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Lulu Introduces DRM
An anonymous reader writes "Print-on-demand publisher Lulu recently announced that they're offering 'eBooks.' Since they've always offered downloadable books as PDFs, that takes some decoding to figure out what part is new: it turns out that it means now they're handling more formats, they've significantly increased the share they take out of the purchase price ... and for an additional fee, they now offer DRM. I have a few items published through Lulu myself; nothing forces me to buy the DRM, but I'm considering taking my business elsewhere on principle. This isn't what I expected from the people who, when I first signed up with them, were solidly endorsing Creative Commons."
Amusing to see what happens when "information wants to be free" collides with "your bills are past due".
As you say, you don't have to use the DRM at all. I don't see any benefit in punishing anyone that simply supports that as an option for authors that don't know any better (or think they do). If people want the rope for whatever reason, just shake your head and let them buy it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So... a publishing company is giving authors the *Option* of using DRM? I'm sorry, but I don't see a problem with that. If the Authors are silly enough to want that, then it's in Lulu's best interest to offer their clients what they want.
This move has nothing to do with DRM. Lulu figures that by adding a new option for authors that says it will "protect" their book from theft online, for a "small fee" that they will get an increase in profit, for no real added cost to themselves. In reality, if you are publishing through Lulu, I think DRM and book theft is the last thing you need to worry about.
If you want to know why someone does something, follow the money.
If our elected representatives no longer represent us, do we still live in a Democracy?
It's like threatening to not let a dealership sell your line of cars because they offer LoJack as an option on other models.
DRM is not the devil. It is a tool. The sooner we stop crying about buzz words and instead actually do something about how they are used, the better off we will all be.
Note to self: Never use Lulu.
That Anonymous Coward guy is pretty annoying. Can we have the government censor him or something?
for no real added cost to themselves
Actually for Lulu the costs are very real and add up quickly:
1) Assume they need a DRM server, that must have 99.9% availability.
2) Need to test DRM to ensure it actually works
3) Need support staff to deal with authors and developers not understanding why they cannot access content.
I'm assuming they put a lot of thought into this, there must be a pretty compelling business case or else they would not incur this burden.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
As has been said many times in this thread already, you don't HAVE to use DRM. I guess there are a lot of people who publish on Lulu who don't want a free-to-spread PDF of their work roaming around the world, diminishing the profits from their hard work. Now they have an extra option to offer people their work and get paid for it. Most people don't care about DRM at all, so what is the problem?
-- Cheers!
Maybe they would like to say: "Look, you can put DRM on your books to try to protect your copies, you don't need to go elsewhere. But be aware that that make some legitimate users unhappy -- as it did with music -- and they will opt to non-DRM ... making you lose money."
If they wouldn't offer the option, they wouldn't be able to let publishers try out.
OTOH, I have no clue about ebook publishing ;-)
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
Is there a DRM that DOES WORK?
The Kindle DRM works about as well as any can (for eBooks).
By that I mean, from the users point of view it doesn't get in the way, and from the authors point of view it's hard enough to strip that it appears to offer some protection.
Also from the policy side, Kindle books are actually very user friendly - if you purchased a book but decide you want to "return" it, you can. Yes there was that whole mess with 1984, but even there at least the people got refunds. Personally I am still very reluctant to buy any book with DRM whereas I have and will buy PDF's without much of a qualm. I still mentally consider any DRM purchase merely a rental, no matter how long the digital version might be owned by me I live knowing it could go away any time for a variety of technical reasons.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
> Kindle books are actually very user friendly
I doubt this (well, maybe the first one is doable, I don't have any Kindles, myself).
All of this functionality might be expected by a reasonable consumer who isn't already thinking about why the publisher wouldn't want him to be able to do it.
Thanks to Cory Doctorow from whom most of these examples/ideas have been lifted.
