E-Book Piracy: The Publishing Industry's Next Epic Saga?

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Happ

In a way, yes. And that is the good news.

The bad news is that it proved also that people did not care that much about DRM, as long as they can download it and use it easily.

iTunes got rid of DRM.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Bob T

Alrighty...
Hmmmm...most all of us that read have supported free sharing of paper books for years...
One book gets bought at Christmas and gets passed through the entire family...
Then the book gets loaned to a friend who maybe shares it with his family...
Or, as mentioned above, a library buys it and 1000s read it...

So really, isn't the difference between paper books and ebooks just a matter of scale?
Isn't the original purchaser allowed to share with as many friends and family as he cares to?
(Sure, you could share an ebook and still keep a copy, but for the most part, once it is read, you're done with it).

They are not exactly equivalent because the ebook can be copied whereas for the paper book there is only one physical copy so it can't be used by two(or more) people at the same time.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

IMO, the iTunes model is closer to Baen than it is to Amazon/Kindle.

Oh absolutely.

Except they're not selling individual short stories out of collections, yet.

I'd also point out that DRM on downloadable music might be gone, but services like Live.fm still have issues with idiotic rates and licensing deals in various countries which restrict where they can operate.

I do disagree where the driving force for DRM removal came from, as well. (It was EMI's Hail Mary Pass, and it's flopped for them, although it did kill DRM on downloads...)

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Happ

One caveat, though. Middlepersons sometimes are very important. As a writer I simply do not want to have to waste my time thinking about economics, promotion, distribution and the like.

Understandable when promotion and distribution are expensive and difficult. But what if promotion and distribution were cheap and easy to do yourself?

[kjk]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

You're right, but they're not going to want to do (b) and (c) willingly. Look at the music industry. They had to basically be dragged kicking and screaming to the current iTunes market. It was not something they wanted to do, they fought it every step of the way.

Even more important-the music industry was blindsided by Apple's incredible success (and the turnaround from being in control to being controlled)...other industries (TV, film, and books) are understandably even more gun-shy now.

[Bob T]

Originally Posted by kennyc

They are not exactly equivalent because the ebook can be copied whereas for the paper book there is only one physical copy so it can't be used by two(or more) people at the same time.

Yes...I knew someone would point this out...
But it seems like the industry wants to eliminate sharing, not just copying and I think this is what people see as the issue...

It is what I see as the issue...
I will continue to buy paper books when I know the titles are something I'd like to share...

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Happ

In a way, yes. And that is the good news.

The bad news is that it proved also that people did not care that much about DRM, as long as they can download it and use it easily.

Another piece of bad news is that people do not mind about the strange obligation to buy only from one almost monopolist store. Hence, Sony; hence, Kindle. Hence, crap.

These items are only "bad news" if you are categorically against DRM, or a particular store, in principle. Both examples ably demonstrate that DRM (just another form of product security) is workable, and that a store who gets its selling model right is accepted by the consumers, however monopolistic.

I'm pretty much on record around here as not being against DRM in principle... but against DRM in current practice. Valuable products need some level of security, or they get stolen, plain and simple. To solve that dilemma, you can only do 3 things: Add effective and acceptable security; remove the value; or make someone else pay for the product.

Advertising models can satisfy the third solution, as long as you can get consumers to accept the ads, supposedly by making them aware that the ads are what allow them to get free content. Low prices serve to satisfy #2, if you are okay with a smaller return on the product.

As has been pointed out, there are forms of DRM that are considered effective by vendors and acceptable to many consumers. But if this is not considered acceptable to others, choosing the 2nd or 3rd solution (or both) would seem to make more sense. In time, I believe a "practically bulletproof" DRM system would be possible and effective (think biometrics), but we're a long ways from that.

The important thing to understand is that all of these solutions are compromises, and we have to accept at least some compromise, either one of the above or something else you devise, to make the system workable. But the public has accepted these compromises in other areas, so there's no reason to expect they can't accept them here as well.

[ficbot]

Originally Posted by kjk

Even more important-the music industry was blindsided by Apple's incredible success (and the turnaround from being in control to being controlled)...other industries (TV, film, and books) are understandably even more gun-shy now.

It's ridiculous though. They have products that people want to buy, and they are trying to stop them thanks to DRM and geo-restrictions. They are taking exactly the wrong approach. Oh no! We have a product and people want to buy it, what should we do? Um, make it easy for them to buy it? But no, they make all these restrictions so UK customers with credit card in hand saying 'here is my money' get turned away, and Canadian customers can't buy BOOKS just because they have crappy CELL PHONE COMPANIES, and then they have the nerve to complain that they aren't making enough money???

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Bob T

Yes...I knew someone would point this out...
But it seems like the industry wants to eliminate sharing, not just copying and I think this is what people see as the issue...

It is what I see as the issue...
I will continue to buy paper books when I know the titles are something I'd like to share...

