How Publishers Are Cutting Their Own Throats With eBook DRM

An anonymous reader writes "Sci-fi author Charlie Stross has written a post about how the Big Six book publishing companies have painted themselves into a corner in the rapidly growing ebook industry. Between user-unfriendly DRM and the Amazon juggernaut, they're slowly pushing themselves out of business. Quoting: 'Until 2008, ebooks were a tiny market segment, under 1% and easily overlooked; but in 2009 ebook sales began to rise exponentially, and ebooks now account for over 20% of all fiction sales. In some areas ebooks are up to 40% of the market and rising rapidly. (I am not making that last figure up: I'm speaking from my own sales figures.) And Amazon have got 80% of the ebook retail market. ... the Big Six's pig-headed insistence on DRM on ebooks is handing Amazon a stick with which to beat them harder. DRM on ebooks gives Amazon a great tool for locking ebook customers into the Kindle platform.'"

Comments

I hate DRM.

[Firethorn]

DRM on ebooks gives Amazon a great tool for locking ebook customers into the Kindle platform.'"

Which is why I'm not buying books from Amazon or B&N at this point. Either it's without DRM, or I'm not buying it. Baen's Webscriptions for me, at least at the moment.

Re:I hate DRM.

[inflex]

At least a lot of non-Big6 writers are publishing without DRM on Amazon (and other platforms).

There's a new thread almost weekly on places like Kindleboards.com about DRM and it still always goes the same way though, lots of arguing on either side. In the end at least, more and more writers are explicitly choosing NOT to DRM.

We have several books out under a few pen-names, none of them are DRM'd and we're not the only ones ( http://elitadaniels.com/ ).

Re:I hate DRM.

[Guspaz]

Most of my eBook purchases are from Baen. Cheap prices, free books, any format you could want, and no DRM? What's not to like?

For those who are curious about the "free books" part, Jim Baen and his authors discovered that giving away the first book or two in a series actually increased sales, and ended up putting a huge number of their books up for free download. And by "free" I mean "just like ones you pay for, DRM-free in all formats." Their free library's site can be found here:

http://www.baen.com/library/default.asp

And the books themselves can be downloaded from here (and also indirectly at the above link):

http://www.webscription.net/c-1-free-library.aspx

This sort of behaviour from content creators and publishers should be rewarded, so go check out some of the free books. There's so many to choose from, from so many authors, you're bound to find something you like! And if this post reads like an advertisement, well, I think they deserve it.

Re:I hate DRM.

[LordLucless]

Seconding that.

I got onto the 1632/Ring of Fire series, and the Honor Harrington series through the Baen free library.

As validation of their model, I've since bought all of both series as ebooks from them (actually under the webscription model: 5-6 books, including the one I was looking for, for $15). I've also bought half of the Honor Harrington series as audio books through Audible, all through a couple of $5 loss-leaders.

Re:I hate DRM.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for jostling my memory, I had forgotten to donate to Project Gutenberg in a while.
This, instead of a retail purchase, oh mighty purveyors of bill C-11.

Re:I hate DRM.

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate DRM too. It's why I buy on Amazon and strip it with Calibre.

Re:I hate DRM.

[Anonymous Coward]

industry standard DRM

Meaning Adobe's proprietary DRM, instead of Amazon's?

Re:I hate DRM.

[TheSHAD0W]

> VERY limited selection of "free" ebooks.

So they're to be hated so they don't give EVERYTHING away?

Also, what they have available is really good quality, no crap.

Re:I hate DRM.

[0123456]

You do realize that B&N uses the industry standard DRM, right? No lock involved, in fact you can open the books on any computer that supports Adobe Editions

In other words, they tie you into using one of the worst pieces of crap software since Adobe Flash Player.

I just don't buy e-books with DRM, it's much simpler.

Re:I hate DRM.

[Anonymous Coward]

Can someone explain why locking you into a platform you have no control over is NOT DRM?

(I have a Kindle, and I can't take a book off it and do what I wish with it.... or can I?)

Re:I hate DRM.

[Runaway1956]

I post this link at every opportunity. All authors and publishers should read this, and give it serious thought. DRM is the stupidest thing since the square wheel!

http://www.baen.com/library/default.asp

Re:I hate DRM.

[Runaway1956]

WHOOT!! The model works.

My history with the Baen books is quite different from your own. But, I've been an avid reader, all my life. I exhausted my elementary school's library, then my junior high school's library, and then got a library card at the city library. It took years, but I finally read everything there, that I wanted to read. In the meantime, I read everything in my high school's library.

When I couldn't find FREE reading material, quite naturally I started BUYING books. Of course, a number of trilogies and anthologies were missing parts in the various libraries, so I had already bought those. Most of which, I donated to the city library when I was finished with them!

Yes, the model works.

If an author wants to be read, he must have an audience which loves to read. You can't capture an audience if you are not willing to give them good introductory material. The average school kid can't afford to buy books, and when he can afford to buy a book, he isn't going to UNLESS you've already taught him the value of reading.

Authors should look at Bill Gates for inspiration. Gates put his operating system within reach of every school kid in America for FREE. That is exactly why Microsoft has a monopoly today!

Re:I hate DRM.

[Dragon Bait]

Can someone explain why locking you into a platform you have no control over is NOT DRM?

(I have a Kindle, and I can't take a book off it and do what I wish with it.... or can I?)

After my wife bought a Kindle, I looked into this a little bit. There is an open source eBook reader that will also convert from one format to another -- assuming that the original is not locked up with DRM. You can get a Kindle reader from Amazon for Android, so in theory (haven't done it, wouldn't swear to it) you could read your Kindle eBooks on an Nook.

For me, I looked at my favorite authors and what books were available as ebooks -- and looked at the cost. On the one hand, I would really like to have all of my books on a gadget I can carry around like a Kindle, but I don't trust the cloud not to reach in and delete a book. I also don't trust any device that I'm not able to backup and restore (to a different device).

Your mileage may vary.

Re:I hate DRM.

[megafag]

I read nothing but Amazon eBooks on my Nook Color because, ironically, i can't download books from the Nook app, due to them being unavailable in Australia.

Re:I hate DRM.

[RMingin]

Since you're familiar with Calibre, why aren't you familiar with Unswindle? There's even a plugin for Calibre to link the two.

I rarely *buy* my ebooks. There's just too much good stuff out there that's price-free, DRM-free, or both.

When I *do* buy an ebook, I buy from Amazon, run it through unswindle+Calibre, and have the text, formatted, with pictures, table of contents, etc, exactly as purchased, in the format(s) I choose, with no DRM.

It's entirely possible to work within the system and still get an officially forbidden result.

