Tricky Question of the Day: I want a book... where should I buy it?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by THJahar

I like to purchase books but object to the assumption by ebook manufacturers that i'm a potential thief (which in essence what DRM implies)
Therefore i ALWAYS strip the DRM off my files.

Note to everybody who's made a similar statement on these forums somewhere: Although I understand what you're saying, proclaiming to publishers that "You assume I'm a thief, so I'll always break your DRM... so there!" is probably not the best way of getting your point across to them. Think about it.

"I won't buy your DRM'd product" would probably be more to the point.

Just an observation.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Note to everybody who's made a similar statement on these forums somewhere: Although I understand what you're saying, proclaiming to publishers that "You assume I'm a thief, so I'll always break your DRM... so there!" is probably not the best way of getting your point across to them. Think about it.

"I won't buy your DRM'd product" would probably be more to the point.

Just an observation.

The problem is either we buy the DRM book and break the DRM or we put up with DRM. And if we do not purchase the DRM books, the publishers will think ebooks are a failure and not publish them. They won't be thinking "Oh they don't want to buy DRM books so we'll remove the DRM and sell them." They don't think like us. They think like we are all cheats and thieves.

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Note to everybody who's made a similar statement on these forums somewhere: Although I understand what you're saying, proclaiming to publishers that "You assume I'm a thief, so I'll always break your DRM... so there!" is probably not the best way of getting your point across to them. Think about it.

"I won't buy your DRM'd product" would probably be more to the point.

Just an observation.

I do not believe (big) publishers are listening anyway, so it's quite irrelevant what we say here or anywhere else. Personally I find these forums very useful and entertaining but I am not under any illusion that we can do anything about large scale e-book adoption here...

The music studios heard about the mp3 tsunami for a long time and never listened, no reason publishers are different

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The problem is either we buy the DRM book and break the DRM or we put up with DRM. And if we do not purchase the DRM books, the publishers will think ebooks are a failure and not publish them. They won't be thinking "Oh they don't want to buy DRM books so we'll remove the DRM and sell them." They don't think like us. They think like we are all cheats and thieves.

Not so, old chum! There are plenty of non-DRM sources of e-books (like the one your signature says you're currently reading, and the books on independent sites like mine, for example), and ways to track those sales as well (if not as easily) as the big publishers' sales.

If we purchase no-DRM books exclusively, the publishers will say, "Well, we can't sell with DRM, because people only buy no-DRM books, so in order to make money, we need to think of something else that doesn't require DRM." Or they'll go out of business, and the no-DRM businesses will grow.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Liviu_5

I do not believe (big) publishers are listening anyway, so it's quite irrelevant what we say here or anywhere else. Personally I find these forums very useful and entertaining but I am not under any illusion that we can do anything about large scale e-book adoption here...

Then what are we doing here?

This forum has already demonstrated that, at times, it has had the ear (and/or the regular participation in discussions) of Sony, Adobe, Project Gutenberg, iRex, Baen Books, and many other publishers and hardware/software manufacturers. The site also informs and influences small publishers and independents, further giving growth to the industry. The whole point of that is to attempt to influence the industry towards the production of e-books, and however effectively, I'd argue that MobileRead has done so.

We're not here just to share free books! We're here to instigate change! E-book lovers unite... you have nothing to lose but your musty-smelling old spines! One, Two, Three, Four.... E-books are whut we're fightin' for! Viva La Revolution!

...hagh...

Hmm. No more mocha fraps for me today...

[JSWolf]

But the other problem is that if we stop buying the DRM laden ebooks, then what are our choices? We buy the dead tree edition and then they think ebooks don't sell and just keep with the dead tree books. How do we tell them without showing something to the contrary?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But the other problem is that if we stop buying the DRM laden ebooks, then what are our choices? We buy the dead tree edition and then they think ebooks don't sell and just keep with the dead tree books. How do we tell them without showing something to the contrary?

Then... are you ready?... Don't buy the dead tree books either. Or buy fewer p-books than e-books. Trust me, someone will crunch the numbers, and the big publishers will figure out what you're buying, and what you're avoiding. That's what they do. And they'll either sit there and watch their market share erode, or they'll find a way to give you what you've indicated you're willing to buy.

Or they'll run some Madison-Avenue con to make you think that e-books really do suck, and you'll give them up, and drive to the bookstore in your Hummer and pay for your $25 paperback with your 30% interest MasterCard.

Ultimately, it's up to us, not the publishers. Buy their books. Or not. Let them worry about what they do about it.

[JSWolf]

But as I see it, there are enough people who purchase dead tree books that if we stopped buying books altogether they'd just thing oh, dead tree books still sell and ebooks don't. Ok, let's stop wasting money on ebooks. And poof, gone.

