Amazon's vertical integration/monopoly

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Amazon offers DRM as an option. If they didn't have that option none of the big 5 would let Amazon distribute their books.

I think that Katsunami has raised an interesting point.

Certainly back around 2005/7 when Amazon were getting ready to launch Kindle, they would not have got the major publishers on board without allowing DRM, since ebooks were such a small part of the publishers' income, and Amazon wasn't a big part of that market.

But now? With ebooks being around 20% of their revenue, and Amazon being (at a guess) 80% of that revenue, would they be willing to sacrifice 16% of their income to maintain DRM on their ebooks?

Given how much they've already held back ebook sales with their pricing policy, I can't see all the the big publishers allowing DRM-free sales if Amazon forced the issue now, even if one or two might.

So I don't see Amazon going that route now. But in another five years? Who knows.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I think that Katsunami has raised an interesting point.

Certainly back around 2005/7 when Amazon were getting ready to launch Kindle, they would not have got the major publishers on board without allowing DRM, since ebooks were such a small part of the publishers' income, and Amazon wasn't a big part of that market.

But now? With ebooks being around 20% of their revenue, and Amazon being (at a guess) 80% of that revenue, would they be willing to sacrifice 16% of their income to maintain DRM on their ebooks?

Given how much they've already held back ebook sales with their pricing policy, I can't see all the the big publishers allowing DRM-free sales if Amazon forced the issue now, even if one or two might.

So I don't see Amazon going that route now. But in another five years? Who knows.

It is interesting. If Amazon wanted to dispense altogether with DRM it may even now be in a position where the Big 5 would follow rather than lose market share. Or if not now, perhaps in 5 years time? Or 10? The question is probably moot. Because I can't think of a reason why Amazon would want to do this. What would Amazon achieve. It is a wonderful company that values its customers and usually shows it. But it is a commercial enterprise. And it would need to have a commercial reason for abandoning DRM. But it does not save money. It is not paying Adobe. It has done the work in developing its own DRM. And, of course, the vast majority of people simply don't care. It is fanciful to think that multitudes of customers are going to flock to Amazon if only they would abandon it. And there is a risk involved. Even when it is trivial to remove DRM, most people simply can't be bothered. How many people now go to copy a file, discover it is infected with DRM and simply accept it? I would suggest the vast majority. I'm not saying that files without DRM which can be simply copied would vastly increase piracy. I suspect the answer is probably not. But it would not be a surprising outcome either. I simply don't know.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Amazon offers DRM as an option. If they didn't have that option none of the big 5 would let Amazon distribute their books.

Easy enough. Amazon would be able to refuse to sell ANY books from the big 5. Then all of the big five would *die*. Yes, it would cost Amazon a lot of money in the beginning, but they have a lot of extra sources of revenue.

In the end, all of the big five would need to get on board or be destroyed. As big as they are, they only have one way to make money: book publishing. Amazon has a gazillion ways, from selling clothing and toys, even up to providing cloud services and hired computing.

I do believe a couple of other ebook sellers require their security (drm) attached to all their files. I think Apple and Google are two of them?

I don't know. All iBooks I've ever seen had Apple's DRM tough, and I never used Google books.

Now on the other side, why should books only be epub? What about pdf? Or do you consider that a document file?
What is so great about epub?

What's great about epub is that it can be edited by many tools; not only Calibre, the Calibre Editor or Sigil. As far as I know, Amazon even creates its own formats on the basis of an EPUB.

I consider PDF's documents, but not e-books. PDF was created as a fixed-layout printable format. While it can be used as an ebook (obviously), it wasn't its original purpose.

Personally I only consider only file formats to be e-books if they were developed as such; EPUB, MOBI, AZW3, LIT, LRF, that sort of thing.

If you don't, every format could be tagged as being an e-book, even plain TXT-files. In my view, any (text) format not specifically developed to be an e-book, is an electronic document.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Easy enough. Amazon would be able to refuse to sell ANY books from the big 5. Then all of the big five would *die*. Yes, it would cost Amazon a lot of money in the beginning, but they have a lot of extra sources of revenue.

In the end, all of the big five would need to get on board or be destroyed. As big as they are, they only have one way to make money: book publishing. Amazon has a gazillion ways, from selling clothing and toys, even up to providing cloud services and hired computing.



I don't know. All iBooks I've ever seen had Apple's DRM tough, and I never used Google books.



What's great about epub is that it can be edited by many tools; not only Calibre, the Calibre Editor or Sigil. As far as I know, Amazon even creates its own formats on the basis of an EPUB.

