Tim O'Reilly on why the Kindle should be an open book

[TheJohnNewton]

I'm with you Sonist! BTW, lately where is the sunny part of Ca?

[Penforhire]

Sonist, you can choose DRM formats that can be easily stripped of DRM (e.g. LIT). That may be illegal depending on where you live but, IMO, the morality is clear. The resulting file is as device agnostic as any non-DRM format you are thinking of.

[=X=]

Originally Posted by Sonist

BTW, I am really puzzled why ANYONE would purchase a proprietary DRM-ed book, which will go up in smoke if they change hardware vendors, or the company which sold it went belly up and was not benevolent enough to, or was prevented from, unlocking the files?

Sometimes the content of the book is worth buying regardless of DRM and having that content in electronic format is extremely convenient (e.g. portability, search, cut-n-past, etc...)

And truthfully with the exception of LRX there is always a work around
=X=

[Ervserver]

because Amazon is the messiah of books and this would never happen....right?

Originally Posted by Sonist

BTW, I am really puzzled why ANYONE would purchase a proprietary DRM-ed book, which will go up in smoke if they change hardware vendors, or the company which sold it went belly up and was not benevolent enough to, or was prevented from, unlocking the files?

[TadW]

O'Reilly misses the point. Amazon is NOT Microsoft. Amazon doesn't sell web server software. Amazon's strength is

1. their online shop
2. competitive pricing through market domination

While competitive pricing is probably important to most customers, the shop itself is also too important to be neglected. I love the Amazon website because it enables me to browse their shop for hours without feeling bored or distracted. I love reading the reviewers' comments; I love finding books that are related to my searches. And I love all the other features, such as reading people's personal best of lists.

As a Kindle owner I don't care if Amazon's e-books are "open" or "closed". Notice that open doesn't necessarily mean DRM-free. ePub is open. Yet, Sony sells their ePub books with DRM. Amazon's Mobi isn't open. So? If I have the urge, I can still use one of the many tools discussed elsewhere here to convert Mobi back to HTML.

It's obvious that O'Reilly has his own motivation to promote "openess" ever since his involvement in Bookworm.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by TadW

O'Reilly misses the point. Amazon is NOT Microsoft. Amazon doesn't sell web server software. Amazon's strength is

1. their online shop
2. competitive pricing through market domination

While competitive pricing is probably important to most customers, the shop itself is also too important to be neglected. I love the Amazon website because it enables me to browse their shop for hours without feeling bored or distracted. I love reading the reviewers' comments; I love finding books that are related to my searches. And I love all the other features, such as reading people's personal best of lists.

Further on in the article, O'Reilly compares Amazon and Apple, and I think makes his best point there. He points out that it wasn't just the iPod, or even iPod and iTunes, but the fact that users could add their own music from other sources, much of it free, that put the iPod, and later iTunes, on top. But the single biggest obstacle keeping an e-book system from becoming like the iPod model is the fact that, as O'Reilly points out, "There is no easy way to "rip" a book." So even the Apple comparison doesn't work for Amazon exactly.

I've said before that publishing can look at other business models all they want, but they really need to create their own modern business model, one that focuses on the strengths and weaknesses of literature, as opposed to emulating (and trying to avoid the mistakes of) other media.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

Bob, I took his "open" to mean open source. None of MS products are (that I know of) but plenty of opens source competition exists (Linux, Open Office, ...)

Open source is not the important thing. The important thing is open protocols and open formats. When you have three readers you use in different situations you will not buy a Kindle book that can only be used on the kindle since you want to be able to switch readers and use the net to exchange position information.

[doctorow]

Amazon could go "open" any day. They own the Mobipocket format. If they wanted to, they could publish all the specs today. But why would they want to? Currently they are in a market dominating positing. They have the biggest online store selling p-books and e-books, and they have the most successful dedicated e-book reading device that is currently on the (US-) market.

So what about non-US markets? Everything related to e-books is still in infancy. European publishers are trying to tell us that e-books are not important and that people want real paper. Let Sony do all the nasty talk with them. Let Sony do the beginning and allow Amazon to sit and observe. If the situation is right, Amazon can step in, and every publisher will follow them because they are just too big to be ignored.

Just because Amazon Mobipocket isn't open doesn't mean that Amazon cannot benefit from their dominating role as a book seller. Just because Mobipocket isn't open today doesn't mean that it cannot be open tomorrow. Amazon has the luxury to test the market and play all options to their best advantage.