Re:I hate DRM.

[vanyel]

My primary platform is a mac, so I didn't know about the plug in, but my process is to look for the book on baen.com or in a "multiformat" (non-drm'd) at fictionwise.com, and if it's not there, then I get it from amazon (if it's not available as an ebook, then I don't get it - I'm tired of moving boxes of paper around) and the first thing I do is strip the drm in a windoze vm. I'm not going to be locked into a proprietary format or have the book "disappear" on me. If the rumored new kindle format can't be unswindled, then I'll stop buying books from amazon. Oh, and if the ebook costs more than the paperback version, then I won't buy it either - that's just a ripoff.

Re:I hate DRM.

[HJED]

You can connect a kindel as USB storage and copy the books off , but I think they are encrypted

Re:I hate DRM.

[Mathinker]

> The average school kid can't afford to buy books

As a parent, I have to say that I believe, in the case that economics enables it, that's exactly one of the things a parent is for.

(I have to admit feeling a bit like a drug dealer, however, since I instituted a "first N books fully subsidized, all books afterwards X% subsidized" strategy --- I feel it's important that a child who's old enough can get experience planning how he spends the pocket money he has).

Re:I hate DRM.

[wvmarle]

There is no such thing as industry-wide-standard DRM that has any use. It's self-defeating. Well DRM is in itself self-defeating anyway.

First of all, remember that the R has to do with Restrictions, no more no less. Just that, restrictions in what you can do with a file. Now if all devices all over the industry use the exact same DRM, that means all these devices can decode all materials just fine. All resellers incorporate it in their media, all reader software and devices incorporate it, and the end user basically never sees any restrictions. So why add it to begin with? If DRM doesn't get in the way of the end user, it's not doing anything, and you'd just as well not have it at all and save money in the process (as in: the work to implement the restriction scheme on both the media and the reader sides).

Of course it's used to prevent copying, including making backups for oneself. But with all those devices out there it will be cracked, and cracked fast. There may also be devices that simply ignore the DRM - to make it industry standard it means you need wide adoption, and control of who has the keys is getting more and more difficult.

It won't prevent copying either: one would just copy the complete file DRM and all. It's an industry-wide standard so anyone can read it anyway, DRMed or not. If it works on device A it works on device B. For books requiring on-line verification is troublesome as books are often read off-line and out of reach of a network, e.g. on the bus or on the train.

And by restricting your DRM to a single vendor, that's self-defeating. Amazon has now something like 80% of the e-book market, so if you want to use DRM on your book media you're kinda obliged to at least use Amazon's system. Otherwise you lose out on most of the market. This gives Amazon a huge market power: it can dictate prices, refund policies, their commissions, being exclusive reseller of the book, whatnot. They are in control of the whole process, and by the publisher's decision to require DRM the publisher also completely locks out any competition between resellers.

And to see a classic example on how that works out: iTunes. Music industry demands DRM on music sales, Apple owns well 80-90% of the market or so (not just the retail side, but also the player side) and offers DRM, and as a result Apple has enormous power to set prices - like the $0.99 per song demand. And this DRMed iTunes music is restricted to Apple's devices only to boot. The only way for the music industry to get back their pricing power and control over the sales of their music, was to drop DRM, which in the end they did.

Re:I hate DRM.

[neyla]

I don't think the comparison is fair. Because subsidies for behaviour seen as useful, is common all trough life, including as an adult. The thing with "first hit is free" for drugs is that's it's subsidising *bad* behaviour.

The government has multiple ways of making wanted behaviour cheaper, and/or making unwanted behaviour more expensive. Thus if I buy a book as an adult, it's VAT-free, whereas if I buy alcohol as an adult it's 25%VAT and carries an additional alcohol-tax.

These, and other strategies, change the price, in the hope that it'll influence our spending-habits.

I as a parent do the same thing, and see nothing wrong with it. That is, if my kids by sweets for their allowance, then that's fine but I don't support it further, while if they buy books or something else I consider useful, I often volunteer to pay half the price for them.

Re:I hate DRM.

[hairyfeet]

What I don't understand about the whole DRM mess is this: Why hasn't somebody brought up the bigger question which is why force a tech THAT DOES NOT WORK and ONLY pisses off the people PAYING you?

Look at all the DRM bullshit they put on video, has that stopped a SINGLE video from showing up on TPB before it was even released? NO! yet they expect me to jump through hoops and either take DRM that doesn't work on my system or buy a DVD, rip said DVD, transcode said DVD into a format I can use.......or I can just go to TPB, see where this is heading friends?

Frankly the ONLY DRM I've seen done "right" is Steam, just give me my game Valve and get the fuck out of the way, thanks. They give you value for your money, have a nice little chat client that makes it easy to get everyone together for a match, have the easy gift thing for dealing with my boys, don't bitch if I need to back up or move the folder, its all easy peasy. Why the fuck can't the other bunches learn?

I agree with Gabe from Valve, piracy is a classic case of you not serving the customers. Just like in TFA the stupid publishers are so hung up on piling on the DRM which has NEVER worked, will NEVER work, not in a bazillion years, because the pirates are ALWAYS smarter than them, so in the end the only one the DRM bites in the ass is the guy actually trying to pay them. It is like the media companies are all run by the PHB from Dilbert...argh!

Re:I hate DRM.

[dbitter1]

What I don't understand about the whole DRM mess is this: Why hasn't somebody brought up the bigger question which is why force a tech THAT DOES NOT WORK and ONLY pisses off the people PAYING you?

You must be new here. Some of us have been saying it for 30 years, going back to "copy protected" floppy disks... and our voices are hoarse by now.

Now get off my lawn...

Re:I hate DRM.

[Daetrin]

Not 30 years in my case, but i worked on a software project in 2000-2001 that used Macrovision's DRM. It was a pain in the ass to deal with and i argued that we could come up with our own simple CD check in a couple days that would accomplish the only practical goal of DRM, keeping joe six-pack from making twenty copies of the game and handing them out to his friends. (And that notably wouldn't require us to pay Macrovision $1 for every CD we shipped.) I didn't argue it very loudly though because management was clearly set on the Macrovision route. I think GameStop at the time had some policy about requiring PC games to have "real" DRM?

So we went with Macrovision, and because we'd used the very latest version it took the pirates a couple days, maybe even an entire week to crack the game and post it online. Yay?

Re:I hate DRM.

[gfxguy]

Publishers are following in the footsteps of all the other content providers and making exactly the same mistakes.

First it was the audio industry that whined cassette tapes would destroy the industry... instead people found new uses for music - portable, in their car (yes, they had eight track... I won't go there). The music industry thrived despite the predictions of death by the RIAA.

