MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - TM: An alternative to DRM? Let's discuss.

pieter · 03-31-2008, 03:31 PM

***Please excuse my ridiculously long post. It's just my general view of the whole file-sharing/copyright issue

***

In a way, the future of the internet and file sharing (call it piracy if you must but that just makes me think of johnny depp as a swaggering pirate) will be the most dangerous for the authors of books.
In the past the music industry was the first to get hit by the problem of people sharing copyrighted works through the internet. The moment the music industry steered towards making its product digital (and thus something that can exist on the internet) was the beginning of it's troubles. Music is relatively easy to share, with a typical cd only being about 70mb of mp3s, which can be downloaded by most modern connections in less than 15 minutes.
Because of the relatively big size of movies, movie sharing took longer to become a problem for the movie industry. A typical movie taking about 1400 mb (two cd's) in divx format, and thus the time needed to download a movie is significantly longer, and with limited storage capacity is much harder to share large amount of movies.
Since the books-industry was very slow in adapting to the internet and in steering towards digital content, it is the last industry to get hit by the problem of file sharing.

But, here's the catch. The music industry, especially the musicians themselves, has other forms of revenue next to the actual sale of music. Concerts already are a bigger form of income for most bands than their cd sales.
The movie industry still has it's movie theatres. Although I myself have started to hate going there, because of the fact that other people's activities usually greatly diminish my enjoyment of movies in the theatre, the movie industry still has this form of revenue. People are willing to see a new movie in the theatre and pay a lot of money for it, even if they have the option to download the movie for free off the internet.
The book industry doesn't really have a clear second line of income. Book readings perhaps. Or other activities by literary authors, but mostly these are dependent on the idea that they boost the sale of the book, and are less of a dependent second source of revenue.
Add to that that books will be much much easier to share. Their limited size means that people can send each other a whole library in a matter of a couple hours, and in the future it wont even take hours.

There are only a couple things saving the industry at this point in time. First the limited availability of content. Not everything has been digitised yet, not like music of movies. And secondly, most people do not have a good way to read digitised content and printing out is a hassle and hardly worth it economically.
But imagine a world where almost everybody has an ebook reader. A world where everybody has ebooks on their computer. A world where everybody is connected to the internet.
And I believe that in the future the internet should be seen as even more connected. Connected in the sense that people will have different computers in different locations, with easy access to each of those computers. Also ereader will be directly connected to the internet. My ereader would be able to directly connect to a friends ebook reader in Japan, while one of us is at home and the other is travelling with the train.
In such a world the technology itself won't even distinguish between what is my hard drive and what is someone else's. Everybody I trust would be allowed to use my computer through the internet, as i would be trusted to access theirs.
Imagine a computer where hard drive C:\,D:\ are mine, E: would be my girlfriends a couple blocks away from my house, F: and G: would be the computers at work, and H: to R: would be friends of mine.
At this point it will be harder NOT to share an ebook than it is to share it.
Musicians can still do concerts and make money. Movies-makers can still offer that movie theatre thrill, and make money that way (considerably less mind you, but still). But book writers...
This is also apparent from how we generally perceive music, movies and books. The perfect consumption of music is by visiting the concert and actually seeing the band perform it. The perfect consumption of movies is generally still perceived as seeing a movie in a grande theatre at opening night, with the lights dimming and the superior quality of most theatres impressing our senses. The perfect consumption of a book? Just me and the book on my couch at home. No sounds but the turning of the pages.

All in all, my point being that even though this problem hits the book industry the last, it will hit it the hardest.

As with movies and music the problem is that it is almost impossible to stop it. There is a logical problem that technology can't solve: if one person can see or hear something, it's almost impossible to stop the copying of what that one person can see or hear. It has to leave the computer at some point. A microphone can record anything a person can hear. A camera can record anything a person can see. And a photocamera can record any page that a person can read.

So if the copying itself can't be stopped (and up till now both the copying of music and of movies has proven this to be the case) maybe we can stop the sharing?
We could stop all sharing of information, or at least limit the sharing of all information. Just shut the internet down, because thats what it does: share information.
Or we could try and distinguish between copyrighted information and non-copyrighted information. That would mean ALL information would have to monitored. To distinguish between a copyrighted tale or a email to a spouse everything would have to be analysed and monitored.
Of course for this to be possible all information needs to be readable to all for it to be monitored, and encryption would have to be out-lawed.
I believe China is going this way, as well as certain other countries in the middle east.

Another option would be to out-law digital versions of books, as their inherent ease of making a copy of it should be stopped. Even with the internet all secure, people would still easily copy an ebook and swap from one ereader to another. Or the complete works of Murakami could be put on a cd and given to everybody. Going back to the paper age seems the best option.

There are always options, but I think the main problem are the people. We just can not trust people with copyable content. Give them a chance and they'll start sharing like they own something. The majority of people just don't see that what they do is wrong, it seems. That brings us to the core of the problem. Give these people have a chance and they'll start to act and, maybe even more dangerous, vote according to their own wishes...

