How to Destroy The Book - Cory Doctorow

[Elfwreck]

Article at thevarsity.ca:

How to Destroy the Book, by Cory Doctorow:

The anti-copyright activists have no respect for our copyright and our books. They say that when you buy an ebook or an audiobook that’s delivered digitally, you are demoted from an owner to a licensor.
...
People keep showing me ebook readers that try to recreate the book experience with cute animations showing the turning of pages. But if you want to recreate the important part of the book experience, the part that keeps people buying books for their whole lives, filling their homes with treasured friends that they would not part with for love nor money, then we need to restore and safeguard ownership of books. When I buy a book, it’s mine. There’s no mechanism, not even in the face of a court order, whereby a retailer can take a book away from me...

[desertgrandma]

With all due respect........if my house burns down, my paper books are gone forever.

When I lost my data on my hard drive, my computer guy was able to retrieve them for me.

When I get my laptop back, I will back those puppies up in at least 4 different ways.

As God is my witness, I will never lose a book again!!

(with apologies to "Gone with the Wind")

[Barcey]

Excellent read!! Especially Part II if you're Canadian. Thanks for the link.

[astra]

I really love this bit

People keep showing me ebook readers that try to recreate the book experience with cute animations showing the turning of pages. But if you want to recreate the important part of the book experience, the part that keeps people buying books for their whole lives, filling their homes with treasured friends that they would not part with for love nor money, then we need to restore and safeguard ownership of books. When I buy a book, it’s mine. There’s no mechanism, not even in the face of a court order, whereby a retailer can take a book away from me..

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

With all due respect........if my house burns down, my paper books are gone forever.

When I lost my data on my hard drive, my computer guy was able to retrieve them for me.

When I get my laptop back, I will back those puppies up in at least 4 different ways.

As God is my witness, I will never lose a book again!!

(with apologies to "Gone with the Wind")

The problem with ebooks is not that you lose them - but that you lose access to them even though you still have the files. With server-based DRM and limited device activations any DRM ebooks can become unreadable just because you've either used all your device activations and can't activate a new device or the server is down.

DRM-free ebooks are easy to back up - DRM ones, not so much.

[kennyc]

Love that statement DGM! I too. (no not Itunes).

wrt Cory......hmmmm....not quit sure what's he's on to except "the culture of the book" and there should be no DRM. I think I agree with what he is saying, but I think his dismissal of ethics is misplaced. It is ethics that is at the core of people "doing what is right" and respecting copyright.

[GhostHawk]

Lemurion makes a very good point. I have part of my library backed up to a DVD.
Rest of it is on 2 seperate computers. Its complicated because I'm in the process of going through it, converting what needs to be converted. Using one system for naming, correcting as I go, trying to eliminate duplication, etc (Stephen King vs King, Stephen)
Also it has kind of exploded on me, went from no Ebooks to 10gig's worth in 2 years.
(What can I say, I'm a Pirate! I can't help myself.)

However we also know that given a chance Publishers, artist's, distributors will not give us full rights to Ebook's we buy. They are much happier charging us a licensing fee and hold those rights themselves.

And thats not even getting into how long those rights should last. There is a whole war in that one alone.

The simple answer is vote with your feet. If you are concerned about losing those rights then don't buy from those who will only license.

If you are concerned about Piracy, then only buy DRM books.

Over time, as people learn, and choose who and what has the majority will settle out.
Adjustments will be made.

[rhadin]

People keep showing me ebook readers that try to recreate the book experience with cute animations showing the turning of pages. But if you want to recreate the important part of the book experience, the part that keeps people buying books for their whole lives, filling their homes with treasured friends that they would not part with for love nor money, then we need to restore and safeguard ownership of books.

I think Doctorow misses the point of what is the important part of the experience. He was fine until he wrote

then we need to restore and safeguard ownership of books.

If you really want "to recreate the important part of the book experience ," then what you want to do is separate the poor writing from the great writing and encourage people to read. Although ownership is important, I see nothing great about owning junk writing and could care less whether I licensed it temporarily or owned it.

