Slashdot Mirror
DRM: How Book Publishers Failed To Learn From the Music Industry
Presto Vivace writes "In a blog post, danps explains how the music industry initially thought that the Internet meant that people wanted their music for free. In 2003 Apple persuaded the industry to use an online music store with DRM. But DRM just does not work for consumers, so by 2011 online music stores were DRM-free. Sadly, the book industry has not learned these lessons. And there are larger lessons for the gadget industry: 'The tech industry right now is churning out lots of different devices, operating systems and form factors in an attempt to get the One True Gadget — the thing you'll take with you everywhere and use for everything. That's a lovely aspiration, but I don't see it happening. What I see instead is people wanting to only carry around one thing at a time, and rotating through several: Smart phone for everyday use, tablet for the beach, laptop for the road, etc. If you can't get the book you paid for on each of those devices, it's a pain. As a reader I want to be able to put a book on everything as soon as I buy it so I always have a local (non-Internet dependent) copy — no matter which thing I run out of the house with.'"
One of my biggest gripes about a certain hobby publisher is that they seem to have exclusive deals with three different companies. Their hobby books are only available on Nook and Win8. Their magazines are available via Kindle and a third party company, however, only magazines bought via the third party seem to be available across all devices. The Kindle-bought magazines are only readable in the Kindle and not in the Kindle app for the PC or the one for my cell phone.
It's like the browser wars all over again: "Sorry, this document is only viewable in a Lynx browser. Download one now!" ;o)
What an awful format for ebooks.
Sorry, you must not go to the beach much. E-ink owns. I like everything on one device too, but for lounging around in the sun all day, I love my kindle and will leave my ipad at home or in the safe, depending on which beach I'm at.
And what does this have to do with dRM anyway? The multiple device situation is exactly what DRM was set up for, just not multiple individuals.
The textbook market is just as bad small updates all the time to kill resale, paying teacher X per book (some even rip pages out and try use a used book you fail)
I don't like DRM, and as a result I don't own a Kindle, but at least with Amazon, you still have Kindle apps on IOS, Android and for Desktops which allow you to read your Amazon ebook purchases on other devices. While the average Slashdot user, like me, would prefer DRM free ebooks so they could use any app on any device to read their books, the average Joe is going to be quite content with buying via Amazon and using the Kindle apps across devices. Using the same app across multiple devices to read your ebooks is a lot easier than juggling DRM free ebook files between different devices and apps (for the average Joe)
If you can read it, you can transcribe it as fast as you can read it (less than a day?)
With good OCR, books can be transcribed even faster.
Some people will read your book without buying it. You can't stop that. A lot of people are going to check your book out from the library and read it free too.
So DRM especially just prevents your legal readers from reading your book.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
The general success of iTunes shows that consumers don't really mind DRM as long as it's not intrusive. Going DRM free was great, and DRM still exists for movies/TV shows on iTunes...and for most downloadable movies, etc. Audible still uses DRM as well, and they're not slowing down any.
At some point Apple's going to have to increase the device count on what's left of the Fairplay infrastructure...but until then, whatever's left of Fairplay really is fine.
As a note, what the OP wants already exists: it's called Kindle for XXX, and it's not a pain at all, from what I've been told by kindle users.
I bought a couple of books on iBooks until I figured out that they were crippled by DRM. Naturally I couldn't view them on my Nexus 7, so I did two things:
1. I found torrents to decrypted copies of the books I purchased.
2. Never bought another book from iBooks.
I still buy DRM-laden books from Kobo, but I can still decrypt those with ePUBee. The minute I can't do that any more, I won't buy from them either.
As a bit of a kudo, any SF nuts out there, head over to Baen, who has a big chunk of their catalog available as non-DRM ePubs (along with other formats as well).
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Given the choice between copying a song for free and paying 89 cents for a song legitimately, many people will choose the purchase, if it's easy enough.
Now, take a college student who can copy a textbook or purchase an eBook for $350.
That's why publishers want DRM - so they don't have to face the real value of their products.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Certain publishers are DRM free to keep their pricing low. While not my cup of tea, I happen to know that Entangled Publishing http://www.entangledpublishing.com/ is DRM free (fiance is interning there). I'm sure there are other smaller publishing houses that do the same... as with most things it's the big companies that have forgotten their customers.