Then it was the MPAA's turn... video tape would destroy the film industry. Instead, it opened up new revenue streams and brought them more money than they could have imagined, despite the fact that, yes, people were copying movies.

Then is was the software industry's turn, with both on disk and off disk copy protection schemes... the same schemes that, as you pointed out, only affected the "honest" customers and drove MORE people to pirate so that they could circumvent the annoyance.

Repeat with CDs; repeat with DVD, repeat with MP3....

As the head of household with a handful of Nooks (both original and now Nook Touches), I think the publishers are shooting themselves in the foot on both levels: both price and restrictions. For how many years did we protest the high and ever increasing cost of books with claims from the publishers that printing and shipping was a huge cost that they had to mitigate with higher prices? Now you can often find paperbacks cheaper than their eBook counterparts and, as a bonus, you lose the freedom of unrestricted lending, giving, and second sale you'd have from buying the paperback. Even when the eBook is cheaper, it's usually not by very much.

As a result my first steps to getting new content are looking around for free and/or unrestricted content... my last resort is buying from B&N, and that's sad because it's NOT B&N's fault.

So if the publishers insist on encouraging us to circumvent their DRM and look for alternative sources of material, then that's fine by me. I'd rather be able to go directly to an authors website and pay them directly anyway. It's the era of the end of the middle man... no publishers necessary; no recording companies necessary, and in the process the artists keep control of their content. Win-win.

Re:I hate DRM.

[shentino]

My opinion on pirates is that, right or wrong, they are simply unstoppable and see ANY form of copy protection as a challenge. They crack stuff just for fun.

Using DRM to stop a pirate is like using a stinkbomb to blow up a castle. No damage except to the noses of innocent bystanders.

Pirate's gonna pirate no matter what you do. It's time for publishers to accept that as reality and quit fighting a battle they can't win, and start worrying about giving its customers a better deal than the cheapskate pirates can, or making pirates look like worse scum than they are themselves.

The way to actually beat a pirate is to cut them out of the supply chain by making customers want your legit version better than the pirated version. If you treat your customers badly they're not going to see the difference between you and the pirates you love to hate so much, and that eliminates reputation as a factor in purchasing decisions.

Bringing yourself down to the pirate's level is only going to eliminate any advantage you have in good will and let the pirates walk on you on cost advantages.

Re:I hate DRM.

[StayFrosty]

We are moving down that road with movies. Instead of paying $20 for a DVD you can now watch 100 movies on Netflix all month long for $8. This means the cost (or value) of the movie isn't really much more than $0.08 instead of $20. Between Netflix and piracy, all we are waiting for is the last bit to go away and we will see movies have $0 value.

You are confusing the concept of owning and renting. When you watch a movie on Netflix, you don't get to keep it. Before netflix, movie rentals were a couple bucks tops, so the difference isn't nearly what you are making it out to be.
 
With Movie tickets right around $12 before popcorn or soda, I'd say the worth of watching a movie 1 time is still $12. I doubt the major movie studios would be pulling in record profits if a movie had a $0 value.
 

Ebooks are going to be going that way soon as well. You can now find poor copies of newly released books downloadable within days. Better quality content is coming, just as it did with music and movies. The revenue from ebooks will be destroyed just as certainly as it was for other digital items.

Do you know what pirates did before the invention of ebooks? They went to their local library, checked out the book they wanted to read, walked outside, and shouted "ARRRR!"
 
Using your logic, the value of a book is zero because anyone with a library card can check them out for free.

Not sure DRM is the biggest issue at the moment...

[MarcoAtWork]

... pricing an e-book $13 when the paperback is $6 is a much more visible issue for the average e-book buyer, at least judging from the various comments on amazon's message boards.

Re:Not sure DRM is the biggest issue at the moment

[baldass_newbie]

The price is too high.
I can't lend it to somebody.

I sense a pattern.

[cmv1087]

Why does every aspect of the publishing industry seem to fail at grasping the advantages of limited or no DRM and digital products?

Re:I sense a pattern.

[errandum]

Obviously, I have no f..king clue about who you are. No idea why should I.

You can use amazon books if you remove the DRM. It requires a google search and 5 minutes. You can use your books anywhere.

Their app isn't shitty and for both android and iOS (iPad) is my proffered reader. A quick web search will also tell you they are, it is, in fact, the best reader app out there - even recommended for books not purchased via Amazon

And the clauses in the TOS you consider abusive are there for a reason. Amazon, as far as I know, only use that clause once and it was to remove a book they were selling that they didn't have the rights to. They actually gave the money back, so don't make it sound like armed robbery.

Steam can ban you - but it's kind of hard to get banned from steam. As far as I know you had to try and use a pirated CD key to register a steam game to get yourself banned, but that's so dumb that I wonder why would anyone do it. Either that or you stole a Credit Card. Since I've never done either, I really don't care.

No one is treating you like a criminal. They are just removing the possibility of you being able to behave like one easily (and in amazon's case they don't even try). And because of your pigheadedness you're missing out on two great platforms that get rave reviews worldwide.

My Own Entry Point

[coldmist]

If I could buy an epub file for a book, knowing that it is well-done by the publisher, and not just a simple OCR job of the printed copy, I would pay up to $5 for books.

More than that, and for any other format with or without DRM, and I don't buy it.

Re:My Own Entry Point

[Guspaz]

How about $6, DRM-free, in ePub and any other format you might want? Baen's eBooks tend to be $4-6. Some are free (and not crappy samples, usually the first few books in major series).

Re:My Own Entry Point

[Guspaz]

Scifi, fantasy, alt history... But that makes sense, since they're a scifi publisher.

They have more than just old books and short stories. Two of their most popular series are David Weber's Honor Harrington scifi series and Eric Flint's 1632 alt-history series, both of which still have new books coming out.

Re:Not sure DRM is the biggest issue at the moment

[Daniel Dvorkin]

It all ties together. Booksellers, whether retail outlets like Amazon or the publishers themselves, want to charge paper-book prices for e-books. They see DRM as a mechanism to enable them to do that. The alternative, which is to sell e-books for reasonable prices (i.e., prices which reflect the fact that printing and distribution costs for e-books are effectively zero) and thereby sell more books, is so far mostly the domain of the self-publishing and small-press world.

Can they invent a new model now?

[RobinEggs]

I really hope publishers cave in and figure out a way of pricing things better.

I think I should be spending more on entertainment; I'm starting to feel much guiltier about stealing everything but comic books, occasional paperbacks, and the three video games per decade I like enough to buy a collector's edition.