I consider PDF's documents, but not e-books. PDF was created as a fixed-layout printable format. While it can be used as an ebook (obviously), it wasn't its original purpose.

Personally I only consider only file formats to be e-books if they were developed as such; EPUB, MOBI, AZW3, LIT, LRF, that sort of thing.

If you don't, every format could be tagged as being an e-book, even plain TXT-files. In my view, any (text) format not specifically developed to be an e-book, is an electronic document.

Agreeing with you on the text files. I hate trying to read books in txt, doc or docx. They do not make good books.

I think of pdfs as a hybrid because while they are not real good for novels, they are excellent for books with patterns. If used on a computer, tablet or printed.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

I think of pdfs as a hybrid because while they are not real good for novels, they are excellent for books with patterns. If used on a computer, tablet or printed.

The only PDF's I read without printing them out are very short ones, or manuals; those are 'read once'-books, to which you might occasionally refer if you forget something.

I only use the following:

- EPUB (converted so something else if need be), for reading novels.
- PDF's, for manuals (I read them once, or only use them at a computer, such as references for programming/software engineering related tasks).

If it's not a novel or a reference to be used at the computer, I want it in paper, because I'm probably not going to read it on a computer, and flip back and forth all the time.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

The only PDF's I read without printing them out are very short ones, or manuals; those are 'read once'-books, to which you might occasionally refer if you forget something.

I only use the following:

- EPUB (converted so something else if need be), for reading novels.
- PDF's, for manuals (I read them once, or only use them at a computer, such as references for programming/software engineering related tasks).

If it's not a novel or a reference to be used at the computer, I want it in paper, because I'm probably not going to read it on a computer, and flip back and forth all the time.

Oh I understand the manuals. I have many of them in pdf.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Amazon offers DRM as an option. If they didn't have that option none of the big 5 would let Amazon distribute their books.
I do believe a couple of other ebook sellers require their security (drm) attached to all their files. I think Apple and Google are two of them?

Not Google. Google offers DRM as an option, the same as Amazon. I've bought several DRM-free epubs from Google Play.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Not Google. Google offers DRM as an option, the same as Amazon. I've bought several DRM-free epubs from Google Play.

That was why I said think. I wasn't positive on Google.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

That was why I said think. I wasn't positive on Google.

Doing a search, itunes apparently also offers DRM free ebooks; it is up to the publisher.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by John F

Doing a search, itunes apparently also offers DRM free ebooks; it is up to the publisher.

So pretty much DRM has more to do with the publisher than the distributor, yet people insist it is the distributor.

[pdurrant]

I've seen a report at Alf's blog that there's a new version of Kindle for PC/MAC — 1.19 — which is incompatible with the current tools. I only have 1.17, which works fine. I wondered if anyone here had seen/has version 1.19 and what their experience was with it.

[Katsunami]

Thanks for the report, pdurrant. I've not installed K4PC yet on my new computer, and my version is much older. I've downloaded and archived version 1.17.44183. (I assume the build number doesn't make a difference, if there are different ones around.)

I'll also have to update Alf's tools. They always lag behind because calibre doesn't update them automatically, for obvious reasons.

(edit: old K4PC was 1.11, and the tools were at version 6.3.4. I've updated everything now.)

[notimp]

(Off topic comments deleted. - Editor)

I see you guys - struggling at the -

"I hate trying to read books in txt, doc or docx."

- level (no kidding, makes you ponder why ePub was invented as an open standard in the first place - how about you conceptualize, what role it plays on the eBook sector? (Open standard, Open format, html markup, limited complexity - user accesible, non proprietary, author designable...)) -

and

"Given how much they've already held back ebook sales with their pricing policy, I can't see all the the big publishers allowing DRM-free sales if Amazon forced the issue now, even if one or two might."

- when here in Germany Amazon is the ONLY major distributer that still uses hard DRM, and ALL the other major labels already resorted to no DRM layer and instead selling watermarked epubs.

While you dream of Amazon "forcing the major publishers into the DRM free future" - we here experience Amazon as the sole proprietor of hard DRM doubling down and closing the file format, so even if the DRM layer gets removed by crackers, no one is able to access it - while cutting all the public distribution and production out of all public or private sector and becoming the sole proprietor of the new eBook. (There are no stakes that are distributed anymore - they all have been retracted and centralized.)

I hope this serves as some form of reality check to you - and I really urge you to think hard about if you wan't to ban the only progressive voice that thought more than two minutes about what the current changes mean, and why they are implemented - just so your reverse engineer guy can claim in five years from now - that he never said, that .kfx was "unfit for archival purposes" - and you made me not only retract the claim, that he ever just as much as hinted at it, but then edit the initial posting where I made it, and then banned me for not editing a second one - because - thats fair.