Precisely. I only buy DRM free eBooks. If I want a book that is not available in a DRM free version, I either pass entirely or buy a dead tree version. For the record, I have spent some 300 Euro on eBooks in the last year, and maybe half that on dead tree versions. It really irks me that many vendors do not display clearly if their books are DRM encumbered or not. Kobo is one of the few where it is easy to see in the results list. Are there others?
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head
Taking a book to the beach means I'm doing it wrong too I take it?
If you buy only DRM free ebooks (let your wallet speak) you can convert those ebooks, manage, and use them on just about any ebook reader made to date. You can also convert other document formats (text, html,pdf, etc) to be compatible with your ebook reader of choice. Its free, open source, and fairly portable. http://calibre-ebook.com/
Look people, corporations are greedy bitches that only care about making a profit. Because they are greedy, they think everyone else is out to rip them off. Why? Because they rip us off every chance they get. They except people to pay full physical book prices for ebooks, when it cost way less to make a copy of an ebook then it does to make a physical book. They know they are ripping us off, thus they want DRM so they can gouge the stupid people that actually pay them for the ebooks.
Me? I've been downloading ebooks since the 90's. Way before the publishers got on the bandwagon. Sure, I might get some spelling (OCR errors), but I don't care. It's free. So why should I go from paying nothing, to paying over $10 for an ebook? Seriously, explain that one to me. The corporations do NOT care about me, they only care about is how much profit they can make off of me. Well, fuck them.
Bring old ebooks to the $2-3 price, and I'd consider buying them. New ebooks $5, max. I'd never pay more then $5 for an ebook, ever. Why? Because I can't sell it used. A physical book, I can take to a use book store and sell for some dollars, or trade for credit. That is value. Ebooks? Don't have a value and I sure as fuck ain't paying the corporations to fuck me over.
Be seeing you...
Why are people sharing blog posts like it's news. I read that whole thing and it sounded like one long whine. How about some real news /.
Whenever a player quits EVE to go play WoW, the Average IQ of both games increase.
In the other hand, taking your ebook reader is a bit more comfortable that carrying a heavy book (or several), no need connection, and could pass a month between charges.
Precisely. I only buy DRM free eBooks.
Hypothetically speaking of course - Every ebook I ever pirated had DRM. Emphasis on "had". Lot of good it did!
The general success of iTunes shows that
...is bloated unpleasant licence abusing (they made a south park episode http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HumancentiPad) itunes still relevant with the death of the iPod...and the decline of the iPhone, ironically it has several DRM free competitors that work through...a web page.
What is quite hilarious though is that DRM something Apple support as they currently benefit from it...will start to hurt them as customers are restricted migration to their platform.
Please stop spreading this myth about Amazon. Publishers are perfectly free to list their books without DRM - you can tell because the last sentence of a book's description will say "At the publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied." You can also load DRM free books from other sources into the Kindle app. Of the 102 books on my Kindle, 49 are DRM free or in the public domain.
DRM is chosen by the PUBLISHERS, not Amazon. Amazon is perfectly happy to sell DRM-free kindle/mobi content.
I have a number of books via AMZN I didn't have to jailbreak so I could convert them to ePub and move them to my phone.
Smart phone for everyday use, tablet for the beach, laptop for the road, and AN E-INK READER FOR READING. I've been reading ebooks regularly on a handheld computer since the Apple Newton. e-ink was a huge game changer. My kindle keyboard gives me so much less eye strain compared to laptops, tablets, iphones etc. Use the right tool for the job. As much as I hate the idea of DRM, having one device specifically for reading means it rarely gets in the way.
If your doctor told you that you have a disease that make you cough incessantly and will kill you in 3 months, and he gave you a medicine that would stop the cough but not the kill, when there are medicines out there that cost less and do both, would you be happy you got the cough-only medicine?
Calibre is the Robitussin, sure--it makes you feel good, and at least lets you talk without sounding like some sci-fi monster, so it can be used if the other medicines are out of stock--but not adding the bloody DRM is the cure.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Most eBooks I pirated are scans from dead tree versions. Although the newer ones, that are also distributed digital, are often versions with DRM removed.
