DRM and the Destruction of the Book

Hugh Pickens writes "EFF reports that Cory Doctorow spoke to a crowd of about a hundred librarians, educators, publishers, authors, and students at the National Reading Summit on How to Destroy the Book and said that 'anyone who claims that readers can’t and won’t and shouldn’t own their books are bent on the destruction of the book, the destruction of publishing, and the destruction of authorship itself.' Doctorow says that for centuries, copyright has acknowledged that sacred connection between readers and their books and that when you own a book 'it’s yours to give away, yours to keep, yours to license or to borrow, to inherit or to be included in your safe for your children' and that 'the most important part of the experience of a book is knowing that it can be owned.'"

Comments

Silly me

[Anonymous Coward]

And here I was thinking the content of the book was the most important part.

Re:Silly me

[rtfa-troll]

And here I was thinking the content of the book was the most important part.

To be frank, you've missed the point. The content is just something that you use to achieve something. To be happy, to be sad, to share something with your friends. To fix your car; any time you want. To know what is wrong with your pet hamster and how to heal it. To learn to ski better. Up till now it has also been used to achieve richer authors but with very specific limits.

The aim here is to use control of the content to be able to tax your ability to do all those things I mentioned above and more. When you remember something from your hamster book about a strange rare disease, you'll have to buy the same book all over again because now Amazoid E-Reader IV doesn't support the books you bought for your now broken kindle. Even if your book reader is still working, your key to the content will have long ago expired. If you are really unlucky, they may force you to buy the upgraded new edition.

Re:Silly me

[Pieroxy]

Fsck you DRM! You SUCK! The written word is to important to be censored!

You actually forget the one thing that makes a digital copy vs a physical book: It takes half a millisecond to duplicate it, and it is free to do so. This is of course scaring the publishers, distributors and authors out of their minds. So they "invent" stuff to make sure only the original owner can read the book. In the process, they make the whole experience nightmarish, but hey...

This goes down to the root of one primordial liberty: Free speech. If you can talk freely, it means you can communicate freely with your neighbor. So you can give hime any information. Including a movie, MP3 or a digital book. Because down to its core, digital data is just information.

Trying to prevent someone to distribute a digital book (for non profit) is the equivalent of preventing him/her to have free speech. And this problem is new because only with a computer you can communicate data in such a bulky way with absolutely no loss.

Mindsets will change, and I firmly believe that noone will be able to prevent the information flow. This is the very nature of the human mind. Look at MP3s, they are now wold with no DRM whatsoever. Because no other way will work better than that one.

Re:Silly me

[natehoy]

I'd be far more accepting of DRM if copyright law went back to being a reasonable period. It's very easy today to envision an eternal copyright starting the day Disney created anything they feel is of value, and continuing in perpetuity thereafter.

If copyright was 10 or 15 years, I'd be OK with draconian DRM restrictions on the things that are under copyright, provided there was a way to break it when the items go into public domain. As it is, though, anything written after my father was born is unlikely to fall into public domain before I die.

Apart from reading it, which is the best part of course, I prefer owning a book. I enjoy sharing them with friends. I appreciate the simple fact that every book I've ever purchased is mine forever (barring damage or theft, of course). No corporation or government has the right to remove my books from my control, and it's impossible to change them - you'd have to come to my house and get them.

If I could buy an e-book knowing that in a few years the DRM would be lifted and I could freely share it, and knowing that my Doctrine of First Sale rights would be protected in the meantime, I'd seriously consider some form of e-book reader. But recent events and the history of copyright holders have demonstrated otherwise, and the length of copyright means that the money I'd spend on e-books is for a short-term rental on a book, and if I want to rent my books I'll donate more money and time to my library and get them that way.