At the same time, the release prices for entertainment are completely batshit crazy. Games are $60, books are $35, and movies are $12? Who can afford that crap? Those prices all fall pretty quickly, but can't they come up with a better model than fleecing their most eager customers and then doling it out one step at a time to the next most impressive or convenient formats?

I don't know; maybe they can't. I just know I laugh when I see those numbers breakdowns, and I've seen them from official sources multiple times, in which publishers swear to God they only make a 1% profit.

Re:Can they invent a new model now?

[MadMaverick9]

I really hope publishers cave in and figure out a way of pricing things better.

it's not just pricing. it's method of payment too.

where is the ebookstore that i can go to with my cash and my usb stick, buy a pdf ebook and read it at home with okular or evince or whatever pdf reader i choose.

not everybody has a credit card. actually - i think one can safely say that most people in the world do not have a credit card. so why haven't companies learned that and adjusted their way of doing business accordingly.

Re:Can they invent a new model now?

[Algae_94]

I just can't believe this. It may be true that the market for mobile games between $1 and $5 is growing rapidly, but I doubt that gamers that were buying brand new PC and console games for $60 are going to be satisfied with mobile games and are shifting to that. The overall market could very well skew towards mobile gaming, but the gamer crowd that buys brand new games will still be around.

Re:Can they invent a new model now?

[graymocker]

At the same time, the release prices for entertainment are completely batshit crazy. Games are $60, books are $35, and movies are $12? Who can afford that crap? Those prices all fall pretty quickly, but can't they come up with a better model than fleecing their most eager customers and then doling it out one step at a time to the next most impressive or convenient formats?

This is actually the whole point: Market Segmentation. Your goal with any product is to extract maximum sales revenue from it, which means finding the optimum point on the price/demand curve. But if you sell at only one price point, you actually leave money on the table from individuals who were willing to pay you more for that product. For example, suppose I've figured out that maximum revenue for my widget is at $10/widget. However, I also know that there are people who are willing to pay $20/widget; there simply aren't enough of them to make the $20/widget price more profitable than the $10/widget price. Wouldn't it be great if I could get the best of both price points? If I could sell the product for $10/widget to those customers who would only be willing to buy at $10, but also turn around and sell it at $20/widget to those customers willing to pay more? Wouldn't it be great if I could do this in such a way so that the $20 customer actually is pleased with his purchase, and doesn't feel ripped off, by providing some kind of extra value to that $20 customer?

The solution to this problem is to segment your market. With some goods this means coming out with slightly different products for each market segment. (eg, Mercedes has a C-series, an E-series, etc. etc. etc.). The solution in other products is to segment by time, so your most ardent customers pay extra to get the product right away, while more value-conscious customers wait for price drops or sales.

This is in fact the solution used for most entertainment products, and honestly I don't think there's anything wrong with it. The brand new game may start at $60, for those fans that are very interested in the product and want it right away. (Market segementation also goes higher, with special and collector's editions with extra doodads for superfans). Then the price gradually drops until it covers every level of enthusiasm/budget for the product, until it shows up in a Steam sale for $5 and even those people who say "meh, looks interesting, guess I can try it" become customers. This system nicely balances multiple interests - it makes the same product accessible to a wide range of consumers, with each consumer paying what they think that product is worth to them (and the ones paying more getting some benefit from that higher price).

It is astonishing that they didn't foresee this

[QCompson]

Especially now with amazon getting into the publishing business: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/technology/amazon-rewrites-the-rules-of-book-publishing.html?pagewanted=all

At least with the music industry's drm'ed files they could be played on a multitude of devices from various companies. Amazon's ebooks only work on amazon hardware.

I also get the impression that pirating ebooks is far less common with Joe and Susie Consumer than with what occurred in the napster days with mp3s. I doubt ebook filesharing has much affect on the publisher's bottom line, since most of those who do it probably wouldn't have purchased the book anyway (and certainly not new in hardcover).

Re:It is astonishing that they didn't foresee this

[badbart]

Amazon's ebooks only work on amazon hardware.

Not entirely accurate--one of the things I like best about ebooks from Amazon is that I can (and do) read them on the Kindle, my phones, and my computers. The Kindle app is available for just about everything, and syncs between devices so I can pick up on one where I left off on another.

Re:It is astonishing that they didn't foresee this

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

At least with the music industry's drm'ed files they could be played on a multitude of devices from various companies. Amazon's ebooks only work on amazon hardware.

Actually it works with amazon hardware, but also any android OS, iOS, BlackBerry OS and desktop (using Chrome or a derivative, I believe web reader supports Windows/OSX/Linux) .

Amazon's not stupid. They know that customers will want/need their content on multiple devices and they make it easy to move content across devices.

This isn't to say that DRM is a good idea -- only that they're very efficient at hiding the fact that DRM exists from the majority of consumers. THis works very much in their favor -- it would take many large-scale problems with revoking content to make the average consumer aware that they don't own their books.

Re:Not sure DRM is the biggest issue at the moment

[slashmydots]

I think you're looking at used book prices. People will let those go for absurdly cheap for some reason. Have you seen some popular top seller/NYT top books? They're $30-50! Printing material can't cost that much! In fact, I've done covers for books and I know what they cost to print and they're exaggerating it. The ebooks tend to be a lot cheaper for big titles.

Re:Not sure DRM is the biggest issue at the moment

[errandum]

No one is forcing you or anyone to buy the e-book, I, for one, only buy kindle books when it's worth it (I payed 10$ less for A Dance with Dragos, 7$ less for the latest Dreaden Files and more or less 8$ less for the Inheritance e-book.

But then I bought The Lies of Locke Lamora on paper.

And even though I don't regret it, I might not do it again just to save 2$. The convenience of the whole Amazon infrastructure combined with instant delivery anywhere in the world for free, not to mention the lousy quality of pocket paperbacks...

With Steve Jobs dead, who will call for no-DRM?

[Hobart]

Go give the 2007 open letter "Thoughts on Music" a read.

I somehow doubt Jeff Bezos will publish a similar article.

DRM-free MP3 sales from Amazon only happened as a "fight back" against the "evil single source for music" that was iTunes at the time.

If we-the-public have got to rely on some similar benevolent dictator demanding DRM-free choices, is it gonna be Barnes and Noble's Leonard Riggio? I'm not holding my breath. :-/

Re:With Steve Jobs dead, who will call for no-DRM?

[artor3]

Amazon doesn't have the clout to fight the publishers anyway. They tried holding the line at $10 per book, and lost.

The best path we have to DRM-free ebooks is authors deciding to self-publish DRM free titles. If the next JK Rowling were to do so, it would have a big impact. Of course, you aren't likely to reach that point without publishers backing you at the start, and they probably make you sign contracts that you'll stay with them through the whole series.