The music industry situation was different. At the time the market went to drm-free by a landside, music playback devices by and large had no wireless or cellular radios. They were fixed-function devices that could only consume non-executable content (mostly). In that ecosystem, supporting multiple platforms was difficult to the point of being unfeasible. For the no-name cheap devices, DRM was completely out of reach. Customers more keenly felt the pitfalls of DRM given the state of the ecosystem. Even if each publisher *could* put their content into walled garden apps, the nature of how music is consumed suggests back to back playback of arbitrary selections from a customers library over the course of minutes. Also, ripping CDs was trivial for even casual users.
The state of devices used for reading and movie playback are generally internet connected and companies can deploy their own content management application. Having to navigate and switch between the applications is less disruptive relative to how much time the consumer is going to spend in one specific work. Scanning books in is in no way feasible as a casual endeavor comparing with CD ripping. All the 'no name' devices that are available are android devices meaning DRM is feasible.
I'd like to think that the music industry went mostly DRM-free because they saw it as the non-evil way to go, but it was more about feasibility and the CD market pretty much leaving the barn door open, rendering it a silly exercise to DRM protect content that is trivial to rip in other ways.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Actually I'd say it really doesn't matter as it'll take another 20 years to convert the majority at least. I live just a block from the local library that is on the edge of a lovely park so i spend a LOT of time there talking to folks and most of the book lovers? Really don't want electronic books at all. they like the feel, smell, texture of books, they like how they can just throw a paperback in their bag or backseat of the car and not have to worry about sunlight killing it, while a few of them use Kindles for the short stories that are now more often than not no longer getting paperback editions honestly if given a choice? they'd rather have the book.
Ironically its the college kids that seem to have this attitude the most, probably because so much of their lives involve screens that its nice to get away from the tech. Can't say as i blame 'em as I have yet to see an electronic book be as handy and as easy to deal with as a good old paperback.
As for TFA? Whatever Amazon goes with is gonna win, that's it. the Kindle outsells everybody else and with the new Fires you have an all in one media player/tablet/eReader that is affordable and I've heard nothing but good things about the entire kindle line from customers who've picked one up. No matter what you think of the company you have to give Amazon credit as so far they have been damned smart when it comes to how they design and market the Kindle and I haven't seen anybody come up with anything that will give the Kindle a run for its money.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
When I buy books, I am able to do that. I can put it on my computer, tv, xbox. I can also put it on my bed side table, on my desk, in my car on the dashboard, in my rucksack to read it on the train.
I can sell it and buy it new or second hand. The variety is immense,
But perhaps they are not talking so much about books as they are talking about text files.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Google "epub download" and add some authors name and book title and you'll see why DRM doesn't work.
DRM doesn't change the availability of non-licensed download options.
There is really just one group of people that has to deal with DRM -- the people who actually are willing to buy your stuff. Anybody who doesn't want to pay will find the content DRM-free somewhere.
That's the lesson that the music industry learnt the hard way -- the people that aren't willing to pay are a lost cause either way, but DRM may alienate the paying customers. DRM hurts the honest customer. You know, the guy that you want to come back and buy more from you.
So not using DRM anymore didn't make the non-licensed downloads go away. But it increased the number of payed, licensed downloads.
So it's good for the bottom line.
Your analogy is bad and you should feel bad.
When I strip the DRM from my purchased ePub documents, it's gone. There is no lingering death. There's nothing else to "cure". It's gone. I can access the contents of those files on any platform that can read ePub and I can convert the content to any other relevant format if I've got some weird device that can't read ePub.
My 60+ year old mother had that same attitude until she got a Playbook then a Nook. Now it's a mix - book when she can, electronic for travel/convenience. Fiance has a massive collection of paper books but does almost all of her reading on electronic devices.
Personally I don't care either way - I tend not to read books (I read articles + studies instead).
It's only been an issue for me when I purchased something and wanted to use it. It's pretty much like the onion wrote an article on DRM and they ran with it.
Not sure what illusion the author is under - many mp3 files from Amazon are DRM'd with a personal identifier. This creates a legal trail that puts you on the hook for who uses your file, with or without your permission. And their cloud storage solution will add personal identifiers to the personal music files you store there. Music took a big step forward, and now in stealth mode, they are moving right back to DRM and streaming models. Not to mention their controls on the number of devices you use, and their tracking of your devices. If music is the role model, then ebooks are not on a good course. Or course, the Amazon personal identifier is a little bit more friendly than storing my un-encrypted credit card number in the ebook files on my Barnes and Noble Nook. The ebooks folks may eventually look to Netflicks as a winning model - which is completely DRM based and you consume it all but do not own any of it.