Heck, I'd be happy with an analog of the current "hardcover / paperback" model. For the first year or two of a book's existence, it could be available only in a high-priced, heavily DRMed version that is not allowed to be shared. After a year or two, anyone who spent the money on the hardcover then gets an unlock code that allows them to freely share and keep their copy without DRM, and an unlocked "mass market" version comes out at a discounted price that can be shared. I'd happily buy a deeply DRM-encrusted bookreader and buy new releases if I knew there was a sunset provision on the DRM that would allow me to keep and share them in a reasonable timeframe. I'd even pay the same I do now for a new release, as long as the contract clearly stated that the book could be unlocked in a relatively short period.

Paper sucks. Paper is inconvenient, and clumsy, and expensive, and harder to read, and bulky, and subject to damage, loss, and theft.

** BUT IT'S MINE **

And until e-readers can fulfill that desire, I have no desire to get one.

Re:Silly me

[PopeRatzo]

This is of course scaring the publishers, distributors and authors out of their minds.

You've got two out of three right.

Unless you're a corporate creep like Vince Flynn, you're not writing books to get rich. You care a lot more about getting your words into peoples' hands than you do about socking away millions and paying off shareholders.

There's a notion around now that a successful author, or musician, deserves more than just living a comfortable, even lavish lifestyle. They deserve to be a multi-billion dollar phenomenon. Not necessarily because that "content creator" wants this unspendable wealth, but because he is actually the tip of a corporate pyramid that needs to be fed. At the bottom of the pyramid are some shareholders that the "content-creator" will never know.

Digital distribution of content should be about allowing creators to distribute their material more easily, more cheaply, more quickly and widely. Not about maximizing the profits for a phalanx of money-sucking barnacles. Those "scared" corporate-types you mention are all about the latter, and they'll hang on to their dysfunctional system as long as they can.

If you approach digital media to benefit creators, you'll get more good stuff to enjoy. If you approach digital media to maximize profits, you get a lot of expensive dross and grandmothers getting hauled into court by the RIAA.

Re:Silly me

[obarthelemy]

When my granny died, her grandchildren were asked what knick-knacks of hers they wanted as keepsakes... I asked for a very old, red leather bound Robinson Crusoë that I remembered reading reverently with her as a kid, awed both by the story and the object, which was so much more impressive than my usual paperbacks or modern kid's books.

So, to me, the object counts, too. Some are signed gifts, also.

And, the idea is that I can give (very unlikely) or loan that book. I couldn't with an ebook.

And I'm safe in the idea that it's forever mine, I'll hopefully read it with my nephew some day.

Re:Silly me

[obarthelemy]

I'd add a couple of extra concerns:

- it makes it very easy for repressive regimes to track who bought what: a handful of authentification servers have that info. granted, we may not feel concerned by that right now, but a good part of the world is, and you never know what will happen to us later on. Recent events show that corporations are all too happy to oblige any request from any "big market" government.

- it even makes possible to recall a book, possibly to change it, which conjures uneasy visions of the Ministry of Truth.

Re:Silly me

[MasterOfMagic]

This goes down to the root of one primordial liberty: Free speech. If you can talk freely, it means you can communicate freely with your neighbor. So you can give hime any information. Including a movie, MP3 or a digital book. Because down to its core, digital data is just information.

The thing is, in the United States, we regularly limit free speech rights. For example, speech that incites criminal acts (for example, a riot) is regulated. Commercial speech is regulated. Copyright limits freedom of speech. Society would not function otherwise. If we define the sharing of information as freedom of speech, then any company with your credit card number could freely share it with anybody else. Your credit card company or bank could share your history of purchases with your insurance company so they can set rates based upon your diet, your recreation habits, and the power tools you own. All of this is information, yet we see fit to regulate the ways in which it is shared.

I agree with you that DRM is bad and it is an abuse of copyright and the right of first sale. Trotting out the old hacker belief that "information wants to and ought to be free" and "freedom of speech trumps all" does not reflect the mindset of the framers of the United States Constitution nor does it reflect the mindset of society today, regardless of how simple, romantic, and seductive the argument seems.

