Why i think the Illiad will fail (or has already).

[narve]

Originally Posted by Moonraker

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I totally agree with rlauzon on this. There does seem to be an unwritten code of conduct used by the book pirates to leave stuff alone that they consider to be fairly offered to consumers.

Pirates will deliberately target stuff that they consider to be "locked up".

You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

I would be nice if you are correct in this, and I really hope you are. However, I can not verify this observation myself. I don't know where to buy, e.g, popular videos without DRM. I can't legally download the music that I am interested in, DRM or non-DRM. In fact, eMule seems the only way to get it

Furthermore, remember that there are different kinds of pirates. Some are "hobby-pirates", they just like to share and to download. Some are professional and actually make money off pirating. I am not sure they will consider profitable-but-non-drm'ed content fair and therefore avoid pirating it.

Perhaps I should do some research into what different content providers (books, music, movies) provide of non-DRM'ed content and see what I can download on P2P or similar services. Has there been any scientific research into this that someone can link to?

[markiehill]

If its mainstream it will be posted DRM or not, and if its not posted on newsgroups it will be shared P2P anyway.

Mark

[Moonraker]

To be honest i cannot see how it is possible to attract new authors to a model which does not protect their work. Having it freely available and relying on peoples honesty is a huge risk and i believe that it will not provide enough security for a lot of authors to take the risk in investing a year of their life to write a book.

"Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors than piracy. –
For all of these creative artists, most laboring in obscurity, being well-enough known to be pirated would be a crowning achievement. Piracy is a kind of progressive taxation, which may shave a few percentage points off the sales of well-known artists (and I say “may” because even that point is not proven), in exchange for massive benefits to the far greater number for whom exposure may lead to increased revenues."
Technical Publisher Tim Reilly

Regarding well-known authors:

"Case in point: the Harry Potter books. When pressed as to whether Harry Potter e-books would be made available, the publisher elected not to do so, “citing security concerns.” They were afraid that an e-book version could be cracked and illicitly downloaded. “Oh, that’s too bad,” said the legions of e-book-wanting Harry Potter fans—and then they went home to their computers and downloaded the illicit version, which had been completely scanned within eleven hours of the printed book’s release. And it’s not even the first time this had happened to a Harry Potter book, either. Thus, the publisher has foregone in the name of “security” a revenue stream that, while nowhere near as large as the print version’s, would still be additional income requiring almost no additional expenditure—while still publishing its work in a version that is far, far easier to copy than a properly DRM-protected e-book could ever be."
E-books: The peer-to-peer Dichotomy by Chris Meadows.
See the full version here:
http://www.teleread.org/blog/?p=5348

[nekokami]

Unfortunately, it doesn't matter at this point what any of us thinks about DRM. I tried to propose non-DRM PDF as a distribution method to my publisher (for a non-fiction book on language learning games -- formatting matters, so PDF is appropriate for this book). They declined. As things stand, there will be only a printed version of the book, which schools will probably only buy one of and then photocopy, or, worse (from my point of view), keep in some central area so teachers won't be able to access it easily. But the publisher has the marketing engine and presence, and I don't. I'm not in a good position to do without a publisher, if I want this book to be distributed widely enough to do any good.

The mainstream publishers are the ones who need convincing, both to publish eBooks at all and to forego DRM. The question is, what's the best way to do that? iLiad users represent a very small market at this point, so saying none of us are going to buy DRM isn't likely to impress anyone-- certainly not enough to decide to unlock titles that are already available, but DRM'd. Those who think DRM is a fine idea can continue to work to try to get DRM support on their device of choice, and get more ebooks published, albeit in DRM format. For those of us who think DRM is bad for both readers and authors, what's the best approach? We might find that we have common cause with the DRM folks, in the short term-- or we might not. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to discuss strategies for getting from here to a DRM-free, ebook-rich world. Arguing amongst ourselves here isn't likely to change anything. I don't, personally, think a boycott of DRM books is going to change anything, either-- if it is noticed at all, it may just make the market for ebooks look smaller. What are our other options?

[b_k]

what do you think about mailing a formerly DRMed document back to the publisher, in un-"secured" form.

Maybe someone gets it.

[Moonraker]

If publishers would only realise the goldmine they are sitting on.

Walt Disney, at one stage, were struggling financially – the only outlet they had for their movies were the cinemas and the numbers of cinema ticket sales were falling. They had always refused to put their back calalogue onto DVD or VHS because they were afraid of piracy. However, after some new-thinking they decided to release one or two titles on media available for consumers' home viewing. They were astounded by the excellent response. Well, after this they never looked backed and their fortunes turned around completely. I understand that these days most of their back catalogue has been released.

What I am saying is, why don't book publishers do the same?

Barnes & Noble estimates there are more than 1 million copyrighted titles out of print, with 90,000 titles disappearing each year.

There would be no need to hear the words "out of print" ever again if only they would convert their back catalogue titles to ebooks. A fair and low price for these would bring in more than having them sitting in the archives earning nothing. And what would it cost? Zero paper costs, zero printing costs and zero transport costs etc.