I love paper-books and wouldn't buy any DRM encumbered e-book because some 30+ year old books I'm reading once a while and I don't trust any DRM-server to last that long.
But if a paper-book would get me a download of the same as an e-book I'm willing to spend a little bit more to have a significant chunk of my 4 digit number of books during travel.
I'm considering to build a scanner linear-book-scanner to make my portable library but question my ability to build it ;-). This scanner seems to be able to scan a book without any human help. Start one book before going to work, one coming home and one before going to sleep gives more than 1000 books a year. A few years of minimal efford and all is done. If one could buy such a scanner for 1000-2000 eur I would start building my e-books tomorrow.
Hmm. That's right....I own some O'Reilly eBooks...keep forgetting about them...almost as bad as Steam sales sometimes. "Lightknight, how would you like that $40 book for $20, in eBook format..." -> fine, fine, put it with the others, I'll eventually get around to reading it (when I recover from this backlog in the real world).
I am John Hurt.
"But DRM just does not work for consumers"? I don't buy that. The scores of DVD and Bluray players and discs that have been sold suggests otherwise, as does the number of Netflix subscribers and the number of Kindles sold.
DRM did not work for music for two reasons. First, network access was not as ubiquitous in the Napster days as it is now. Back then, if you wanted to listen to your music on the go, you needed a local copy. Now you can get one over a cellular network. Second, there were no business models around digital music back then. Now there are. Apple of course did big business in DRMed music tracks before finally removing the DRM.
Further, if you want to put your Kindle book on everything, you can. You can read it on a PC, iPhone, Android, or Kindle.
Penny - plain text accounting
Bullshit. Amazon does not require DRM. It is an option that the publisher chooses. I chose no DRM for my book, because I think DRM is stupid. (link) Once upon a time, long ago, Amazon may have put on DRM by default, but they've given publishers (big and small) the option to have it or not for a long time. Bitch at the publishers about DRM, and unnecessarily high prices for ebooks. They need to learn that both of these are turning off customers and depressing sales.
1.Netcraft confirms:In Soviet Russia all your base welcomes a beowolf cluster of CowboyNeal overlords. 2.? 3.Profit!!1!
The music industry has yet to learn its lesson(s)
I carry my entire library on a form smaller than a postage stamp. There's just no replacement for that convenience.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
So, because the thing is available for free at a google search, book authors must punch their customers in the face every time they sell a book. That'll make people flock to the paid - punch enabled - version.
Rethinking email
Actually I'd say it really doesn't matter as it'll take another 20 years to convert the majority at least. I live just a block from the local library that is on the edge of a lovely park so i spend a LOT of time there talking to folks and most of the book lovers? Really don't want electronic books at all.
All fine and well, but just where the hell do you put the batteries in a paper book?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
That's the lesson that the music industry learnt the hard way -- the people that aren't willing to pay are a lost cause either way, but DRM may alienate the paying customers.
that's ridiculous. you are essentially saying there there are two groups of people: ones that will pay for your music, and ones that won't. are you really denying the existence of people that would pay for your music if they couldn't download it?
when i was a kid, i spent untold $ on $15.99 CDs. there's no way i would have spent my very limited $ paying for music if i could have it almost instantly for free. i really doubt i'm usual here. if you have any doubts, i challenge you to ask any 16 year old what they'd do.
That was not always the case; that was what kept Baen from Amazon for so long.
Benford's Corollary to Clarke's Law: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
I read an insane number of ebooks each year, just not with my eyes, because my central vision is shot. Instead I pay Bookshare.org $50/year, and read as many ebooks as I like. The funny thing is when I could see properly, I never spent that much money on books. Now that I have to listen to wav files I create using the Mary TTS text to speech system, I listen to books all the time! It's awesome.
So, DRM-ed ebooks are especially evil for people like me. I'll often read the first two books in a trilogy on Bookshare, and the third will only be available on Amazon. Fortunately, you can crack Amazon DRM in Windows, which means I wind up paying them over $50/year for that last freaking volume. It's a huge PITA. not because I have to pay, but it's actually very time consuming to convert DRMed books to plain text for my text-to-speech engine. I'd much prefer to buy from any company other than Amazon, but because they're the biggest, they have the most cracked software. There's actually a law that makes it legal for me to crack it, because I can't read the God Damed Fucking DRM-ed Amazon Kindles!
Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
Unfortunately, by buying the books anyway, you support the continued existence of the cancer that is DRM.
I will blame the book industry because I was in the book industry in the 80s and 90s. All of the book publishers saw that ebooks were the future, but instead of getting together and agreeing on a standard, they each developed their own ebook device and format. They then tried to sell it to everybody else. If the publishers had been willing to give up on the idea that they would be the one that all the other publishers would have to pay to publish in the ebook form that everyone would use they could have introduced ereaders to the population much sooner.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Actually I'd say it really doesn't matter as it'll take another 20 years to convert the majority at least. I live just a block from the local library that is on the edge of a lovely park so i spend a LOT of time there talking to folks and most of the book lovers? Really don't want electronic books at all.
All fine and well, but just where the hell do you put the batteries in a paper book?
Anywhere you want, hell I got a droid 3 and if I put that battery in my copy of a 1001 nights Volume 1 you couldn't even see the bulge. Really glad I got a post millenium leatherbound as I'm not quite sure my Dad's The Hobbit is Lithium Ion compatiable.
I thought I preferred the real thing. Until a trip to Cambodia resulted in me reading 6 of the eight books I had on the flight over (I just couldn't sleep), leaving me trying to stretch two books over the remaining 14 days plus the flight home. That was an extreme example but any lengthy trip can result in not having sufficient reading material for the duration if you are a fast reader. At least with most trips I find myself in places where I can replenish, but Cambodia was an exception.
With my nook I never have less than a hundred unread books ready and waiting to be read, it lasts weeks without a charge and can charge anywhere I can find a USB socket and my laptop battery can charge it a couple times if I don't use it for anything else. I like owning books, but haven't cracked a physical book in months.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
I bought a few new, but then discovered the local used places :)
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Check your local library - mine has an "e-branch" which includes unlimited access to a Safari subscription, just gotta plug my card number in for access...
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
they like the feel, smell, texture of books
Ok I'm curious... I've heard this type of comment before, and I don't get it.
I read a lot before e-readers. I almost never smelt books, nor do I have some romantic idea about such things...
BUT If I wanted my ebook to smell and feel like paper I'd tape some newsprint to the back.
Hmm, the humour and sarcasm seem to have been be lost on you.
I bought a kindle a few years ago now and if it ever dies I'll likely buy another, and even if I don't there are many ways for me to get at my books.
Not only does the Kindle DRM not bother me, the books are available, readable and automatically sync up over most portable, **non Amazon** devices with no real effort on my part. The lack of portability between non Apple mobile devices was probably they only thing that really fuelled the fire for Apple to drop DRM.
There are of course the 'lesser' DRM schemes that were never going to work out for technical or commercial reasons (Micro$oft DRM anyone?) however the truth is you need to back a long term commercial winner in technology in general [see Laserdisk, Betamax, MiniDisk, HD-DVD etc for examples of how not to back a winner].
Also there is a difference between music and books since while you tend to listen to music repeatedly, most people only ever read a (fiction) book once then move onto the next one so long term access is less of a concern. (before buying my kindile I used to frequently buy books, read them through once (or possibly not if I didn't like it) and most then ended up going to a charity shop to make room for more... Of maybe 50 or so books I bought in a typical year I probably retained 5 or so 'really, really good' ones.
[The Universe] has gone offline.
But if a paper-book would get me a download of the same as an e-book I'm willing to spend a little bit more to have a significant chunk of my 4 digit number of books during travel.
O'Reilley publishing offers $4.95 "ebook upgrade" for any of their physical books you have. And those ebooks are offered in a variety of non-DRM formats.
They probably don't have a lot of the books you read, but it's good to see at least one publisher with a reasonable model.
Tor and Forge are DRM free as a matter of policy.
Yeah, I had a sig once; I got bored of it.
If you can read it, you can transcribe it as fast as you can read it (less than a day?)
If you can read it, then you have physical access to the encryption keys/algorithms used to protect it, so it is nigh-on impossible to stop someone, somewhere cracking the encryption.
