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."

Comments

Philosophy versus reality

[Anonymous Coward]

Amusing to see what happens when "information wants to be free" collides with "your bills are past due".

Re:Philosophy versus reality

[joaommp]

The book I have in my signature is an example. Written by a friend, he kept a specific track of all the copies sold. The company didn't buy the book to resell. The company appeared on Amazon selling a book that wasn't bought. My friend was one copy short and the company that showed up on Amazon had a copy that appeared to come out of nowhere.

Why complain about choice?

[SuperKendall]

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.

Re:Why complain about choice?

[Machtyn]

Free market in this case. The company is trying to appeal to the largest number of people at a time. If they can support Creative Commons *and* DRM users... then good for them. I'd suspect that the raising of Lulu's take would be more upsetting. (Again free market will bear out if that was a smart move or not.)

Re:Why complain about choice?

[KTheorem]

Already there are a lot of comments like this in the general form of "just because company A, whom you do business with, starts to do something B that you find objectionable doesn't mean you should inconvenience yourself, especially if B doesn't directly affect your business dealing with them." It quite frankly baffles me.

What if the objectionable thing B was using slave labor for a product you do not use or buy? Does it suddenly become okay to continue the business relationship? I know there are huge differences in the offense, but the underlying argument is the same for both buying from a DRM encumbered goods provider and a slave created goods provider: "I don't directly deal in those products, so I will continue to buy other products from them and let the ones who DO buy them deal with the consequences."

Obviously—I hope—refusing to buying from a company with some products manufactured by slaves, even if the products you would be interested in aren't, would be a reasonable action. It is therefor clear that what people using the argument really mean is that they don't care about DRM enough to stop purchasing on priciple and don't thing you should either, and not that they actually think their argument really applies. In which case, they should really stop making the "boycotting is hard so don't do it" argument.

Re:Why complain about choice?

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet you buy from adidas, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, DaimlerChrysler, Nestlé, Procter&Gamble and Siemens although they profit from torture, slavery, illegal medication trials on humans, political and social discrimination, destruction of resources and the environment.
And you do not actually want to hear that.

Source: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzbuch_Markenfirmen (where is the English equivalent? Don't they criticize globalization where it is due?)

Re:Why complain about choice?

[kklein]

I am very tired of people trying to write rules for life. There is no algorithm; there are no unassailable truths. Being totally consistent in all things does not actually make any sense, because there is no one right answer to be applied to all cases.

We like to think that a totally logically consistent pattern of behavior will yield better results, but it won't, for two basic reasons:

1) This idea is inherited from religious/magical thought and is, as far as I am concerned anyway, a crock of horseshit already, because it doesn't scale. You end up with fundamentalist Muslims killing people with rocks over petty shit, or evangelicals who believe that Jesus erases all their sins and that, therefore, even the most offensive crimes against humanity can be fixed with prayer and Kleenex.

2) This is actually part of the first reason, but these patterns don't exist in any objective way. They are applied after the fact by humans as shorthand. Religions made up simple rules to get people's minds off the big things so they could improve everyday life, and the cracks only start to really show when life is so good that we can take another look at those rules. Math doesn't exist. Numbers don't exist. Grammar doesn't exist (don't tell Chomsky). Ideas and meaning don't exist. They are all just tools to make our monkey lives better. We can't be frustrated when people's behavior is not logically consistent. It really shouldn't be.

So yes, you're right, it is logically inconsistent to call for the boycott of a company that uses slave labor, but not one which violates your geek religion's creed against DRM. But most people are smart enough to see that those things aren't even slightly similar, and only a crazy person would apply the same logic to both.

That being said, if you are living in the developed world (and if you're reading this, you probably are), guess what? Virtually every product you enjoy has slave labor tucked away in it somewhere. You can't live high on the hog without slavery. We've just gotten very good at hiding it so we can feel superior. There's always a slave. Always.

And that doesn't bother me. I don't like it, but I don't think it can be avoided, and to try to do so would make my life incredibly inconvenient.

Maybe there's logical consistency after all.

Re:Why complain about choice?

[KTheorem]

No. I was not. Since you are the third person to have misinterpreted what I was saying, I must conclude it is my fault.

I was trying to point out that the reasoning behind opposing boycotts based on a company's support of DRM was flawed, by applying it to something damn near everybody is opposed to vehemently.

I don't think they are in any sane way comparable. I was using that fact to show that what the people who opposed boycotting because of DRM really meant was "this doesn't bother me enough to boycott and inconvenience myself" and not "you shouldn't boycott if it inconveniences you" as was implied by the wordings of many of the posters who thought that boycotting because of DRM was silly.

I really don't give a damn if anyone boycotts Lulu for any reason. My only goal was to point out the flawed reasoning being used.