Re:Silly me

[mhall119]

Who says authors have to make money by selling books? Here's how I see the future for authors:

1) Up and coming author puts his first books on the net for free, hoping to gain readership.
2) Author requests donations from those who like his book (yes, we're at "Profit!" at step 2, but it's small so stay with me here)
3) Author gains a good sized fan base and a reputation (think Dean Koontz)
4) Author announces a future book, and sells "access" to parts of the writing process to his fans ("Profit!" again)
5) Author now has a run-away hit series ala Harry Potter or Twilight (or, god forbid, another Dan Brown book)
6) Repeat step 4, only with more Profit!
7) Author sells movie and merchandising rights for big Profit! (this is where authors get rich nowadays anyway, not from book sales)

Re:Silly me

[nine-times]

Unless you're a corporate creep like Vince Flynn, you're not writing books to get rich. You care a lot more about getting your words into peoples' hands than you do about socking away millions and paying off shareholders.

I think this is important to note: people wrote books long before copyright. They wrote because they thought what they were writing was important, or they wrote because they wanted to be famous and admired. Guys wrote to get chicks, because some chicks dig smart creative types. People wrote for all sorts of reasons even when it made them no money whatsoever.

Same with music, really. I frequently try to make this point when people talk about, "If we don't have strict copyrights and DRM, no one will make music anymore!!!" No, people wrote music and performed music before the invention of the copyright. People are musical creatures. They love singing and dancing and performing for each other. It's fun and helps you get laid. The fact is that you could outlaw all musical performances, and what would happen is people would run underground musical speakeasies. People might even protest by singing songs in the street for free, even knowing they'd go to jail. Some people love music that much.

Likewise, if you outlawed writing books, people would still write them and distribute them, and there'd be people who would go to jail for smuggling illegal books. You can't stop people from writing books. I've probably written a books-worth of posts on this site for free, and I'd be pretty annoyed if you tried to stop me.

Re:Silly me

[MasterOfMagic]

Yes, but if an author can't get an advance from a publishing company, fewer authors will be able to afford to take the time away from their "real jobs" to write a book. Yes, you can build an audience using unpolished, unedited work, and yes, you can take many years to write a book, but the first route leaves you looking like an amateur and the second route means you are more likely to get frustrated and give up halfway through.

The vast majority of books aren't a hit on the level of Harry Potter or Twilight. Most barely break even. The way that an author can afford to write them is by taking an advance and writing the book. It's the advances that keep the author fed, clothed, and sheltered between books if it's budgeted properly. I'm sure book signings and other "feelies" can help, but for every New York Times bestseller, there are hundreds of decent books that barely break even.

Re:Silly me

[ckaminski]

Where I work we recently switched office buildings. And before we knew we had a dedicated room for a library of old product manuals, we were lamenting the fact that management didn't want us taking books and manuals 15 years old to the new building. Our customers still use these products, and online help files of this era do not exist.

My solution was to slice the binding off books and run them through the Ricoh scanner/copiers and turn them all into PDFs at 20 pages per minute.

Luckily we have yet to need to do that, but even at my home office I can do the same thing for less than $200.

Re:Silly me

[MasterOfMagic]

I'm not saying that they should be guaranteed an income or a living. What I am saying is that it's hard to be an artist. Those that are truly motivated because art is a calling will be fine no matter what happens. Those who have talent but would like to make a living are either going to have to produce what society wants (as society's judgment of the market value of their work is what feeds, clothes, and shelters them) or do something else for a living, and that's fine. I don't have a problem with it.

However, without incentives, only those that are truly devoted to their calling or who have a knack for producing what society wants will be able to create. Some of the most radical, thought-provoking, and critically acclaimed art is not popular or profitable, much like basic science research is rarely profitable, but they both advance mankind.

What I see on Slashdot is hypocrisy. On one hand, people complain that science, basic, fundamental science, is not being funded enough, and that governments or large organizations should be giving more grants to researchers to keep science from being a strictly commercial venture, as commercial ventures, as a rule, focus on what brings in more profit in the near and medium terms. Some organizations (for example, back when Bell Labs was active) focus on the long term, but most focus on the short term.