Some people will read your book without buying it.
...and if they like it, many of those people will go on to buy your next book.
Seriously - look at your bookshelf, look at your CD collection. How many of those purchases happened because somebody previously lent you a book by that author, or gave you a MP3 or C90* of an album by that artist? DRM throws a spanner in that, while doing nothing to prevent large-scale organised 'piracy'.
Of course, although word-of-mouth is good news for artists, I'm sure that publishers/record companies would rather we made our decisions based on their expensive publicity and fake-viral advertising - since that's the only real service they can offer in an age when anybody can cheaply publish anything on the internet. Maybe that's closer to the real motivation for DRM.
(*Kids - a C90 is how we used to copy CDs before MP3 came along. Now get off my lawn).
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Certain publishers are DRM free to keep their pricing low. While not my cup of tea, I happen to know that Entangled Publishing http://www.entangledpublishing.com/ is DRM free (fiance is interning there). I'm sure there are other smaller publishing houses that do the same... as with most things it's the big companies that have forgotten their customers.
I'm not sure that the cost of DRM to the publisher is all that high. When I buy a Nook book, the actual DRM is applied by the B&N server as part of the download process, since it's specific to my user credentials.
Baen, Tor, and O'Reilly may not be the biggest publishers in the world, but they're hardly "smaller", and Baen and O'Reilly were philosophically against DRM from the beginning. Tor had some entanglements to resolve, but have since jumped on the bandwagon.
I carry my entire library on a form smaller than a postage stamp. There's just no replacement for that convenience.
Just make sure that there's also just no replacement for the library. DRM-free ebooks can be backed up to alternative locations in case the original memory chip goes bad and the publisher's servers have gone offline.
I received a kindle as a gift this Christmas. I am not a big reader. I like old fashioned books more. The DRM doesn't bother me. And I think mainstream publishers aren't shooting themselves in the foot with a bit of DRM.
I am just a bloody hard sell for any kind of book. I mostly read fiction. And in my youth I read a lot more then I do now. Though I think National Geographic would be interesting in e-reader format. Considering the nice color displays some have now.
One reason I never subscribed to National Geographic was that I could never bear to throw out back-issues and you can end up buried alive in them. So being able to pack them all into a virtually open-ended reader is a major plus.
The one downside to NG's archives are that they were actually shipping JPEG images of the pages, which can limit the quality of the text.
For the costs of everything mentioned, it wouldn't be that much more per year to join Audible. The selection is excellent and even the worst readers are better than text to speech readers. I just spent around 100.00 for the best text to speech reader I could find, and it still hard to listen to for any extended amount of time. Out of well over 100 books in the last two years, I've only gotten a handful of crappy readers from Audible books.
Also, Audible is a piece of cake to break the DRM. You just convert to audio CDs and then to MP3 or Ogg.
Somewhat fair prices, great selection, easily breakable DRM, and 100% legal. That's not a bad deal.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
"Really don't want electronic books at all. they like the feel, smell, texture of books, they like how they can just throw a paperback in their bag or backseat of the car and not have to worry about sunlight killing it, ..."
I have my kindle in always my pocket, with a couple of hundred books on it, I would never leave it in the car, because, then I can't read it when I want.
Unlike the paper you prefer, it has a built-in encyclopedia, that explains every unknown (and known) word just when I put my finger on it. (in every language you read)
If I forgot my glasses, I can scale the text until I'm able to read it anyway.
I can read it in the sun and in the complete dark, because I can increase the built-in lighting until I can comfortably read, without disturbing the person sleeping besides me.
And if I hear/read about a new or old book I can instantly download it in 100umteen countries of the world (I travel a lot) and begin reading it in under a minute.
Paper books are as dead as newspapers. I gained a full room when I donated my +-5000 paper books to a local library.
My tablet doesn't have a cellular connection. And if your beach has wifi, then I think you're doing it wrong.
My beach is part of the metro area. So yes, WiFi is an option. But since I only need the WiFi to buy the books, not to read them, more secluded beaches are not a problem either.
After all, if your beach is that close to a bookstore, you're also doing it wrong. And, come to think of it, a lot of bookstores have WiFi.
Google "epub download"...
tl;dr, executive summary: Locks are for honest people.