Re:Why complain about choice?

[russotto]

I don't generally. It's actually really fucking annoying how many evil companies there are and how little punishment our society gives them. I'm always amazed that non-smokers are willing to buy items from cigarette companies.

Eh? If they want to supply suicide sticks to others, that's fine with me.

Or the number of people who bring that chocolate bar up to the cash register after I say "You should get Fair Trade chocolate instead since that one is made with slave labor.

Maybe they just don't believe you. Me, I figure they're both made with slave labor, and the Fair Trade schtick is just a way to get suckers to pay the slavemasters more, but I'm a wee bit cynical.

Non issue

[Anonymous Coward]

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 has nothing to DRM, everything to do with $$$

[Afforess]

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.

Just to start us off with a car analogy...

[TaggartAleslayer]

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.

Re:Just to start us off with a car analogy...

[Iceykitsune]

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. DRM has the potential to give companies/governments absolute control over what you see and hear.

Re:Just to start us off with a car analogy...

[syousef]

DRM is not the devil. It is a tool.

Yes, it's a tool to shut people out of using what they bought. Supposedly it prevents criminal copyright infringement but there is always collateral damage on legitimate use. That damage doesn't stop with the current owner either. In the future there will be entire groups of historians specialising in breaking ancient copyright to get an incite on our culture.

The sooner we stop crying about buzz words

DRM isn't a buzzword. It describes an intent to restrict the use of a resource. If you ask me we're not crying loud enough. The boiling frog analogy may not be scientifically correct but it's as good an analogy as any.

Re:Just to start us off with a car analogy...

[jim_v2000]

DRM is nothing more than an attempt make digital media more like physical media. For example, you can't easily copy a book to give to a friend. You can, however, easily give a copy of an ebook to a friend. DRM makes it so you cannot easily give a copy of an ebook to a friend. DRM, when done right, is fine with me. But we rarely seen it done right, and honestly, I'm not entirely sure what it would look like.

Re:Just to start us off with a car analogy...

[shentino]

Not always.

Especially if your non-refundable purchase of DRMed material gets nuked because the company doesn't feel like holding up their end of the bargain.

You can't really "shop around" much if you've already been milked and burned.

Doubly so if they have a big enough army of lawyers to squash you like a bug if you try to complain.

Re:Just to start us off with a car analogy...

[dstar]

Opposing DRM is not some kind of religion, it is not even a moral position,

Opposing DRM is most definitely a moral position, on any number of grounds, starting with the ones you don't want to acknowledge down to the less obvious ones, such as opposing anything that makes life more difficult without providing any benefit or opposing the conflation of 'buy' with 'rent', as you never actually buy anything with DRM, you simply rent it.

Feel free to pretend you aren't doing anything wrong when you say there's nothing wrong with DRM. Just be aware that that's exactly what you're doing -- pretending.

Re:Just to start us off with a car analogy...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

DRM is not the devil. It is a tool.

DRM is the Devil's tool.

Re:Just to start us off with a car analogy...

[IamTheRealMike]

Dude, try a substitution - "the police" are a tool to punish innocent people who annoyed those in power. Supposedly they prevent crime as well but there's always collateral damage on legitimate behavior.

DRM is only necessary because piracy is so widespread that it's impossible for humans to police it. If piracy was as rare as murder, then it'd be possible to have humans investigate every case and make a nuanced decision on whether it was legitimate and beneficial or criminal. This is an extremely sad state of affairs, but it's the reality in which we live.

Yes, Kindle DRM

[SuperKendall]

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.

User friendly

[Mathinker]

> Kindle books are actually very user friendly

• So if I buy one, but have two or more Kindles, I can read it on all of them?
• After I'm finished reading, I can indefinitely lend a Kindle book to a friend of mine in Brazil who also owns a Kindle by sending him something over the net?
• After I'm finished reading, I can sell my Kindle book back to a used Kindle bookstore?
• I can print out a chapter of a Kindle book to take to read at the beach?

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.

Re:Making customers pay for DRM?

[TheRaven64]

What's wrong with charging extra for DRM? DRM costs money to create and passing that cost on to consumers directly seems like a very good way of highlighting exactly what is wrong with DRM. Get the book in DRM-encumbered form for $11 or DRM-free form for $10. Highlight the fact that the cost of the DRM is hidden in the purchase price when you buy something like a BluRay disk.

CC isn't for everybody.

[Michael_gr]

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.

Re:Does add cost though

[Oligonicella]

Oh, please. Booksurge (CreateSpace) and Lulu do the same thing. They charge a publishing fee (base + page count), and add after that. Perhaps you could give a side by side comparison instead of a rant?