[nekokami]

I've taken to contacting authors directly and highly recommending that they get their agents to press for ebooks-- and I always point them to Baen as an example of how to do it "right." So far I'm having moderate success with this strategy. (It helps that I read science fiction, so the authors tend to know what Baen is, at least.)

I noticed we're starting to get e-textbook ads here at MobileRead. I think that's a good sign.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

You're forgetting that the independents will still be there, and believe me, if you're buying e-books from them, they'll be plenty vocal in telling the industry "Hey, we're selling e-books like gangbusters!" The big publishers will get the word, they're not living in a complete vacuum, and they don't just talk amongst themselves. They will understand: "People are buying e-books... just not from us."

When they come to that realization, they'll have little choice but to sell e-books the way the independents sell them, or let the market slip away.

As for us, we have to decide what's important to us: Whether we buy the latest Tom Clancy book, or whether we buy it only if it's an e-book. That kind of decision gets the big publisher's attention... especially if you take the time to tell them so, at the bookseller, in a letter to the author (as Neko suggests) or their publisher, or in a books forum that you know they monitor. If you want e-books that bad, vote with your wallet.

Because one thing is true: If you knuckle under and buy whatever they give you, they'll have absolutely no reason to do anything different.

[nekokami]

If there's a marked uptick in Mobi sales that times with the release of cracking tools for that format, maybe they'll notice that, too.

I wonder if/how they monitor actual leakage from their files to the darknet? If I were relying on DRM, I'd want to try to monitor how much of my profits were leaking out anyway. If the sales go up and the darknet content doesn't really change, I'd think a sensible publisher would say, "you know, we can cut our costs by getting rid of this DRM stuff, and our sales will probably go up even further and we won't be 'losing' any more control of content than we've lost already."

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by nekokami

I wonder if/how they monitor actual leakage from their files to the darknet?

I could be wrong, but my impression is the publishers (or, for that matter, any other businesses or websites) don't have any reliable way to measure e-book "leakage."

You can, to some extent, track the web-wide distribution of a particular file... but if the file is altered or renamed, said tracking falls through. So it falls to polls of sample populations and a lot of guesswork, or embedded data that either self-reports to a server, or that coaxes users to click a link that tracks responses, to estimate distribution or leakage.

I don't even think e-book publishers are keeping track of erroneous or illicit DRM-release requests, much less embedding file-tracking bots or links into e-books.

[jharker]

E-book publishing right now is in its infancy. In 5-10 years, I expect book publishers to be in roughly the same situation that music publishers are in today.

Right now, everyone and their kid brother has an mp3 player of some kind or another (iPod, etc.). And everyone wants to buy their music electronically, except for vinyl purists. Yet, the music industry is STILL wasting time and losing money by mucking around with a babel of DRMs, suing pirates, and playing with copyright law. They haven't yet learned that the best way to do business is simply to sell un-DRMed mp3s from official sites with a common user-friendly interface. Less hassle = More business.

Heck, iTunes became hugely popular even WITH DRM, because Apple understood the cardinal rule: less hassle = more business.

Now, compare that to the book industry today. They don't even have a huge demand to motivate them, simply because the easy, convenient e-readers don't really exist yet. Few people even have a Sony Reader. As a result, we have an even WORSE babel of DRMs, a lack of available titles, ridiculous pricing... etc.

But looking at the music industry makes me despair that book publishers will get their act together, even 3-5 years from now. The only hope I see is that book publishers might learn from the music industry's mistakes...

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by jharker

The only hope I see is that book publishers might learn from the music industry's mistakes...

I share that hope, jharker, and there have been pretty good signs that the pubs are watching the music industry situation. So I guess, in a way, it's good that e-books have lagged behind e-tunes, in that the pubs have a pretty nasty counter example to (hopefully) not follow.

[mocelet]

The problem with the music industry comparison though, is that with music you can buy a CD (which has no DRM of any description, despite Sony's best efforts) and easily convert it to MP3s (or Ogg Vorbis, or AAC, or FLAC, or ALAC, or WMA or...) on your own computer with no hassle in 5-20 minutes (depending on how anal you are about rip quality, tagging and compression details). I personally do this and keep all my Ogg Vorbis files to myself and don't share them with anyone but my wife. The CDs stay in the cupboard away from scratchy CD players.

There is no similar route for converting a p-book into an e-book. I have never tried to scan and OCR a book, but I expect that 0.5 to 1 page per minute is the fastest you will ever go unless you cut the spine off and have a sheet feeder on your scanner. So a regular paperback is going to take 4-8 hours to convert. I can read some books in less time than that!

Consequently we are reliant on publishers or pirates to provide e-books that we can use, and until DRM free, universal format e-books are available, pirate books in HTML look like a very good proposition. And if you buy the p-book version as well, many people believe that this is like buying a CD and ripping it to MP3. Of course it isn't, but there is no better route.