First, I have to agree that DRM really gets in the way. It is unreasonable to make it nearly impossible to share books that I have finished reading--even with my wife. The books/readers also leave a lot to be desired. No index, no reasonable cross-references, and no easy way to communicate locations with readers of physical books--as one does in a book club, for example.
I don't find myself changing font, or point-size, or orientation (intentionally) so often that I appreciate the on-the-fly recomposition of the book. The trade-off ain't there.
Lastly, there are many books that I would like to add to my library (the room) but also have availble to read anywhere, anytime. I should think that publishers could take a cue from the film industry and offer a print edition along with a digital edition for a few dollars more.
Providing things like indexes and cross-references is the author's job, if the book warrants it, and I've been electronically producing documents with indexes and cross-references since long before e-readers came on the market. One thing an e-reader can do that you cannot do with a physical book is scan the entire document for an arbitrary word or phrase. However, an index (done right) has the advantage of being more intelligently arranged, which is why the mere ability to scan is no excuse for omitting an index, especially with the power of a modern word processor to build indexes as the book is being written.
"Read anywhere" can be done with either an e-reader or physical books. For all the yammering about batteries, an e-ink reader can go for days at a time without an electric fix, and most of us can find time and a place to top them off. They're not like cellphones and laptops that inconveniently go dry if not fed every few hours.
That the only DRM free publisher is also named Tor.
You find it amusing incorrectly. Tor was a relative latecomer to the ranks of DRM-free. But I forgive them.
You probably don't have to build that book scanner. There's a company called BitLit (http://www.bitlit.ca) that's working on a system that would let you get the digital edition of a book you own in print for free or minimal cost (think $0.99-$2.99). Full disclosure: I'm the founder of BitLit... I'm at Book Expo America this week and I'm getting a hugely positive response from publishers. Most publishers understand that today's consumer feels that he/she buys content not an embodiment (cloth, paper, or bits)... Yes, some do want DRM on their ebooks, but many, including independents and "the big six" understand that DRM is as useful as a paper mÃché crash helmet. There is also growing understanding that ebook DRM allows device makers to wall in readers. And once the garden is walled, those ebook vendors can start to set unfavorable terms on publishers. Amazon and Apple's dominance in the device world is likely to doom ebook DRM in the long run.
When you sell for $0.99 to $2.99 every penny matters.
I got into using ePubs only a couple of years ago, since I had some reservations about them at first, but now find I usually prefer them. I have replaced a proportion of my existing dead-tree books with ebooks, which, given that I recently moved home is a big plus, since I don't have to worry so much about having to reinforce my floors.
I'll be keeping the nicer of my paper books (which still leaves me with several thousand volumes), but the electronic format just means I get to be more selective about what takes up physical shelf space.
But in neither case would a DRM'd ebook be considered an ebook.
From time to time, if you are into using ebooks, you will find that there are titles you want that are not available in non-DRM versions.
My own take on it (which is based more on common sense than appreciation for the law as it stands) is simply that I should be able to use an ebook in exactly the same way as I might a paper volume: read it, or lend it to friends or family. Sure, in the latter case, the publication may end up residing permanently on their hard drive or reader device, but it doesn't necessarily end up being read more than the same number of times.
That being the case, I have absolutely no compunction in stripping out the DRM in any book I buy.
Go to a library, the bigger and less "modernised" the better. And sniff. Now think of ANY location that smells like that. A Solicitor's office, maybe. MAYBE.
Nope. Those smell of rich men's farts.
For the costs of everything mentioned, it wouldn't be that much more per year to join Audible. The selection is excellent and even the worst readers are better than text to speech readers.
I downloaded "War and Peace" from Librivox. You are wrong. Some chapters were so bad, text to speech reader was definitely better. (Now a lot of Librivox books are excellent, some are of professional quality, some are even read by professionals, but sometimes you get one that is rubbish).
I think the worst difference between the music industry and the idiot editors is no one at all in the music industry was saying "People aren't listening to music anymore."
Seems to me everyone in the publishing business was saying "People aren't reading anymore" when what they meant to say was people aren't reading newspapers and magazines and books anymore. Instead, they were reading (and writing) those billions of web pages the clueless editors and publishers were whining about.