...very few ways to deviate?

[nurb432]

Umm any non DRM book + calibre = kindle e-book.. pretty easy process.

As far as the publishers 'becoming more aware', they really don't care. If you want the books they own the rights to, soon you will either do as you are told, or pirate it.

Re:...very few ways to deviate?

[icebraining]

Slightly offtopic: Amazon's "spooky action at a distance" - deleting books from Kindles remotely - doesn't work for converted non-DRM ebooks, does it?
Because the Kindle still seems the best reader for the price.

Re:...very few ways to deviate?

[tkrotchko]

No it does not. Only Amazon's books. You are free to load whatever books you want, and Calibre is a great tool to do it.

Re:Not sure DRM is the biggest issue at the moment

[Guspaz]

Not all eBooks are so expensive. Baen prices theirs at mostly $4 to $6, with a whole lot for $0. Yes, their ARCs (advanced reader copies) are $15, but those are a special case for hardcore fans (basically pre-release manuscripts direct from the author before they've been edited), and if you don't want to pay the $15, just wait for it to get edited and published and the cost will be in the $4-6 range as expected.

Re:Not sure DRM is the biggest issue at the moment

[whoop]

This pricing system is nothing new. All the modern Call of Duty games stay at $60 on Steam. The latest version rarely goes on sale, if so it's only like $10 off. Publishers of any sort only want to be paid what they think customers should pay.

Then, some indie mucky-muck makes something like Minecraft, Angry Birds, etc, charges so little, and sells millions. It's not fair!

Why I don't have a kindle (yet)

[miles zarathustra]

"Here's a great book I just read. Let me lend it to you..."

Re:Why I don't have a kindle (yet)

[Lumpy]

Calibre fixes that....

Want to borrow this ebook? what format do you need it in? here you go.

Its Vendor Lock-in, not DRM

[ohnocitizen]

DRM isn't the issue. Its Vendor Lock-in. You can have the former without the latter. The author is using Vendor Lock-in to trash DRM.

Re:Its Vendor Lock-in, not DRM

[chispito]

DRM isn't the issue. Its Vendor Lock-in. You can have the former without the latter. The author is using Vendor Lock-in to trash DRM.

Except, getting rid of DRM also gets rid of the Lock-in. So why not kill two birds with one stone?

Re:Its Vendor Lock-in, not DRM

[shutdown -p now]

The author is rather explaining how DRM, in this case, leads to vendor lock-in - because the customers who already bought DRM'd books from Amazon have to stick to their devices and apps (or else lose their collection), and consequently publishers have to publish through Amazon to reach that "captured" audience.

Re:Not sure DRM is the biggest issue at the moment

[Anonymous Coward]

Courtesy of the author of the original post is this nifty article. Note especially the comments in point one:

In particular, about 80-90% of the cover price of a book has nothing to do with the paper and ink object you buy in a shop; indeed, using current production standards, ebook production requires nearly as much work as paper book production. (Paper and ink are dirt cheap; proofreaders and marketing teams aren't.)

Now, you might argue that lower prices would lead to more sales and hence greater overall profit - but that's a very different thing to arguing that "printing and distribution costs for e-books are effectively zero", and hence implying that they're a significant chunk of the cost for the dead tree version ...

Re:Not sure DRM is the biggest issue at the moment

[Anonymous Coward]

Valve gets it because they've seen the data to back it up: 10% drop in price? Expect a 35% increase in revenue. Not sales, revenue. 25% discount, 245% increase. 50% discount, 320% increase. Crazy 75% discount? 1450% increase in revenue. Valve's own record, AFAIK, was when they dropped L4D by half and saw a THREE THOUSAND PERCENT increase in sales. And apparently the best sales bump ever was a third party game that went on discount and saw a 36,000% increase in sales over the weekend. These are numbers that bean counters would drag their dicks through a mile of broken glass just to LOOK at, much less claim. Yet out there in digital land the average product is priced equal to (if not more than) it's meatspace counterpart.
Insanity.

My book

[Sasayaki]

Disclaimer: I'm currently finalizing a book for the Amazon store. Shameless linkwhore here.

This guy hit the nail right on the head. The reason the publishers are pushing for DRM is fear of piracy, but...

Bleck. First up I don't like the term "piracy". Bleh. But language is fluid and you all know what I mean, so let's go with it.

Real pirates, like these guys, are evil. They're not Jack Sparrow, they're not Captain Hook, they're murderers and rapists and kidnappers and deserved to eat a Tomahawk missile in their sleep. They're scum. They're villains. They're evil. They're not some kid who just wants to read the next (awesome, awesome, aweeeesome) Harry Potter book for free or whatever.

I've never understood musicians, writers and artists who get all messed up about digital piracy. It just strikes me as entirely retarded, especially if they're not in full compliance with every piece of software, hardware, music and movies they've ever seen or owned. I'm sure their $2,000 copy of Adobe Photoshop is fully legitimate now and was when they were 14, and I'm sure they've never downloaded an MP3 in their life.

I see this crap everywhere. I see rap artists thumbing their nose at society, waxing lyrical about sticking it to the man, pimping hoes, glorifying robbery, murder and pushing drugs, while at the same time appearing bereaved that their latest forgettable album appeared on The Pirate Bay the day after it appeared in iTunes. I see armies of cocaine huffing, hooker bashing, Harvard educated RIAA trust-fund babies who've never wanted for anything in their life but a full head of hair, going on about how Limewire costs them the GDP of the entire world ($75,000,000,000,000 dollars) in lost revenue and also, simultaneously, claiming to have had one of their most profitable years ever. How do you even rationalize that kind of blatant, intrinsic wrongness?

Fuck those guys.

I don't give a shit if you got my book from The Pirate Bay. It costs $2 to buy and is available in DRM free PDFs, or even DRM free plaintext if you really want it and you're Richard Stallman (I met you once, by the way, and you were cool. You hated my iPhone though. Sorry bro). I don't want to DRM my book(s). I want people to read them.

DRM pisses me off and ultimately hurts the consumer and then, eventually, the publisher too. Hell if someone made a torrent on The Pirate Bay of my work I'd probably just feel proud that I'd made a book people really want to read.

Re:My book

[lexman098]

- They emerged originally as a replacement for a national navy, keeping garbage from being dumped in Somali waters?

Irrelevant

- They generally let people go unharmed after receiving a ransom?

They kidnap innocent people at gunpoint for money. Fuck them.