03-31-2008, 03:31 PM	#69
pieter Connoisseur Posts: 59 Karma: 501 Join Date: Mar 2008 Device: CyBook Gen3	*Please excuse my ridiculously long post. It's just my general view of the whole file-sharing/copyright issue * In a way, the future of the internet and file sharing (call it piracy if you must but that just makes me think of johnny depp as a swaggering pirate) will be the most dangerous for the authors of books. In the past the music industry was the first to get hit by the problem of people sharing copyrighted works through the internet. The moment the music industry steered towards making its product digital (and thus something that can exist on the internet) was the beginning of it's troubles. Music is relatively easy to share, with a typical cd only being about 70mb of mp3s, which can be downloaded by most modern connections in less than 15 minutes. Because of the relatively big size of movies, movie sharing took longer to become a problem for the movie industry. A typical movie taking about 1400 mb (two cd's) in divx format, and thus the time needed to download a movie is significantly longer, and with limited storage capacity is much harder to share large amount of movies. Since the books-industry was very slow in adapting to the internet and in steering towards digital content, it is the last industry to get hit by the problem of file sharing. But, here's the catch. The music industry, especially the musicians themselves, has other forms of revenue next to the actual sale of music. Concerts already are a bigger form of income for most bands than their cd sales. The movie industry still has it's movie theatres. Although I myself have started to hate going there, because of the fact that other people's activities usually greatly diminish my enjoyment of movies in the theatre, the movie industry still has this form of revenue. People are willing to see a new movie in the theatre and pay a lot of money for it, even if they have the option to download the movie for free off the internet. The book industry doesn't really have a clear second line of income. Book readings perhaps. Or other activities by literary authors, but mostly these are dependent on the idea that they boost the sale of the book, and are less of a dependent second source of revenue. Add to that that books will be much much easier to share. Their limited size means that people can send each other a whole library in a matter of a couple hours, and in the future it wont even take hours. There are only a couple things saving the industry at this point in time. First the limited availability of content. Not everything has been digitised yet, not like music of movies. And secondly, most people do not have a good way to read digitised content and printing out is a hassle and hardly worth it economically. But imagine a world where almost everybody has an ebook reader. A world where everybody has ebooks on their computer. A world where everybody is connected to the internet. And I believe that in the future the internet should be seen as even more connected. Connected in the sense that people will have different computers in different locations, with easy access to each of those computers. Also ereader will be directly connected to the internet. My ereader would be able to directly connect to a friends ebook reader in Japan, while one of us is at home and the other is travelling with the train. In such a world the technology itself won't even distinguish between what is my hard drive and what is someone else's. Everybody I trust would be allowed to use my computer through the internet, as i would be trusted to access theirs. Imagine a computer where hard drive C:\,D:\ are mine, E: would be my girlfriends a couple blocks away from my house, F: and G: would be the computers at work, and H: to R: would be friends of mine. At this point it will be harder NOT to share an ebook than it is to share it. Musicians can still do concerts and make money. Movies-makers can still offer that movie theatre thrill, and make money that way (considerably less mind you, but still). But book writers... This is also apparent from how we generally perceive music, movies and books. The perfect consumption of music is by visiting the concert and actually seeing the band perform it. The perfect consumption of movies is generally still perceived as seeing a movie in a grande theatre at opening night, with the lights dimming and the superior quality of most theatres impressing our senses. The perfect consumption of a book? Just me and the book on my couch at home. No sounds but the turning of the pages. All in all, my point being that even though this problem hits the book industry the last, it will hit it the hardest. As with movies and music the problem is that it is almost impossible to stop it. There is a logical problem that technology can't solve: if one person can see or hear something, it's almost impossible to stop the copying of what that one person can see or hear. It has to leave the computer at some point. A microphone can record anything a person can hear. A camera can record anything a person can see. And a photocamera can record any page that a person can read. So if the copying itself can't be stopped (and up till now both the copying of music and of movies has proven this to be the case) maybe we can stop the sharing? We could stop all sharing of information, or at least limit the sharing of all information. Just shut the internet down, because thats what it does: share information. Or we could try and distinguish between copyrighted information and non-copyrighted information. That would mean ALL information would have to monitored. To distinguish between a copyrighted tale or a email to a spouse everything would have to be analysed and monitored. Of course for this to be possible all information needs to be readable to all for it to be monitored, and encryption would have to be out-lawed. I believe China is going this way, as well as certain other countries in the middle east. Another option would be to out-law digital versions of books, as their inherent ease of making a copy of it should be stopped. Even with the internet all secure, people would still easily copy an ebook and swap from one ereader to another. Or the complete works of Murakami could be put on a cd and given to everybody. Going back to the paper age seems the best option. There are always options, but I think the main problem are the people. We just can not trust people with copyable content. Give them a chance and they'll start sharing like they own something. The majority of people just don't see that what they do is wrong, it seems. That brings us to the core of the problem. Give these people have a chance and they'll start to act and, maybe even more dangerous, vote according to their own wishes...