Another big difference is that the music industry doesn't act like it is more important than it warrants. They know they are selling top 40 trash.As an industry, we let yahoos from the New York Times make ridiculous claims about the importance of reading. Uhhhhhhh, the number one top selling mags/newspapers of all time have _always_ been rags like the National Enquirer and News of the World.
The publishing biz makes all of its money on Top 40 trash. If they talked about it realistically instead of talking academics using absurd assumptions, then perhaps their business wouldn't self-destruct. If you want to talk about business itself, start with the balance sheet and don't waste time lauding fancy literature that wasn't even popular in its own day (such as Moby Dick).
From time to time, if you are into using ebooks, you will find that there are titles you want that are not available in non-DRM versions.
It's a matter of principle for me. Buying any DRM-contaminated book is a sign to the publisher that this abomination is acceptable.
There are e-books with DRM from authors I have all published paper-books from. It sucks there are stories from my favorite authors I can't read but DRM is a red line I don't cross.
From time to time, if you are into using ebooks, you will find that there are titles you want that are not available in non-DRM versions.
It's a matter of principle for me. Buying any DRM-contaminated book is a sign to the publisher that this abomination is acceptable.
There are e-books with DRM from authors I have all published paper-books from. It sucks there are stories from my favorite authors I can't read but DRM is a red line I don't cross.
Exactly. I am upset that I won't be able to read the last books of my very favourite author (who is dying) for some years until they are eventually available DRM-free, but so be it. I don't buy physical books any more, I don't buy DRM-encumbered material, and I don't download pirated material.
Sell me content under a licence I feel acceptable and I am happy to buy it. If not, I will go without. Fortunately, there are many more DRM-free ebooks that I want to read than I have time to read them so I won't be going short of reading material.
You can strip the DRM from every common format today. If all you want is a DRM-free copy, buy all the digital books you like and go visit Apprentice Alf. (If you're making a political statement by refusing to buy DRM'ed books, obviously, this isn't a solution.)
Once you really make the switch, I don't think you ever go back. Wife and I are huge book readers - we probably have north of 1000 books in our house, and we've given away at least that many more - but I think we've bought maybe ten paper books in the past three years. It's all iPad and Kindle, now.
If the book I want doesn't have a print edition, I don't purchase it. On the road I like the tablet, but for normal reading I want a real book.
Audible is great for a lot of people, just not people like me. I agree the reading is generally high quality. On Android, the speed-up feature used to totally suck, but lately, they've copied my pitch-synchronous algorithms from libsonic, which I can tell from the new and improved sound quality. It's perfectly legal for them to do that: I give the software away as public domain software.
For around half of blind people, Audible is wonderful. For people like me, Audible is almost useless. First of all, their software only lets me go up to 3X speed up. I listen at about 550 words per minute when listening to fiction (3.5X), and 600 wpm (4X) on my computer. To learn to listen that fast, you have to train your ear to the voice. If the reader on Audible were the same for every book, that would be possible, but unfortunately, it's a different reader more often than not. With a text to speech engine, it's the same voice all the time, making it far easier to train for speed listening. The most popular voice with blind speed listeners is Eloquence on Windows, which is the same as Voxin on Linux. I prefer the Mary TTS artic "rms" voice because it's free software (no connection to RMS... probably). I also read far too many books to afford Audible, and Audible's selection is too weak for me.
However, Audible does rock... except that they are owned by evil Amazon! I've never seen the blind picket any company other than Amazon. It's pretty funny. They can't read the signs they carry! If you remember back when Amazon turned off their crappy built-in text-to-speech feature in Kindle for most e-books, you may recall Amazon claiming that the Author's Guild made them do it. That's total BS. No other e-reader company caved in this way, including Apple and Google. Amazon just used the Author's Guild as an excuse to stop their kindles from competing with their highly profitable audio book products at Audible. Amazon's company motto: Be Evil.
Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
Whoops! misplaced my ebook! Entire library lost!
Takes a house fire to do that to a traditional bookcase.
And yes, I know, you can have backups...
That's part of trips in interesting places: I you MUST have a book to read, you pick up whatever's available. Sure, it's not exactly what you'd pick , but think of it like food. You sometimes find nice things when you don't expect it.
Exactly. I am upset that I won't be able to read the last books of my very favourite author (who is dying) for some years until they are eventually available DRM-free
That wouldn't happen to be Iain Banks, would it? If so, I commend your patience, but can't follow your example.