On the other hand, people are complaining that artists shouldn't expect funding in the form of grants (advances, for example) from governments or large organizations even though artistic contributions can have similar effects on society. They feel that artists should produce what is profitable. Ideas are powerful and insight into how we perceive this world, either scientific or artistic, has real meaning, regardless of if they bring in the most profit.

Prior Art

[TaoPhoenix]

God spoke. He wants His commandments back. It might get very wet for a long time.

Give Away a PHYSICAL Copy, Sure

[RobotRunAmok]

Cory's Sacred Ancestors (or whoever the hell he was referencing) didn't have a clue about what effect the scanning and distribution of a book to 100,000 strangers on the Internet would have on the publishing industry.

Re:Give Away a PHYSICAL Copy, Sure

[mcgrew]

Cory's Sacred Ancestors (or whoever the hell he was referencing)

He was referencing the founders of the United States who write its constitution. And your "effect the scanning and distribution of a book to 100,000 strangers on the Internet would have on the publishing industry" is entirely bogus. It is a positive effect, not a negative one. Doctorow gives his books away for free on his website, yet is on the New Your Times bestseller list. Care to explain that one, Einstein?

He explains why in the forward to his book Little Brother. There's no way you're going to buy a book by an author you've never heard of, but there's no risk in checking one out from the library (there are way more than 100K libraries, each with a copy for everyone to check out and read), and if you like the author's work, THEN you're likely to buy.

Nobody ever went broke from piracy, but many, many artists and authors have gone hungry from obscurity. Your argument is as bogus as Jack Valenti's "the VCR tape is to the movie industry what Jack the Ripper is to women". You see how that one worked out.

Valenti's and your statements are entirely false, have been proven false, and there is not one shred of evidence that there is any truth whatever to them. Logic alone should tell you they're bullshit.

Doctrine of First Sale

[SgtChaireBourne]

Being able to give away, bogart, lend or to borrow, pass as inheritance, or roll up and smoke a book is possible because the book is yours because you own it and the Doctrine of First Sale formalizes these possibilities.

One of the many things wrong with digital restrictions management (drm) technologies is that it tries to do an end run around the democratic process and eliminate these rights, some of which are codified in the Constitution. Some would assert that not only is the constitution the foundation upon which the country has been built, but also that it represents freedom and democracy itself. So these affronts by Bill Gatesists and the other 'freedom-hating' (tm) digital taliban, can be considered as affronts to the US itself if not also to higher ideals.

It may sound harsh to some fanbois, but step back and take off that 'with a computer' clause and see if what they are doing is acceptable. If not, then you know what to do.

Re:Doctrine of First Sale

[Anonymous Coward]

You conveniently forget that without these necessary DRM restrictions, nobody will be bothered to actually write articles and books in the first place. The same points you make were also claimed when DRM was applied to music - thankfully the technology has succeeded in this industry and put a stop to the years of silence and dull parties that previous generations had to endure.

Re:Doctrine of First Sale

[mcgrew]

What Doctorow says about books applies to music and movies as well. For decades, records and tapes were yours to loan, share, give away... you OWNED them.

The constitution says that Congress can give a "limited time" monopoly on publishing to "authors and inventors". Period. It was included to protect authors and inventors from publishers. It gives Congress no power to protect publishers from anyone.

Yet, somehow in the 1950s the record companies got copyright law to let them screw over the artists, making phonorecordings automatically "works for hire".

If you want to pirate a Cory Doctorow book, just go to his website. They're available there for free download in many formats. The same goes for Lawrence Lessig's books, on his website. I urge everyone to read Lessig's book Free Culture. His and Doctorow's books are available under a Creative Commons license.

The Constituton is, in fact, the cornerstone of all US law. However, Congress ignores it and the Supreme Court lets them. Of the four boxes, we'd better start being more effective with the first three before we're forced to use the forth.

Re:Doctrine of First Sale

[biryokumaru]

Ya, I know. Projects like Wikipedia or Creative Commons just wouldn't work if the contributers weren't getting paid.