Re:My book

[Simulant]

<quote>... appearing bereaved that their latest forgettable album appeared on The Pirate Bay the day after it appeared in iTunes.</quote>
<p> ...appearing bereaved that their latest forgettable album appeared on The Pirate Bay the week before it appeared in iTunes.
<p>
FTFY

Re:My book

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet you change your tune when it's your mother/sister/girlfriend/wife who gets kidnapped and raped, and then killed because you can't come up with what they want fast enough, or if she gets returned, seeing her live with the aftermath. You'll be just as miserable as she is, unless you shut her out of your life afterwards.

Yeah, think about that. That Tomahawk sound a little better now?

Re:My book

[brit74]

I see armies of cocaine huffing, hooker bashing, Harvard educated RIAA trust-fund babies who've never wanted for anything in their life but a full head of hair, going on about how Limewire costs them the GDP of the entire world [oddballdaily.com] ($75,000,000,000,000 dollars) in lost revenue and also, simultaneously, claiming to have had one of their most profitable years ever [azoz.com]. How do you even rationalize that kind of blatant, intrinsic wrongness?

Here's the thing: the statistics you posted are from 2002. Also, it's a myth that the music industry is doing well. )I can imagine why pirates would have an interest in perpetuating this myth,) Here's the real numbers - all the way up to 2010. The music industry sales are in serious decline. They're roughly 30% of what they were 10 years ago - that's a 70% decline. In fact, you can find the peak year for music sales: 1999. Also, Napster was released in the middle of 1999, which I think it suggestive. There's also data showing that the top-selling albums can never get anywhere close to the sales numbers they were getting ten years ago. Top selling albums in 2010 are getting something like 1/3rd the sales that top selling albums were getting 10 years ago. Here's a chart showing the huge decline in music sales: http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/4d5ea2acccd1d54e7c030000/music-industry.jpg and here's related article: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-02-18/tech/30052663_1_riaa-music-industry-cd-era

I've run similar numbers for the movie industry, and while it hasn't been hit as hard, it's also seeing declines both in box-office revenue and DVD/BlueRay sales. (Box Office revenue peaked around 2001/2002.)

Hell if someone made a torrent on The Pirate Bay of my work I'd probably just feel proud that I'd made a book people really want to read.

When you heave neither fame nor money, it's easy to accept the idea of getting fame and no money. I think this is particularly pervasive among college students and recent college students because getting fame alone would be a step up from obscurity and poverty. However, I absolutely back the "getting paid" part of the equation because it sustains the industry - otherwise, you're going to lose people (like so many of my college graduate friends who studied history or psychology and are now doing other jobs - because they can't get paid for it). I wish that "I'll work for your approval but you don't have to pay me" worked for people in other spheres of life -- the company that mows my building's lawn wouldn't ask for money, they'd just do it for my approval. I think that's really devaluing their work and effort.

Re:Not sure DRM is the biggest issue at the moment

[plover]

in that case ebooks should cost 10% less than the paperback edition when it comes out, and 10% less than the hardcover before the paperback comes out.

And maybe they do "cost" 10% less. However, that's their cost. Their price to you, on the other hand, should be whatever they think you'll pay that gives them the most profit. It's how capitalism works: buy low, sell high. It really is that simple.

If they think you'll pay an extra $3 for the convenience of sitting on your butt while having the book whisked over the aether to your Kindle, then they'll happily collect it from you. If they think you'll pay an extra $5 for the smell of a dead tree, they'll be even more happy to collect that. And if they think you'll pay $79 for a Kindle today that will lock you into an investment of $15 DRM'd books, they're ecstatic.

The only part of the equation that matters is what the largest number of consumers are willing to pay in order to maximize profits to the stockholders. Nothing else, not fairness, not reasonableness, not public opinion, not whiny authors, not abusive commenters in the Amazon reviews, nor the public good, matters. Never forget that.

Ahh the Australia Effect

[elexis]

...except in Australia, where buying almost anything at all digitally/overseas and having it Fedex'd over here is still significantly cheaper than buying retail. I will definitely buy that $13 ebook since the paperback is $40+

Large free selection if you look for it

[moniker]

I checked out their site; not much selection and a VERY limited selection of "free" ebooks.

Baen frequently releases CDROMs with specific hardcovers that contain near-complete back catalogs of that author, which can then be redistributed freely.

Check out the Annotated Baen Free Listing or the Fifth Imperium.

Re:Large free selection if you look for it

[Guspaz]

And to clarify the "can then be redistributed freely" bit, the license on the CDs specifically says that they can be copied and distributed freely so long as they're not sold. Hence why the Fifth Imperium site has all the CDs available for download.

In actual fact, a large percentage of Baen's catalog is available legally for free download because of those CDs. Almost all of the Baen books by David Weber, Eric Flint, Mercedes Lackey, Lois McMaster Bujold, John Ringo, and David Drake, and then various other books and stories by other authors. Except books published since the respective CDs were...

Re:Large free selection if you look for it

[AdamWill]

Weber's a skilful writer of page-turners (though a horrible, horrible, horrible writer of dialogue), whatever you think of his politics. Bujold is just flat out a great writer; I don't know why she gets so much love and so little respect, but by any reasonable measure she's one of the great writers of the last 50 years. And that's coming from someone who reads a hell of a wide range of fiction.

Re:Not sure DRM is the biggest issue at the moment

[Elder Entropist]

In particular, about 80-90% of the cover price of a book has nothing to do with the paper and ink object you buy in a shop; indeed, using current production standards, ebook production requires nearly as much work as paper book production. (Paper and ink are dirt cheap; proofreaders and marketing teams aren't.)

Didn't the publishing industry nearly double paperback prices just a few years ago citing increases in paper costs?

Re:Not sure DRM is the biggest issue at the moment

[chrismcb]

The actual costs of paper, printing and binding are less than 10% of the production costs.

Great, thats awesome, so why is that I can purchase a mass market for 10% cheaper than an ebook (or sometimes for half the cost of an ebook?)

Explain to my why 30+ year old books, where they've already paid the editors and the like, are still 7.99 and up?

There are a lot of new books I want to read. But I refuse to pay MORE for them just because they are on an ebook. But because an ebook reader is convenient I am not even bothering with the mass market books anymore either. So they lose.

Re:Not sure DRM is the biggest issue at the moment

[0123456]

And weren't they saying recently that profits are up despite a decline in sales because e-books are far more profitable than paper books?

Re:Not sure DRM is the biggest issue at the moment

[Jafafa Hots]

Not just insanity. Immorality. Especially when they get laws passed as an end-run around your rights, making it illegal to space-shift what you already bought (something that's supposed to be legal).