In my estimation, the keys to advancing ebooks are low price and no DRM (or a very portable social DRM). These two things will encourage readership, especially of unknown authors. I am willing to gamble a few dollars to discover whether an author is worth reading; I am even willing to have the work DRMed if the price is low enough, say no more than $2.

OTOH, I am not willing to pay $10+ for any work of fiction in ebook form because regardless of whether it has DRM or not, it has no inherent value except for the value it has to me to read it the first time, assuming the writing is topnotch, and even then it has no market value because it is so easily duplicated (where's the market for first edition ebooks?).

ebooks are easier to store and convenient to carry, but they have no secondary market, unlike pbooks. Absent the secondary market, it almost makes no difference whether they are DRMed or not, with the exception of those few books you may reread. Of the thousands of fiction books I have read in my life, there aren't more than a dozen or so that I have reread or thought about rereading.

Consequently, I think Doctorow gives too much emphasis to the importance of ownership and too little to the importance of writing quality.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Article at thevarsity.ca:

I thought it was the PRO-copyright activists (aka publishers and retailers) who claim the "It's a license, not a sale" stuff?

[Moejoe]

Highly confusing and meandering article. I wasn 't sure if he was anti-ebook or pro-fetish from all that.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

I thought it was the PRO-copyright activists (aka publishers and retailers) who claim the "It's a license, not a sale" stuff?

They call themselves pro-copyright, but they're certainly not working within the legal boundaries of copyright. They're trying to replace copyright law with EULAs and licensing agreements.

Fair use is part of copyright law, and they're fighting against that part.

[Nitrousoxide]

Me, personally, I'm glad to pay a reduced price for a licence to read a book vs ownership of the book. I almost never reread a book I've already read.

It's a lot like why I don't buy any movies now that I have netflix. I almost never rewatch movies I've already seen, so I'm completely happy to pay a much reduced price for a licence to view them rather than pay a much higher price to own them.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Nitrousoxide

Me, personally, I'm glad to pay a reduced price for a licence to read a book vs ownership of the book. I almost never reread a book I've already read.

It's a lot like why I don't buy any movies now that I have netflix. I almost never rewatch movies I've already seen, so I'm completely happy to pay a much reduced price for a licence to view them rather than pay a much higher price to own them.

I've always wondered why people buy movies. Once in a while I like to re-watch one but not often enough to own it.

I guess the same sort of applies to books in a way.

I don't re-read that many, but a few I do now and then.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by kennyc

I've always wondered why people buy movies. Once in a while I like to re-watch one but not often enough to own it.

My family re-watches movies often. When my husband's cooking with the kids, he puts on Ratatouille, and he'll often put on a familiar movie to fall asleep to; he wants something interesting that he won't be upset if he misses half of. (His taste in movies to fall asleep to is deplorable. Hannibal. 9th Gate. Hell House.) I re-watch movies & tv shows that I like fanfic from, to catch the points in the original that I'd overlooked.

I re-read books, especially series. I notice details differently, based on what happens in later books. Sometimes, I notice new things in non-series books, based on real world events or whatever's going on in my life. And sometimes, re-reading an old favorite is like putting on a favorite album--I already know all the words, but the ebb & flow of emotions attached to them is a comfort.

[dsvick]

Originally Posted by kennyc

I've always wondered why people buy movies.

I guess the same sort of applies to books in a way.

I don't re-read that many, but a few I do now and then.

Because they had six year old daughter who went through two VCRs and three VHS copies of Snow White watching it every day (sometimes twice) for well over a year. But I digress.... For the most part I agree with you on movies, there are a few I've bought, mostly series that I don't expect to be able to rent.

For books however, I re-read books all the time. In some cases once every couple of years, it is like reuniting with an old friend and catching up with them for a week. That's why I plan un-DRMing most of the books I get that have it so I can keep them and have a better chance of being able to read them again years from now.