I wish some bright new business entrepreneur would realise the golden opportunity awaiting to be grasped and buy up loads of these out of print copyright works.

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by Moonraker

I wish some bright new business entrepreneur would realise the golden opportunity awaiting to be grasped and buy up loads of these out of print copyright works.

I suspect the publishers holding the works wouldn't sell. They don't know what to do with their backlist, but that doesn't mean they want anyone else doing anything with it.

You mean "wouldn't sell at the same level as the ones they are currently pushing", don't you? But I do agree that they seem to have a "It's ours and you can't have any" attitude they've inherited from the 1600's.

If I could change only one part of the copyright law, it would be that copyright would fall into public domain automatically IF the originator no longer was in a position to benefit from said works AND the works in question where unavailable at a considerate price from the current holder for more than a year.

Cripes, that little change right there would guarantee digital support since you know they would neither print enough copies of older or more esoteric volumes to satisfy the restriction nor would they want to give up their claim to it.

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by stxopher

You mean "wouldn't sell at the same level as the ones they are currently pushing", don't you?

I meant the publishers would probably not sell the rights to their backlists. I agree that shortening the copyright expiration process would be a big help. Maybe we should get together a political lobby in each of our respective countries.

[NatCh]

Now that's a petition I'd sign!

A year, is perhaps too short to get through, but maybe 5 years or something?

That'd probably lead to small print runs every few years or some such foolishness, but even that would be an improvement over the current situation.

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by Moonraker

What I am saying is, why don't book publishers do the same?

Barnes & Noble estimates there are more than 1 million copyrighted titles out of print, with 90,000 titles disappearing each year.

You answered your own question. If the out of print (but still in copyright) books were made available as eBooks, too many people would be asking embarassing questions like:

Why is this 80 year old book still under copyright?
Why is this book, where the author has been dead for 50 years, still under copyright?

They don't want to answer those questions because the only answer is:
Because copyright is way too long.

Which will make the millions of constituents yell to get copyright reduced to something reasonable - something the Content Cartel wants to avoid at all costs.

Originally Posted by Moonraker

There would be no need to hear the words "out of print" ever again if only they would convert their back catalogue titles to ebooks. A fair and low price for these would bring in more than having them sitting in the archives earning nothing. And what would it cost? Zero paper costs, zero printing costs and zero transport costs etc.

But, as I pointed out today about eReader.com, an eReader eBook with DRM costs MORE than the hardcover pBook from Amazon.com.

Publishers want to change the same price for an eBook as they get for a hardcover pBook - and consumers don't want that.

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

... there were 3 alternatives (that I could see):
1. Stay with the current capitalistic market - but trust your customers, dump DRM, and use Copyright law to protect the content.
2. Stay with the current capitalistic market - but treat your customers as criminals, use DRM and lose alot to piracy.
3. Move to a communistic market type (like my idea).

I think there are more options. We're discussing some of them here . For example, downloads could be tracked if the right kind of protocol were developed, and fees could be paid to creators by a copyright collective (a.k.a. collection agency or collection socieity), which could be funded by a fee per download using a new protocol designed to support legal file sharing, or an internet tax, etc.

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by nekokami

I think there are more options. We're discussing some of them here . For example, downloads could be tracked if the right kind of protocol were developed, and fees could be paid to creators by a copyright collective (a.k.a. collection agency or collection socieity), which could be funded by a fee per download using a new protocol designed to support legal file sharing, or an internet tax, etc.

That's effectively the Communist Market solution - just funded in a different way.

The problem with statutory fees is that they treat all content as equal. A popular song, for example, would be priced the same as a bad one. That goes counter to a capitalistic system.

It worked well for music on the radio, because it simplified the fee structure and the music companies made their money elsewhere in the market.

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

The problem with statutory fees is that they treat all content as equal. A popular song, for example, would be priced the same as a bad one. That goes counter to a capitalistic system.

I disagree. A popular song may be priced the same as a bad one, but we have the same situation in retail. The difference is that a popular song (or printed book) sells more copies and generates more revenue.

[Snappy!]

Just a thought ... this thread is like quite off-topic by now. Maybe we should come back to why, or why else you think iLiad will fail. We all know DRM is a *potential* show-stopper, so what else?

On DRM & piracy, think of piracy as marketing fund. Today's businesses spend a good chunk of their money on marketing. Without marketing, the product will function just fine, except that the mass market may not get to know this product and hence not get a chance to be enticed into buying it.

Piracy does that in a sense. Shareware does that too. So does the radio and TV. They all allow you to get a trial of the product, be it music, video or apps in some cases, and if you are happy with the product, you can choose to buy it. I know that many people just use winzip in trial mode and don't bother paying for it. They are still in business. The potential profit loss due to perpetual shareware users is offset by the wide-spread usage and familiarity of it, which in turn leads to corporations and some users purchasing the product.

It's a fine line between "piracy as marketing" vs "content should be free". The former acknowledges that content should be paid for, but one chooses to try it out, and potentially purchase the goods if it is worth the money. The latter assumes that one should not need to pay for it.