NYT David Pogue: Should e-Books Be Copy Protected?

[kjk]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/te...gue-email.html

Maybe, then, the publishers should try an experiment like mine. Maybe they should release a couple of Kindle or Nook books without copy protection and track the results. Maybe that way, we could bring this discussion out of the hypothetical and into the real world.

[perversity]

I believe digital files like ebooks, aac's, mp4's... should be watermarked for ownership. When the file is opened with a front-end program like iTunes, Reader, Cailbre... there should be some kind tracking on these watermarks, and reporting for A)Users who had too many files from different owners to be considered legit, B) Ownership watermarks that show up in too many places. That being said...
I like the B&N's idea of tying each file to a credit card number. You can loan it out to whomever you want, but you could only GIVE it to people whom you would trust with your current credit card # which lessons the potential list exponentially.
Of course, I happen to be a musician that sells(aspires to sell) music so that does color my opinion on this subject

[HansTWN]

I fully agree. Watermarking might be a way out of this DRM nonsense. The user can get all the rights to the file he/she would have with a pbook but is responsible for what happens to the file and who it will be given to.

There really is no reasonable objection to watermarking I can think of, unless one plans to upload the file to a file server.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by perversity

I like the B&N's idea of tying each file to a credit card number. You can loan it out to whomever you want, but you could only GIVE it to people whom you would trust with your current credit card # which lessons the potential list exponentially.

Firstly, it's a one-way hash, you can't get the credit card number back out. Second, given the existance of such things as stolen, one-use and pre-loaded credit cards, it's pretty useless as a measure in any case even if you could.


HansTWM - Sure, except you have to restrict access to programs which won't strip the watermark, so either there has to be an open SDK for that (with the potential abuse, although you could try tying it to an auth server...) or lock down the format, hard. Otherwise, the moment someone wants smaller margins...

[Kali Yuga]

Can someone point out to Pogue that the music industry is, in fact, tanking? Piracy is almost certainly one cause, though it is unclear if DRM is having a positive or negative effect on the music industry as a whole. The trends do not seem to indicate that dropping DRM has actually had any effect on digital sales, for example.

I also don't think the music industry quite maps to books. Record companies released their music in an unprotected digital format for decades (CD's), so it's a snap to rip and share out the entire back catalog. Books don't have that problem, and while the fanatical Harry Potter fans may be willing to scan and exhaustively proofread and format their infringing copies, I'm not sure the same can be said for obscure book titles. I.e. you aren't going to have the same critical mass of available pirated copies as you did with music.

So it is at least possible that DRM will be a little more effective with books than with music, though it may be impossible to every truly determine such a complicated question.

Originally Posted by HansTWN

There really is no reasonable objection to watermarking I can think of, unless one plans to upload the file to a file server.

They'll likely use watermarking if they ditch the DRM, at least that's what Apple does (not sure about Amazon with MP3's). Of course, it'd be trivially easy to strip a watermark from an unprotected file, so I don't know how that would be much of a deterrent.

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Can someone point out to Pogue that the music industry is, in fact, tanking? Piracy is almost certainly one cause, though it is unclear if DRM is having a positive or negative effect on the music industry as a whole....

Hm, I hadn't noticed that the "music industry" is tanking. Record company profits may be down, but music is still around and good artists still make $$$$$. Business models simply have to change, as technology changes. Businesses that do not change, will tank, indeed, but music will still be created and consumed.

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

... The trends do not seem to indicate that dropping DRM has actually had any effect on digital sales, for example....

Even if one agrees with you, then DRM serves no useful purpose and it should be discarded, since it is a major inconvenience for consumers, and it is an added cost to production.

[rcuadro]

In all reality, what ever method of tracking will lead to someone removing said tracking method like it is done with the current DRM

[edembowski]

A few thought on this:

- Anyone determined will get the content without paying for it
It doesn't matter if it's drm'd, not drm'd, watermarked or whatever. There will always be people who will break the rules, whatever the rules are. Personally I think that watermarking is the best way to go, but it's by no means 100% effective. Nothing is.