Re:Not sure DRM is the biggest issue at the moment

[BLKMGK]

Let me correct you on this - Amazon does NOT want to do this. In fact you will note that almost all of their book prices specifically state that they were set by the PUBLISHER and not by Amazon. Why? Because Amazon WAS selling books at pretty reasonable prices aka under $9.99 for even new best sellers and then Apple released the iPad and gave the publishers the ability to set pricing - which they then demanded from Amazon. Amazon tried to fight this but in the end knuckled under and we have the Agency Pricing Model that we have now - and we have Amazon acting as a publisher for many smart writers. Amazon doesn't like this but they have no choice, in fact someone is suing Apple and the publishers for this now.

End result? I no longer buy many books and I think this industry will be learning a very hard lesson just as the music industry did. In fact it will be WAY worse since books are WAY smaller (say 4megs with multiple formats) and because books aren't read over and over quite like music is. A real shame too since I and many I know were buying books more and more frequently prior to this truly stupid move by the publishing industry.

P.S. MacMillen was one of the big publishers leading the charge and on their blog, I shit you not, they actually tried to defend their pricing by stating how expensive PRINTING presses were! The mind boggles - these dinosaurs aren't long for this world...

DRM Isn't the Driving Factor, it's the Kindle

[bdam]

I work for a small publisher. I don't particularly agree with our pricing scheme nor DRM but that's not my department. If you want your books on the millions of Kindles out there then you had better have it available via Amazon. It's a simple as that. We will sell our books to practically any retailer and we have a growing number that sell ebooks. In terms of Amazon using their monopoly ... they already had one with physical books and all the arm twisting and discounts stuff applies equally there.

Re:Not sure DRM is the biggest issue at the moment

[BLKMGK]

Not only that bust as many authors are finding out ebooks don't have limited shelf life. In the paper world a book is only on the shelf and then in print for shipping for a limited time. An ebook on the other hand need never leave the shelf - it's ALWAYS available for sale. Many authors are waking up to this and telling their old publishers to take a hike when they come calling asking for rights to the electronic copy and doing it themselves. I cannot find the blog now but there's a guy out there who's making huge bucks on books the paper publishers REJECTED and laughing his way to the bank using Amazon. The faster the old school paper guys go under the happier I will be, we need less greed in the world.

Re:Not sure DRM is the biggest issue at the moment

[lgw]

Because the correct price for a good has nothing, zero, zip, nada, to do with the cost of producing it. The correct price for a good is "all the market will bear". And claiming the price is too high is simply not moral justification for stealing a book, electronically or otherwise.

"Industry Standard DRM"

[Anonymous Coward]

"Industry standard DRM" is an oxymoron. If you can't implement it, then it's not a standard. You're locked into the sole supplier of the trade secret. When you mentioned that everyone has to run Wine just to be able to read the book, didn't that clue you into how ridiculous you must have sounded? How about the part when you mentioned a .. I don't know what to call it .. a "spec"(?!) that has one particular companies' name in it. Seriously, you might as well say the XBox is an industry standard; that wouldn't be any sillier.

You know what's an industry standard? You're reading it right now. HTML. (And that's a fragmented and contentious one!) You would never even be able to guess which browser I'm using because it doesn't matter. HTML just works, with more programs than you can shake a stick at. And if you don't like any of them, you can even write your own. Text. RTF. Even PDF -- it's hard to say this with a straight face -- but even PDF is standard compared to that other Adobe thing you just mention that nobody else in the world has ever heard of, which probably explains why nobody ever makes readers for it.

Re:Not sure DRM is the biggest issue at the moment

[DinDaddy]

Along with paper and ink, shipping cartons, shipping costs, inventory management, retail floor space costs (IOW retail markup), damaged and unsold merchandise, etc. All essentially zero cost. Just like digital. That's why the pricing is the same.

Sure.

Re:Not sure DRM is the biggest issue at the moment

[Grave]

Hehe. You said "logic".

This is valid when we're talking about a manufactured good with a material production cost. The manufacturing cost of a single copy of a console game, sold in a store, shrinkwrap and all, is pretty small. I don't know the exact numbers, but it can't be much more than a couple of bucks, especially with the cheap 2-3 page black and white manuals that have shown up in the game boxes lately. The manufacturing cost of a digitally distributed game is zero. In both cases, there is a fraction of overhead, in terms of distribution, marketing, etc. While a whole lot of people will buy games at $60, there are a significant number of people who will not pay that much for games. Just as there are a significant number of people who won't pay $30 or $40 for a new hardback book.

When you price things at "impulse buy" level, you sell a lot more. When Steam has one of their huge sales, people start buying up tons of games that they otherwise would not have bothered with. I spent well over $100 on games during their sale this past summer - money I would not have spent on games if not for the sale. A few hours of entertainment that may or may not be good is really only worth about $15-$20 for me, and that's pushing it. Gambling $60 on the chance that a game will have enough content at a high enough quality to keep me interested for a couple of weeks or a month is just not going to happen.

Books, music, movies, and games are all competing for our entertainment dollars. Whoever provides the biggest value for the money generally gets the sales. For me, that value is reduced the more the item is restricted. I used to buy a lot of books, but paperbacks are increasingly inconvenient for me, and an e-reader would be the perfect solution... except that those e books are usually saddled with DRM or are more expensive. Computer books, such as those for various industry certifications, have always been expensive, but when the electronic version is even more so, it's just insulting.

If I could find a large selection of $5-$10 novels that interested me in electronic format with no DRM, I'd be buying them up. But right now the value proposition just isn't there to justify the initial purchase of a Nook or Kindle.

Re:Not sure DRM is the biggest issue at the moment

[yuhong]

I think the problem is probably that the legacy MBAs think they can get even more profit by using artificial scarcity to hike prices. In fact, I think the legacy MBA culture of greed is closely related to rent-seeking.

The Story of DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

Reader: I'd like to buy your book please.

Publisher: Buy a Kindle first.

Reader: No, I don't want a Kindle. Sell me a book?

Publisher: Buy a Kindle.

Reader: If I buy a Kindle, can I read the book without it?

Publisher: No. But buy a Kindle. I don't even care if you buy my book. Just please, buy a Kindle.

Reader: What is this, a MLM scheme? Do you get paid for Kindle sales?

Publisher: No. I just want you to buy a Kindle.

Reader: Whatever. Anyway: money. Here is some money. Want my money? Sell me book. Book. File. No Kindle. Not any particular Kindle competitor. Data, not tool. Book. Sell me book. Money. Money. Here is some money. Money.

Publisher: Fuck off.

Reader: [blink] I think we had a misunderstanding. Let's try this one more time: money. Money. Here, please take my money.

Publisher: Fuck you and your fucking money. I don't want money.