If thats your vision on what standpoints are important to hold up in the digitalization process ("digital revolution") in the coming years, I can tell you that your engineers will sport the whitest of vests all year round, because all interpretations of their statements will have been individually censored - but with none of you having any idea - what a change like "switching to a proprietary book format" means at the societal level -

-- and with none of you willing to discuss it openly besides the "there are still alternatives, arent there?" angle - this will become a veritable horrorshow.

I need the freedom to develop arguments, and that includes not being hazed by moderators that would like to force me to self censor three threads in a row (not even kidding), because the reverse engineers hands havent been washed clean from any political ambition enough, and someone could still mistakingly...

I can't fulfill the role of the "instigator" and "person that thinks about stuff like this on the societal level as well" - when the moderation squad of this community would only allow me to exist if I selfcensor, ever so often - three times in a row, with my hands forced and my mouth shut.

I still maintain, that very few people in here have grasped the issues (as Amazon cuts degrees of freedom, slowly but surely) - and that perhaps its more valuable to have a free voice talk about that, than to clean the name of the reverse engineer, beyond any reasonable doubt from ever having said anything of substance - when it comes to weighing the public properties of Amazons new publication format.

Also - seriously, - not knowing who wants the walled garden to be established and why (Amazon or publishers) can be simply solved by broadening your horizon and looking at whats happening in other countries.

Or by asking the question how publishers probably would react to Amazons "only we can create the main format for our walled garden" project. It was a damn near miracle, that they didn't react earlier. They get cut out of the occasion entirely - they don't produce their own final product anymore - only Amazon does. They can't sell (.kfx) books anymore, only Amazon can. They can't know what the final product looks like, only Amazon can. They can't decide when the final product is ready for release, but Amazon will do that for them. Gladly. Welcome to .kfx. Welcome to Kindle.

Also - if you would be so kind to not mistake DRM with Amazons move to close down the file format - i've seen it confused in this topic a few times too often already.

Here is your difference - when you are Amazon and just have locked away a public domain book in a .kfx container - just so it's got hyphens and ligatures - and you can sell it with a markup, but made it proprietary again, just doing that, guess what - you didn't need a DRM layer to impose a metric s-ton of rights restrictions, just over the format. Not over the DRM layer.

I'm fine with keeping a DRM layer - publishers might actually need it. But don't make "the book" proprietary again - and then count on a community that just comes to grips right about now - that .txt and .doc, might not be adequate eBook formats going forward.

Seriously - start using your little grey cells now.

I don't wan't to live in a "service future", where books have become proprietary licensable goods again you can "check out" if you are in good standings with a fortune 50 company - in exchange for the same amount of money as in the olden days, and them having access to your reading history, reading speed, bookmarks, annotations, ...

I understand that some of you already have embodied this future and are now pointing at the cornerstore - saying - what do you want, there are still SOME alternatives - but this might not be enough.

Apart from that you made sure to whitewash your devs from having made any statement that could be seen as containing any controversial (although factual) meaning, and banned the guy that talked about it for three days for not selfcensoring his topics "good enough" - after the fact. (#totalcomplience)

Also - please start thinking about who is trying to establish a walled garden ecosystem, and who will be benefiting from that in mid to long term. Don't use DRM to signify "all the bad things", and at the same time ignore that the Kindle main file format has gone proprietary, is being scrambled, and more than arguably, no - factually, is already unfit for archival purposes - while being auto delivered to millions of eReaders.

[Cinisajoy]

Read your long post.
1. Who's pricing policy? Amazon does not set the prices, the publisher does.
2. On public domain books, Amazon is not the only place to get them.
3. You say you want a discussion but you have not said what we are supposed to do about this format.
4. As to my comment about what formats one likes to read in was very relevant to the number of formats there are.
5. I should really report your previous post for violating the rule on publicly discussing moderators decisions.

6. Will you please in one or two sentences tell us what we should do about that format?

[darryl]

If there was an award for patience with certain types of posters which decorum prevents me from labelling, it would certainly go to you, Cinisajoy. Your cool calm logical attempts to have a particular poster actually engage rather than preach continue where lesser mortals, including myself, have long given up in sheer frustration. Perhaps one day, when Hell is frozen over and flying pigs and elephants blot out the sun, you will receive short, accuate and succint answers to your questions. Please be sure not to hold your breath for the coming of that day.