- The recording industry is suffering and the publishing should learn from that
I think it's a bit far to say that they're dying, but it's interesting to note that some of their highest sales ever was in the Napster heyday. Regardless of what you think about current copyright laws, suing your customers into oblivion is not a viable business model. The publishing houses need to realize that if you give consumers what they want at a reasonable price, you'll have a much smaller group breaking the rules (whatever those rules happen to be).

- DRM costs more than it saves
Lots of money goes into various DRM schemes, and the audio/video folks have been fighting a loosing battle for years. Save the money. Put in a watermark system that will identify who made the purchase and let them do whatever they want with it. Baen has been doing less than that, and they still make money.

- Ed

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

There really is no reasonable objection to watermarking I can think of, unless one plans to upload the file to a file server.

I'm sure it'll take about 30 seconds for the file sharers to figure out how to strip the watermark, so it won't really effect them either. It'll only be the legitimate users that will have personal information embedded in their files.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Sonist

Even if one agrees with you, then DRM serves no useful purpose and it should be discarded, since it is a major inconvenience for consumers, and it is an added cost to production.

True. Although it does work really well for preventing fair use, which is also something the Industry is in favor of.

[nick101]

Originally Posted by Sonist

Hm, I hadn't noticed that the "music industry" is tanking. Record company profits may be down, but music is still around and good artists still make $$$$$. Business models simply have to change, as technology changes. Businesses that do not change, will tank, indeed, but music will still be created and consumed.



Even if one agrees with you, then DRM serves no useful purpose and it should be discarded, since it is a major inconvenience for consumers, and it is an added cost to production.

More accurate to say that record companies are tanking, perhaps. How sad (not)

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Trying ways to tie documents to devices will, quite simply, never work as a deterrent to file sharing. All of these schemes are ultimately a wasted effort, doomed to failure.

Unfortunately, we are a long way from security methods that would work (think biometrics), so the music and book industries both are just going to have to get used to the idea that their market is going to be very "fuzzy" for awhile. But that might be a good thing, because it might encourage them to rebuild and evolve their businesses after (in books' case) about a century of relative inactivity.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Can someone point out to Pogue that the music industry is, in fact, tanking?

Music is'nt tanking though. Just the old line recording industry.

There are thousands and thousands of small time musicians taking a piece of the pie. Which is pretty much what existed before the rise of recording technology.

I'm all for this, and have been buying mostly smaller artists through independant chanels since 1998. Green Linnet's high prices got me searching for more affordable celtic music to launch this.

And I will most likely buy heavily from writers directly in the future, just as I buy my music that way now.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Trying ways to tie documents to devices will, quite simply, never work as a deterrent to file sharing. All of these schemes are ultimately a wasted effort, doomed to failure.

Unfortunately, we are a long way from security methods that would work (think biometrics)

That wouldn't work either. What copy protection schemes try to do is fundamentally impossible. Doesn't matter what method or algorithm you come up with, it will be defeated.

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by perversity

I believe digital files like ebooks, aac's, mp4's... should be watermarked for ownership. When the file is opened with a front-end program like iTunes, Reader, Cailbre... there should be some kind tracking on these watermarks, and reporting for A)Users who had too many files from different owners to be considered legit, B) Ownership watermarks that show up in too many places. That being said...
I like the B&N's idea of tying each file to a credit card number. You can loan it out to whomever you want, but you could only GIVE it to people whom you would trust with your current credit card # which lessons the potential list exponentially.
Of course, I happen to be a musician that sells(aspires to sell) music so that does color my opinion on this subject

I wouldn't mind watermarks used to determine ownership, but I would object to the 'tracking' function you propose. I see no reason why either author, publisher, or seller of my book should be able to track my reading habits.

Of course somebody (publisher? seller? somebody) would need to manage the secondary market for used books in that case. Without that, your tracking will fail anyway-unless you propose prohibiting the secondary market, as DRM attempts to do. I scribe my SSN on many electronic items-but when I sell that, I scratch it out (and, if requested, scribe the buyer's SSN to replace it). Ownership watermarks would be similar-so you need an easy way to change them as copies are sold in the secondary market. If that method is available to the users (as scribing is) then your attempt at control fails-so it's got to be under the (tight) control of some 'registration' authority. Who? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?