Publisher Stockholders: la la la I am blissfully unaware. The management is trying to increase revenue. The management is trying to serve my interests. I will not sue them, or even fire them. la la la la.

Publisher: Fuck money. Money is bad. I hate stockholders. Die, stockholder. Die, author. Die, customer. Everybody die. Fuck you all! RAAAA! Buy Kindle. *drool* *ramble* *rant*

Reader: Hey, this torrent site is pretty nice. And everything just works!

Amazon: You know what else just works? Reading those pirated books on a Kindle.

Reader: ok. Here, have some money.

Amazon: Moooney! Woohoo! Here you go. Enjoy your Kindle. Wanna buy some books?

Reader: No thanks, but I gotta admit, this Kindle is actually pretty cool. And thanks for pointing me at those torrent sites.

B&N: Wanna buy some books?

Reader: I didn't know anyone was still trying to sell books. No thanks.

Borders: please, money .. i need money.

Publisher: Money baaaad!! No money.

That is what DRM is all about. Saying no to money, in order to advance someone else's interests at your own expense. DRM means "Fuck you and your fucking money." That's about as rational as DRM gets, if your business is content. If your business is selling the one legal implementation of that DRM, though, it's reasonably sane.

Re:Not sure DRM is the biggest issue at the moment

[Anonymous Coward]

not a moral justification, but certainly an economic one.

Re:Not sure DRM is the biggest issue at the moment

[wvmarle]

When it comes to discounting, psychology plays a role too.

I recall my brother-in-law once tried to run a small shoe shop. You know such a 3x3m shop in a mall stocking mostly cheap shoes, the low-to-mid end $150-250 a pair made-in-China stuff they bought on the wholesale markets across the border in mainland.

They were selling shoes at well about $180 a pair, but sales were not good enough, and they found their margin too small. So what did they do? They discounted the shoes: "30% discount! Original price $300, now $210!" And guess what, their sales went up. Significantly.

So in case of Valve, they may sell more if they discount from US$60 to US$30, than what they would have sold if that game had been US$30 all along. People seem to value goods partly by the price tag that's attached to it, and a 50% discount deal sounds much better than when it's the normal price already. So leaving it at a high price may actually help sales - it makes people eager to buy but they think it's too expensive, and when there is a temporary discount they put themselves under pressure to make the buy, as it's a good deal and who knows when it comes along again.

Re:Not sure DRM is the biggest issue at the moment

[wvmarle]

Of course. But that's where the distribution ends: when it's in my hands. Somehow it has to be paid for.

And no matter what it's added in the price of books: within the US Amazon offers "free shipping" (of course I don't know the exact terms as I'm not in US). And you bet this shipping cost is included in the book price already!

So you have two options: the e-book (very low cost, just some server storage space and band width) versus the paper book (which has to be printed, quality checked, packed, shipped to Amazon's distribution warehouse, and then shipped to the customer's home - involving many people working on it, trucks that have to run, warehouses that have to be rented and heated/cooled, etc). Note that indeed I do not include cost like authoring, editing, marketing, whatever as those costs are the same for the printed and the e-book.

With all that extra cost, I just don't believe the extra cost can be just US$1 for a paper book.

And if you still think it's really that cheap, please show me some references with actual, realistic cost breakdowns of the COMPLETE process.

My Favorite eBook source...

[rts008]

I was informed of the Baen Books website about 9-10 years ago. [here on /., actually]
The 'Baen_Library'[sub-folder' of my ''eBooks' folder] takes up around 15-16 GB's of my back-up drive. :-)

The Fifth Imperium website is about half of the aforementioned 15-16 GB's., the rest I've bought from the webscriptions site.[1]

As a side note, my 'eBooks' folder is about 21 GB's currently. It's size and contents change a lot.
I am an insatiable reader. Really.

[1]Real easy, and they do not spam your inbox, or anything else.
a. create account and log on info
      (non intrusive)
b. log in, set up your pref's and info
c. browse and purchase, read the first part of the book as 'sample chapters', or what ever.
d. The webscriptions site keeps track of the books you have purchased, so you can access those books to re-download from any PC you can log into the website from.

What's not to like?

My historic 'travel habits' were to pack my bags, go to the airport early, browse the bookstands, and buy a book or two fr the flight[s].

I now find myself looking exclusively for books by authors I have been exposed to from Baen Books.
(but, I don't travel air anymore because of the TSA BS., but was true for the past 5-6 years)

I know that I may sound like a Baen shill, but I am not...I am just that much of a fanboy. :-)

*credits to 'Guspaz (556486)' who started this thread.*

Re:Not sure DRM is the biggest issue at the moment

[Jafafa Hots]

It's a crime to defeat DRM due to the DMCA. That's the end-around. Space-shifting was guaranteed under fair-use, USa Inc. didn't like that, so they made space-shifting impossible without breaking DRM, and then made breaking DRM illegal.

May not get me sued, but still shows you how things work around these here parts... what the motivation is, and who gets listened to.

Immoral. Whether they sue or not.

Re:This isn't new.

[91degrees]

It's an indirect cause. Maybe iTunes would have done well without DRM, but because the record industry insisted, and Apple refused to licence their DRM, they had a monopoly on iPod music.

If you control the only online source for mainstream music for the most popular brand of digital music player, then surely you're going to do reasonably well.

Poor branding, marketing, and integration of PlaysForSure was another factor, but if everyone could have sold files for iPods right from the start, I can't imagine Apple getting a 70% market share against established online brands like Amazon.

Re:Not sure DRM is the biggest issue at the moment

[Zebedeu]

You're paying for both.
For new books it almost makes sense. I'm seeing the digital versions at about 1~4$ cheaper, which may account for the price difference for trees, ink and shipping.

But for older books (sometimes just 1 year old), the price falls much faster for physical books than for their digital versions.
I suspect that it's because digital books don't have to compete with the second-hand market.

Re:Not sure DRM is the biggest issue at the moment

[Maritz]

I vaguely remember that in the UK (maybe Europe in general, not sure) there are some rules around that; you're meant to have the item at the pre-sale price for a certain length of time, i.e. no doubling the price and then announcing 50% off etc...

Some good sites for getting drm free ebooks

[slyrat]

So since I have had one of the early ebook devices (Sony prs) I have always had to look for ebook stores outside of the big 3 that are linked to the devices. Here are some of the ones where I shop:
no starch press
fictionwise
wowio - graphic novel ebooks
oreilly technical books
smashwords
Baen web scription
the ENTIRE Vorkosigan Saga

Re:Not sure DRM is the biggest issue at the moment

[shentino]

Capitalism is also about reducing the gap between cost and price by having that gap smell juicy enough to attract a little thing called competition.