[CCDMan]

I always have to ask "What is the motivation?"when I hear someone from within an industry make comments such as this.

Since we are not privy to his interactions with Amazon, there may very well be some major axes being ground here that are not evident to those w/o inside information.

Grain of salt for this one.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by doctorow

Amazon could go "open" any day. They own the Mobipocket format. If they wanted to, they could publish all the specs today. But why would they want to? Currently they are in a market dominating positing. They have the biggest online store selling p-books and e-books, and they have the most successful dedicated e-book reading device that is currently on the (US-) market.

So what about non-US markets? Everything related to e-books is still in infancy. European publishers are trying to tell us that e-books are not important and that people want real paper. Let Sony do all the nasty talk with them. Let Sony do the beginning and allow Amazon to sit and observe. If the situation is right, Amazon can step in, and every publisher will follow them because they are just too big to be ignored.

Just because Amazon Mobipocket isn't open doesn't mean that Amazon cannot benefit from their dominating role as a book seller. Just because Mobipocket isn't open today doesn't mean that it cannot be open tomorrow. Amazon has the luxury to test the market and play all options to their best advantage.

Mobipocket is an effectively open format, just like LRF. The problem isn't the format, its the Kindle store. That is what Amazon needs to open up, by allowing people to buy ebooks from it for any reader.

[stinsmom]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Mobipocket is an effectively open format, just like LRF. The problem isn't the format, its the Kindle store. That is what Amazon needs to open up, by allowing people to buy ebooks from it for any reader.

I agree. They could "open" the market by selling to other brands of eReaders. But I think right now they are focusing on selling the Kindle, so probably not going to go that route any time soon. I think the Apple comparison is fair. Although, having an iPod I mostly just put old CD's and one off songs from Itunes on it. With my Kindle, however, I have only put Amazon books. I haven't ventured into the world of the free ebook sites, yet. Still a newbie after a year....but I guess that makes Amazon happy!

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by doctorow

So what about non-US markets? Everything related to e-books is still in infancy. European publishers are trying to tell us that e-books are not important and that people want real paper. Let Sony do all the nasty talk with them. Let Sony do the beginning and allow Amazon to sit and observe. If the situation is right, Amazon can step in, and every publisher will follow them because they are just too big to be ignored.

you are right that europe is just dipping toes in the water when it comes to ebooks, however european publishers who are starting to publish digitally now are almost all opting for the epub format, sometimes exclusively ; it's gaining momentum. i really hope amazon decides to add support for epub to the kindle ; to me this is the real flaw in what is otherwise an excellent device and i think a strategic mistake on their part ; they should really get behind the industry standard format.

[thorn]

if you have books on your kindle, and keep the wireless turned off, if amazon fails your books are still on your device. right? you just wouldn't be able to get any more books in that format. if i'm wrong, please disabuse me of this notion!

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by thorn

if you have books on your kindle, and keep the wireless turned off, if amazon fails your books are still on your device. right? you just wouldn't be able to get any more books in that format. if i'm wrong, please disabuse me of this notion!

You are correct. Sort of.

There are other sources for mobipocket books.

BOb

[cerement]

We're also dealing with two different subjects here (and trying to get O'Reilly to clarify any of his doom-and-gloom speeches is another matter entirely) ... and both of these subjects return (in some part) back to EPUB ...

1) Opening up the Kindle - Currently, the Kindle only supports only 3 ebook formats, Amazon-DRMed Mobipocket (AZW), non-DRMed Mobipocket, and plaintext. In this day and age (and considering how long EPUB (and OEB) have been around) not bothering to release a firmware update to support more formats, more standard formats, more format standards is just plain bad PR, but Amazon is hoping they can rely on their weight within the market to allow them to dictate their terms (as they already have with some small presses attempting to release on the Kindle).

2) Opening up Amazon's ebooks - The classic selection of worries that surround any DRM - What if Amazon stops making Kindles? What if Amazon stops making ebooks? What if Amazon changes DRM? - We've already seen it with Microsoft shutting down their DRM servers for MSN Music and telling the customers to F off. Being able to get hold of your ebooks in formats (with or without DRM) that can be read on the other readers on the market. Even with DRM, Mobipocket-DRMed Mobipocket or eReader-DRMed eReader would allow a slightly larger safety margin for users should Amazon ever bite the big one.