Likewise, until the invention of intellectual property rights and copyright, no art was ever created. It's fortunate that we discovered these laws, or the world would have remained indefinitely with any music, art or literature.

And the quality is really the difference. Trash created pre-DRM like Mozart or Wagner just can't compare to the majesty modern DRM'ed works like Justin Timberlake or Britney spears.

These laws and systems are not only the sole protection of artistic creation, but they ensure a much higher standard to every art form.

Re:too much knowledge out there v2

[peragrin]

yea but with ebooks technically letting your wife read the book is illegal and wrong and she has to buy her own copy.

40 years from now your kids are all grown up, and you pass away in your sleep. As they go through your stuff, they pick up the tom clancy paper backs and think about how you used to read them. Or they find a non working ebook reader and the DRM prevents them from knowing what kind of books you liked to read.

Pick one. It will happen. no one lives for ever. Memories must be preserved some how. DRM laden technology will prevent it.

I'm not a fan of DRM but...

[Lord Lode]

A physical book has a sort of built-in DRM! If you give it away, you can't read it anymore. It can't easily be copied (it requires a lot of scanning and printing to do that). Isn't that kind of thing also part of the intention of DRM?

IMHO though, the world has changed, we now live in a world where information can be copied without any physical restrictions. So I hope that one day humanity will be able to live in that world, instead of trying to enforce old ways onto us with DRM. I'm sure that in a world where information can be copied freely, there can also be culture, people who make money, artists, and so on.

hyperbolic nonsense is what Cory does

[RobotRunAmok]

Doctorow is a pundit first, and a story-writer, oh, somewhere around seventh or eighth. Bill O'Reilly writes novels, too. But nobody reads them because they want to sit down with a good mystery, they read them because they are a fan of the pundit's punditry and buy up everything associated with his "brand."

Re:hyperbolic nonsense

[burne]

Last time I checked the message was firmly attached to the medium. I have 250 year old books who still confirm to that basic principle.

In your eagerness to outsmugg Doctorow you missed his message completely, focussing on the medium itself. I 'own' a couple of e-books from the palmpilot-era which, thanks to DRM, are unreadable now. I can remedy that with an emulator, but the current generation of DRM 'promises' online checks which will fail when technologies change or companies fail.

I get to keep the medium, a bunch of scrambled bits, but somebody will steal the content of DRM-ed books, one day.

DRM will destroy books. Individual ones, and 'book' as generic term. Knowledge will no longer be transfered, it will be rented out for a limited time only.

Re:too much knowledge out there

[thetoadwarrior]

As Ben Franklin said, those who give up their rights for convenience deserve neither, or something...

The exact saying is:
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Ben Franklin loved convenience. Hell, the lazy bastard used a kite to get his key up in the air rather than climbing up himself.

What happens when the reader breaks ?

[Alain Williams]

I have many books that I got as a child, and several that my parents had as kids. I read them to my own kids. I will give some of them to my kids where they may be read to my (future) grand kids.

1. Will e-books allow this ?
2. What happens when the reader breaks or is replaced by a new model, will the e-book work ?
3. What happens when the e-book manufacturer goes out of business or simply decides that it is not worth while to support the reader or the books that I have paid for, will I be able to read them ? (This happened in August 2008 when MS stopped support of MSN Music, so you lost the ability to recover your keys if they became corrupt through no fault of your own).
4. What happens when the e-book gets old and runs out of copyright, will you be able to give a copy to anyone who asks ?

I suspect that the answer to all of the above questions is: no.

Re:What happens when the reader breaks ?

[__aagmrb7289]

Let me start out by saying that I agree with you. And it's a good argument - it gets the emotional parts of the issue right out in the open. However, I see some things here that are going to be used, effectively, as a counter argument:

1. How many books do you own that you can pass on to your children? How old are those books?
2. Have you ever had a book destroyed through wearing out, getting destroyed by dog, fire, water, etc.?
3. Have you ever lost a book, had it borrowed or stolen?

