My general thinking here is one of (re)-education, from the publisher/content provider side. I believe (and this can be witnessed in quite a few excerpts and transcripts of several articles, keynotes and symposia of/from the industry) that while they are "aware" of the mistakes the music, and to a degree, the movie industry has made in attempting to deal with the digital chaos, don't quite "get it"; they are doomed to fail the same way, because they are concerned about essentially the wrong group of people.
Those people are people that aren't going to buy what they are selling, under any circumstances...ever.
Sound familiar?
Specifically I believe, in light of the above, they should clone The One Model That Has Worked: Apple's.
While Apple's iPod/iTMS model is not perfect, its pretty damned good and has eclipsed all comers. The biggest problem I see with it/have with it is that it is not web-based, and as such excludes buyers that don't use Windows or Mac OS X...however this has changed with the iPhone and the iPod Touch.
The positive points I will outline below and follow each with what publishers could do with ebooks that would be akin to Apple's music offering:
1. A "good enough" reader that is inexpensive, sleek and simple to use. The iPods are not the most feature-filled DAPs out there, but have the right size/price/feature/simplicity ratio.
An equivalent reader device to be "iPod-like" in the above ways should be a bit smaller than the 505, have the same amount of buttons (less than Kindle, more than Gen3) but allow for text entry via a T9-like method or the typical phone texting method (this gets you lookups/notes but allows you to have less keys and a smaller form factor), OTA buying - but via Wi-Fi (keeps costs down...but eliminates the computer requirement) and an eInk screen that is smaller (3/4 Sony/Kindle/Gen3) in both dimensions to get more per run and keep the overall unit cost down. Target price should be $200.
2. iTMS tracks can be used on as many iPods as one owns.
If the owner of our reader chooses to use it with a computer and do their purchase this way, they should be allowed to put their books on as many readers as they plug into their machine. If the reader is plugged into another machine, the books can't be (easily) transferred off and if they are, they must then be "authorized" this new machine.
Its a limitation, but one that most people won't run into. It doesn't stop the hardcore pirate types, but nothing will. Its a gentle reminder in the "keeping you honest" category. Its "fair".
3. iTMS tracks have uniform pricing and one set of "rights"
This has been a sticking point for the music biz, but I think we can be a bit more flexible with books...assuming there is a minimal baseline set of "rights" across the whole price range.
What screwed the other digital music stores was a quagmire of stupid limitations across tracks...some
on the same album...utter insanity. For the flat price of
X, some tracks could only be streamed(?!), some could not be played on a portable device, some could not be burned to CD...some had none of these restrictions...some all.
A successful eBook venture will avoid this foolishness. History has shown that it is fraught with implication, doomed to failure and pisses customers off. Its not "better than free" and drives them towards "free". We don't want to do that.
4. All iTMS tracks can be backed up to data cd, and burned to music cd to play on any cd player
Many people overlook this
very crucial feature as a "killer" one, but on a psychological level its a deal-maker. It adds value to the customer
instantly and gives them a sense that they have purchased something "tangible". They "own the music" because they can protect it from data loss and have the added value of being able to have something they can not only "hold in their hand" but use and enjoy practically anywhere.
How do we do this with an eBook then? Simple. Allow the printing of one copy. You burn your own paper and ink, it costs us (the publishers) nothing.
"Ah...hang on there a minute skippy!" the horrified publisher exclaims. "If we do THAT then it makes it easier to pirate!!!"
Does it really? Let's look at this a bit closer.
Remember...we cannot beat the "hardcore"...this is a given. We want to help honest folk
stay honest. We can do this by simply printing the book as a bitmap. This way, even if some clever bastard thinks "Bwahahaha...I can print to PDF and extract the text"...there isn't any.
If they want to be really...paranoid about it, build the printing into the device and not the desktop...or do like the USPS does and Print from the web. Even if its spooled...its a bitmap.
I'm a software engineer...and a damned clever guy, that has "walked with darkness" enough to know how to think around it, in case you were wondering how some yahoo on the 'net could come up with this and not the brightest minds in the publishing biz
Additionally, this method also puts our printed ebook on even footing with a publisher printed one in terms of the pirate horde...they are gonna have to retype it (introducing possible errors) or ocr it (same). We have made a "lossy" copy because it is not going to be as nicely bound...at least not on our dime and our labor
Like our burned iTMS tracks, this give the buyer that "tangible" safety net. They "own the book". We (the buyer) lose nothing. They (the publisher) lose nothing. Win-Win. I like...win-win outcomes
5. Some iTMS tracks are higher quality, and are "DRM-free".
Apple sells some tracks (One major label, many indie labels) in higher quality than standard tracks. Initially, these tracks were priced at a premium. I say, let the book publishers have this. if they want to add extra content and sell for a bit more feel free...as long as these "Ultra Premium" eBooks are "DRM-free".
I put "DRM-free" in quotes here because while iTunes Plus tracks don't have the restriction that that can only be played on iPods and authorized computers, they
are watermarked. This is what is being termed as "Social DRM"...each iTunes Plus track has the account name of the person that originally bought them embedded into the track.
Now, I honestly don't think this is doable with eBooks, sadly because there isn't a way to make an eBook that can be read on "anything" that could embed this info in such a way that removing it either destroys the eBook (editing the iTunes file to change the personalization makes it unplayable) or by making it lossy and lesser quality (you can re-import Plus tracks to get rid of the personalization, but they sound worse).
So we'll have to give the publishers a pass on this.
I think tho, even without item
5, do the rest and we have a winner on our hands. From the business side and the buyer side.
They get their "DRM"...we get "DRM" that effective is not going to rob an honest buyer of what they paid for by shackling it to death, making it not even "worth paying for"...not "better than free".