetime. Same thing with books.
Artists communicate. Your job is to communicate. The enemy of an artist is not piracy, it's obscurity. Publishers are your enemy, not your enabler. People do not buy shit from publishers because they want to they do it because they formerly HAD to - publishers created an artificial scarcity by keeping most artists in obscurity. Once you have someone who CHOOSES to listen to you - and that's how virtually all art works - they will "support" you to the best of their ability. Fans want to be connected to their artists - this is where publishers seek to interject themselves in order to extract value.
If you're a creative type still thinking in terms of a publisher, you're screwed. Give the people who appreciate you what they want, and they'll support you - it's that simple.
My house burned down about a year ago. I lost everything. I now have a stack of old BYTE magazines and a copy of the Scelbi/BYTE primer sitting on my shelf. It's not because there's "information" in them - the "information" was obsolete two decades ago. It's because there's creative content in them I can't find elsewhere and I love having this "souvenir" of my youth. Among the things I miss most are my EPs of "Holland Tunnel Dive" and the Detroit band "Shock Therapy." Why? I can download the content, but they don't have the value to me of the records. It has nothign to do with content and everything to do with being something tangible. However, if I had never heard either of these bands those now destroyed records would mean nothing to me - get it?
My mp3 player is almost totally ripped from my CD collection. A handful of tracks which were given to me by my brother might be downloaded. In the past couple of years I've probably bought over 50 pop/rock CDs and over 100 classical CDS. I'm not interested in downloading illegally.
This ad space for rent.
Books are usually around 1Mb.
How many people listen to music they've downloaded, vs read books they've downloaded? How willing are people to stockpile books they might want to read, versus music they might want to listen to?
I have a friend with more books on his hard drive than my county library system has on their shelves. In case he ever wants to read them. In case of nuclear war. In case of anything. He finds that about half of my new-read requests are fulfilled on the internet, via simple torrent sites which are 1-step removed from the usenet and IRC scene. Surprisingly, this hasn't affected his buying habits.
He told me to start with the Great Science Textbooks 2007 DVD library, which comes in 20 parts (the final one was a few months ago, when the Knowledge-Should-Be-Free-based releaser considered his quest finished and stopped compiling), and covers a lot more than physics and biology. Supplement that with a few science fiction library dumps, some programming stuff in areas you're interested in, and you're golden to read until you die.
Oh, and get Calibre.
People in Soviet Russia, however, appear to be afflicted with amusing juxtapositions of the aforementioned situation
Despite being a heavy tech head I will still print out any extended text to dead tree media because it's simply more comfortable and convenient to access in that manner.
I print out long texts just to have an excuse to get the hands and eyes off the keyboard/screen. When you're working 12 hours a day behind a screen, this is an absolute necessity for me to avoid getting caught up in RSI.
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Over time, I suspect physical books will inevitably be moving back to their original social place as cultural collectibles or luxury items.
That might be true if publishers and sellers could come up with some sort of agreement that doesn't unnecessarily lock out large sections of the world's population. For instance, I can buy dead-tree copies of most books from Amazon. But if I attempt to buy an electronic copy of the same book (from Australia), I usually hit a brick wall.
This is clearly stupid.
I agree.
step 1- Ebooks need to be 1/2 price of the printed book OR LESS. sorry but they simply have rampant greed going on in the ebook arena. I am not going to buy your latest ebook if it costs as much as the fricking hardcover.
So if they want to nip this in the bud, tell the freaking publishers to stop being greedy assholes and reduce the MSRP on all books and pull in their profit margins to that of a printed book. it is NOT cheap to print a book, pass that fricking savings on to the reader.
There was a story here a couple of weeks back that detailed why various book formats cost what they did, and how that related to physical print costs - producing a hardback copy is not significantly more than a paperback, but the extra cost you pay is for the early access, not the format.
That doesn't change with an ebook - if you want it now, then you pay for that desire. If you want it later on, then you can wait and save.