I'm sure you can all see how these questions erode the argument. And the counter argument, pushing the statistical likelihood of a book being lost or destroyed before passing it on, versus the DRM getting screwed up - it's not very powerful. No one knows the real answer to that question - but people think they do - and so the argument loses those who already have an opinion.

Just some thoughts.

Re:hyperbolic nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

"I thought that perhaps the story told within said book is slightly more important than the media."

Of course. But you only get to find that out if you can read it.

Worst case, if publishers had their way it might someday be possible for them to withdraw a book from publication (like Amazon and '1984'), and all the existing copies would go "poof". It's the digital equivalent of a good old fashioned book burning. And while the story may be more important, it's kind of a moot point if the nature of the media prevents its enjoyment and prevents the story from being passed on to the next generation to enjoy.

Publishers are trying to license e-books in such a way that they have vastly more power over the media. The allowed uses of it are *very* restricted. In the past, with a physical copy on the shelf, a great deal of the licensing was implicit (there was only one copy and more weren't allowed) or could be safely ignored if the terms were unreasonable (go ahead and try to prevent me from reading it to my kids, even though it could be regarded as a 'performance'). Look at the nonsense about digital readers not being able to read certain books aloud. It's a constraint that some publishers apparently want, but what a ridiculous limitation. There are plenty of other examples.

Buying a book is a bargain of some kind between the publisher and the purchaser (and ultimately the creator of the work). People buy e-books with the expectation they can them much like traditional books. Why should we have to give up so much of the traditional expectations for a book simply because the medium is digital? Publishers are using the opportunity to eliminate or clamp down on traditional uses of books, and I think that effort should be strongly opposed. Alternatively, they should stop calling their digital product a "book", because the terms of license are so different.

Yeah, Cory is a bit over the top, but the issue he's talking about is important. Should we accept the greater limitations of e-books or should we insist that publishers retain the same flexibility as traditional books? I think the answer is obvious.

Re:hyperbolic nonsense

[Attila Dimedici]

You have obviously never read "1984". Either that or you don't quite understand its implications.
If there are no permanent records that are immune to alteration (hint: no electronic record is immune to alteration), those who can alter the records determine what is history and what is fantasy.

You misunderstand something...

[schon]

If copyright was 10 or 15 years, I'd be OK with draconian DRM restrictions on the things that are under copyright, provided there was a way to break it when the items go into public domain.

Then you misunderstand the purpose of DRM. The main purpose of DRM is to do an end-run around copyright expiration - so works "protected" by it *never* go into the public domain.

Imagine you're a publisher, and you want perpetual copyright, even though you know the highest law in the land says you'll never get it. What's the next best thing? Complete control over the books you sell - so you can prevent anyone from copying them ever again, and can even "recall" them if you want to. And you lobby for a law that makes it illegal for anyone to talk about how to circumvent that control.

At it's core, copyright is the ability to say "you're not allowed to say that, because I said it first." It is (supposedly) a compromise between the public and authors. In order to improve our culture, authors are given a limited right to exclude others from exercising their right of free expression.

DRM is a betrayal of this compromise - the public fulfills their part, but the authors never have to fulfill theirs. DRM is the antithesis of copyright, and rather than making laws to protect DRM, any work that is "protected" should be immediately be stripped of its copyright status.

After all, if DRM really worked, they wouldn't *need* copyright law, would they?

Re:Can someone explain to me...

[TrekkieGod]

He mouths off about copyright all the time, but his grasp of law and legal history is laughable. Yet he consistently makes headlines for saying asinine things about subjects about which he has no expertise.

How do I get people to pay me for saying stupid things about fashionable subjects?

Hilarious irony. You claim he has no expertise on the subject of copyright and then asks how you can get paid for stating your opinion. Doctorow's expertise on the subject is precisely that he manages to get paid while giving his books away, which is something authors in favor of DRM books claim they couldn't possibly do.