I'm with the people who don't think DRM is necessarily evil. Remember: Lulu is a *print-on-demand* outfit. You want a non-DRM'd version of a book? buy the print version and do whatever you want with it. I don't see why we should force writers to give their work in a format that can be duplicated too easily. If you write technical manuals, software guides, that sort of thing... you're in a market where piracy is very, very strong, to the point you may never make any money on your book, while it may be pirated by thousands or tens of thousands of users. Just look a the book section on Pirate Bay. Yes, I would have preferred if there was some global DRM scheme which was vendor-agnostic and internationally maintained by some non-affiliated organization, so we'd have some assurances our DRM'd media isn't going to just go away one day. But all the arguments I hear against DRM are about the specific implementation, not the idea in general. The idea is... well... necessary if you want people to bother writing professionally.
Here is why I'm likely to boycott Lulu, and recommend against them whenever asked. I've already cleaned up my storefront to only indicate this removal of support.
First I offer http://www.flora.ca/own for what I consider DRM to be, given there isn't a universal meaning for this acronym. It is also an explanation for less technical people about how DRM works, rather than the unscientific "magic" that some people believe it to be.
I believe that authors imposing technology brands on audiences (DRM on content) is even less legitimate/moral than audiences imposing prices on authors (IE: copyright infringement). I don't condone either, but consider DRM to be worse.
I consider the activity of locking technology such that the owner does not have the key (DRM on hardware/software) to be a direct attack on property rights. I consider this a form of "theft" that should be made clearly illegal -- not encouraged (through locks on content), legalised or legally protected.
In the case of Lulu the blog article was clearly encouraging authors to put DRM on their content, making false (but common) claims that DRM would reduce infringement. DRM on content then imposes/encourages specific brands of technology, specifically technology that is locked down against the interests of their owners.
Lulu is and should also be held to a higher standard. This is a company founded by Bob Young who knows better when it comes to the harms of DRM. If this were an old-economy publisher adding DRM-free digital distribution to an existing DRM-only system, this would be seen as a step in a positive direction. In this case this is a theoretically new-economy publisher adding and promoting DRM in addition to a long-standing DRM-free system, clearly a step in a negative direction.
Digital Copyright Canada forum
Exactly. That's why when all those investment banks gambled massively, and lost, the whole nation shrugged it's shoulders and life went on.
Well, the socialists deliberately derailed the economy so that they can get elected, and it worked. Kudos to you for a job well done!
Let's map it out. You will bring down the free market economy. We will bring down the government, to even the score, and the anarchists will win.
This is my sig.
I've been using lulu for several years now. As with most long-term relationships, there are some things I like and others that drive me crazy. In general, however, their positive attitude toward free information is one of the big pluses. They were founded by a former Red Hat guy. They have always offered CC licenses as an explicit option in the menus when you set up your book in their web interface. Also, if you set your own royalty to zero, they do not take their usual cut. (This is what I do, because I'm a college professor, and I feel that taking a royalty raises uncomfortable conflict of interest issues, since I'm using my books in my own classes.) After reading TFA, I updated one of my books to see what the deal was. I have always had my books set so that people can buy printed copies (with zero royalty to me) or just download them for free in PDF format. When I updated my book I got a page like this:
If you look way down at the bottom under "Give My Download Away For Free," you'll see that they are not going to charge money unless I do. Here is the book, as updated today. You can still download it without paying any money.
I do feel that DRM is evil. I'm not happy that lulu is supporting it. However, their over-all support for free information seems to me to be a lot better than you'd expect from Random Corporation, Inc.
For the record, here are the things I like and dislike about lulu:
Likes: They are the only POD or vanity publisher I know of that will let you set up and sell your book with zero initial cost. They handle all of the shipping and order processing, which was a huge hassle for me when I was doing it myself. They are relatively friendly toward free information.
Dislikes: They have a business model sort of similar to Paypal, i.e., it is absolutely impossible to get a Lulu employee to talk to you on the phone, and very difficult to communicate with one in any other way, either. I have had repeated technical issues with them before, where the printer they subcontracted out to couldn't output a book that had outputted successfully for a long time before with other subcontractors; lulu wasn't willing/able to help me figure out a workaround, although I eventually figured it out myself. College bookstores have reported problems to me where lulu sent them bogus bills ($700 for books that FedEx tracking showed were shipped to someone's house in a different state), and made it an incredible hassle to straighten out the problem.
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