Not only sharing, but selling as well. How many used eBook stores do you think there will be if the industry continues to have it's way?

DRM is not about copy protection, it's about restricting consumer rights that the industry doesn't like.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by ficbot

It's ridiculous though. They have products that people want to buy, and they are trying to stop them thanks to DRM and geo-restrictions. They are taking exactly the wrong approach. Oh no! We have a product and people want to buy it, what should we do? Um, make it easy for them to buy it? But no, they make all these restrictions so UK customers with credit card in hand saying 'here is my money' get turned away, and Canadian customers can't buy BOOKS just because they have crappy CELL PHONE COMPANIES, and then they have the nerve to complain that they aren't making enough money???

But that's only because of other obligations, contracts and agreements. Certainly they would take your money if nothing stood in their way. The publishing industry has pretty much for all it's history been driven by contracts and agreements between authors and publishers and distributors and bookstores...

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

In time, I believe a "practically bulletproof" DRM system would be possible and effective (think biometrics), but we're a long ways from that.

Biometric DRM has been absolutely and totally dead on arrival in the market because customers are not interested, in any way shape or form. It arrived on some laptops in the 06-07 period, and promptly vanished again because of near-zero usage.

There are uses for DRM. Very few involve consumers. (There are plenty of back-end business uses which are undeniably useful, but they are not going to find any consumer market acceptance)

Your assumption that customers are criminals: "Valuable products need some level of security" dosn't fly in the market. This has been proven repeatedly. Even fairly non-intrusive DRM slashes your customer base each and every time it's encountered or reported on.

Incidentally, I lived in an certain area of Oxford for 2 1/2 years. We never locked the front door. There was no need.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Happ

I would like it that more and more small businesses like Baen could thrive. That was, after all, the Internet promise, in the beginning, remember? Authors alone, and small publishers, would get a piece of the pie. This was a dream that died early when the ‘free’ business model killed it. Now unless you have lots of people around to click your ads you make almost no money.

Baen would prove great if its business were so good that everyone started to copycat it. After all, e-book publishers are trying to copycat Kindle which in turn is trying to copycat iTunes. And this all is for a reason: money. These models suck to you and me, but make money. More than Baen. What does this tell you? That Baen’s model has a future and that iTunes’ model doesn’t?

So, my verdict is that Baen has not gone bust yet just because it is publishing trade paperbacks and there is money in this. Without that, Baen would cease to exist. So if e-books become more a more common and trade paperbacks more and more cumbersome, Baen will go bust. Unless it changes its business model.

My coin is still sitting on the table.....

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Bob T

Yes...I knew someone would point this out...
But it seems like the industry wants to eliminate sharing, not just copying and I think this is what people see as the issue...

It is what I see as the issue...
I will continue to buy paper books when I know the titles are something I'd like to share...

Sharing is a purely subsidiary function of literature, something a lot of people do not do with their books, and would not miss. That's not to say that sharing shouldn't be desired, but that it, along with other subsidiary functions (like resale, something else a lot of people don't do and wouldn't miss), might have to be lost over time given the demands of the media. We can't expect to be able to do all the same things we did with paper... we have to accept the losses with the gains. And hopefully there will be enough of a price evolution with e-books that loss of sharing and resale won't be that much of an issue in the future.

It's something like watching a game of sports, then discovering they've put up a fence, and now charge to go in and watch. The game doesn't change, but the spectator has to get used to a new way of enjoying it (or not). And hopefully, those changes (box-office receipts) will contribute to improving the game experience, and so prove worthwhile.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Both examples ably demonstrate that DRM (just another form of product security) is workable

What examples are you talking about? iTunes doesn't have DRM, neither does Baen.

Also, DRM has never been about product security. It actually can not be used for product security.

Valuable products need some level of security, or they get stolen, plain and simple. To solve that dilemma, you can only do 3 things: Add effective and acceptable security; remove the value; or make someone else pay for the product.

You will never be able to prevent your product from being stolen. Instead of more and more security, which will never work, you need to make a product that people want and charge a cost for it that provides them value. There will always be those out there who will take without paying, and you will never be able to stop them. Instead, focus on increasing the value for your actual customers.

In time, I believe a "practically bulletproof" DRM system would be possible and effective (think biometrics), but we're a long ways from that.

As has been pointed out before, there is no such thing as a "practically bulletproof" DRM system which will provide effective product security. You're making the same mistake that many people do in thinking "as long as we can make a stronger lock, we can prevent people from getting in". Biometrics, or whatever else you want to come up, are not going to solve the problem. People don't defeat DRM by breaking the lock.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by kennyc

But that's only because of other obligations, contracts and agreements. Certainly they would take your money if nothing stood in their way. The publishing industry has pretty much for all it's history been driven by contracts and agreements between authors and publishers and distributors and bookstores...

Most of those contracts and agreements are in place to protect their control of the distribution of content to consumers. They would rather lose some sales than threaten their power base.