DRM + e-books = 1984 & Fahrenheit 451

[KwKSilver]

This kind of stuff would have made Winston Smith's day job so much easier. Rewrite history then push it out so as to override previous copies. And the rulers of the Fahrenheit 451 world could simply revoke the digital certificate of ... every book or every book with ideas they want suppressed. Sound like the media cartels' wet dream? It is, it is. And that of would-be tyrants? Even more so.

I was getting halfway interested in the Kindle until the 1984 debacle. That shows that DRM has a much darker potential than its proponents will ever acknowledge. Fuck all that shit. (Not picking on Amazon; I like it and have had an account there for years.) Corporations cannot be trusted to have any interest in freedom of any kind for the public. No doubt their accountants would show it as a negative (if intangible) item on their balance sheets.

Re: Paper

[TaoPhoenix]

I think it IS the paper, or at least the medium. (Marshall McLuhan?)

Since it's hard to toss a professor into your car without felony charges, the bound book is the delivery medium of the content, and the part I believe has "hardware value" much like Apple is up to. Rather than some behemoth press in NYC, I do believe the future is the DIY kiosk that takes content of your choosing and cranks it into the presentation medium. Once that process gets down under a minute I think we'll hit a plateau.

When studying moderately difficult factual material, self pacing is important for me, which is the chief flaw of audio editions. Digital only copies tie up the visual space on the computer. I'd accept a cheap disposable reader with stylus/type annotation ability that can then wirelessly email your custom copy to your standard email.

Re:It Ain't the Paper

[xystren]

I think that people who fetishize physical books are expressing a reactionary fear of losing control, of losing something familiar to them that they regard as an eternal constant. The problem with that attitude is, physical books are just another form for holding content. Before books, it was the storyteller in the square, before them it was paintings on cave walls. I'm sure there were people who said, "I don't hold with these here books, they destroy the whole storytelling experience."

The problem is, technology changes. We've seen it, we've experienced it, and we will run into it with digital readers.

This is my biggest problem. Being forced to buy into a device. Right now, there are so many different version of readers and the DRM protected content only works of a select few. This is my problem. Look the way that the floppy drive has gone. What will happen in 5 or 10 years? Is you reader still going to exist, let alone be in serviceable (usable) condition? Will Amazon/B&N/Sony/etc. continue to support all those "old" devices? Will you be able to take your content from old device and put it into a new differing device? READ: I like Sony's digital reader better than my Kindle, can I put my Kindle content on my Sony reader? Or am I at the mercy of what Amazon/Sony/other choose to support?

Look how difficult now it is to find a computer with a 3.5" floppy drive? How about a 5.25" floppy (SD, DD, HD). I can pretty much promise you that your electronic reader is going to go the same way. Just like your computer of 5 years ago. Just like the Nintendo 8-bit, or Intellivision. Heck, are there any CDs or DVD that you've burnt 5 years ago that are still readable?

At a Thanksgiving dinner this year, I held a first printing of Bram Stokers Dracula. It was really quite something. Over 100+ years old, it was in just as readable condition as it was when it was printed. Will your e-book reader be able to do the same?

This is more than just a reactionary response to change. Electronic != Better tends to be the slogan, but it isn't always the case. E-readers/DRM Content/etc fall into this category. All my college textbooks have gone to electronic format (not by choice either, I have to pay for the e-texts regardless and can only be DLed to 2 single computers. No Kindel, Sony Reader, etc.) and it drives me nuts. Four hours of reading content on screen gets tiresome really fast. Since this switch, I have purchased a print copy over every text that I've needed. Its quite sad, since most of the time I can get the used copy for less than the electronic.

As you argue, content is the most important. But an Audio CD (content holder) is completely useless without a CD player. A locked safe (content holder) is completely useless if you don't have the combination. An MP3 (content) is useless without a MP3 player. A physical book will always be accessible. Content that is not accessible is not content at all; let alone useful content.

"There are two kinds of fools. One kind says, 'This is new and therefore good.' The other kind says, 'This is old and therefore better.'"

So which do you fall under? Your missing the third option that looks at the appropriateness of the development and considers *IF* it is good and should be used. I personally fall into that third category

Cheers,
Xyst

Selection bias in old works?

[jonaskoelker]

Trash created pre-DRM like Mozart or Wagner just can't compare to the majesty modern DRM'ed works like Justin Timberlake or Britney spears.

Might there be a selection bias going on? We don't preserve everything from "back then"; we sure don't listen to all of it. I predict that in the future, people will still listen to, say, The Beatles. Or Elvis. Or rock out to that riff from Smoke on the Water. Maybe some Michael Jackson song will be preserved.

Not all old music was great. Not all new music is crap. Not even all good new music is worth preserving for ever. But some is.

The real problem is that record companies have shifted their function. It used to be that they discovered and selected talent; now they "produce" talent.

South Park tells a story about this too; see the Guitar Queer-o episode: "The next time you bring me some talent, make sure they're talented". And then in Fingerbang: "These are The New Boys from the Back Alley Zone. They're the new hit." (I'm paraphrasing the name.)

Maybe if enough people are bitten...?

[ilsaloving]

This is a good place to point out that Amazon unilaterally had all copies of 1984 deleted from all customer's devices, totally screwing many people up in the process. Sure the refunded the purchase cost. Big deal. They also apologized later for doing it. But this sent a very clear message that they cannot take back: They can trash your 'property' on a whim, and there is nothing you can do to prevent it as long as you abide by their DRM restrictions.

They say they won't do it again. Sorry, but once trust is lost, is VERY difficult to regain.

At least, it is for people who actually pay attention and think. What upsets me the most is that most consumers don't care enough to change their purchasing habits even after they've been bitten.

Except in very rare circumstances I avoid audio CDs, after what Sony did. I also don't buy Sony products anymore. Sony should have But when I see how many people still purchase Sony products, how PS3s are flying off the shelves, it makes it really hard to care. When the forementioned incident happened with Amazon, schadenfreude is the best description of how I felt. There have been SO many well reported incidents across SO many industries, that people have effectively waived their right to be outraged when such things happen to them.

Society at large flat out doesn't care. Those that know what's going on and care enough to do so will ALWAYS find a way to crack things like DRM so that they can at least protect themselves. Those that choose to ignore the damage that DRM causes, can go cry in their rooms because they should flat out have known better.

I can only hope that if enough people get hurt by DRM they will eventually complain loudly enough to stop this nonsense.

Quirks and eBooks

[kagaku]

My first run in with eBook "quirks" didn't take long to happen. I received a Kindle for Christmas, and having already scouted out some prospective books to purchase I had some novels in mind. The first book I read was Flood by Stephen Baxter - I just finished that last night. Flood is followed by its sequel - Ark (by the same author). However, upon trying to buy Ark I couldn't find it anywhere on the Amazon kindle store. I recalled seeing it when browsing before (that's why I bought this series first, because I noticed both books were available in kindle editions) - however now it was missing. Trying a few different things, I logged out of my Amazon account. Low and behold, the ebook appears for sale! Kindle edition and all - however I noticed a very small notice (almost fine print) below the "Buy with 1-Click" button that read: "Due to copyright restrictions, this title not available in the United States". WTF! It took changing my address to that of a Canadian friend of mine in order to be allowed to purchase this book - thankfully they still accepted by US-addressed credit card.

Copyright restrictions and such on sale of books/music/movies is extremely stupid in my opinion. In the end all it took was changing my address twice - once to Canada and then back - but it's the principle of it all. I'm happily reading my book now; a book that just to purchase I had to be dishonest about where I lived simply so I'd be allowed to purchase it.

DRM is another issue I'm worried about, however with the advent of tools to strip the Kindle and nook DRM, I'm not to worried about moving my books to a new platform once a better read becomes available.

Re:hyperbolic nonsense

[MarkvW]

The truth can be buried in a big pile of disinformation. Goebbels proved that and Orwell observd it. Nothing really new there.

If you want to believe that history is "determined" by people who "alter the records," more power to you. I'd rather believe that history is intelligently designed by 45 people who work at the Wal-Mart in Branson, Missouri.