Digital Vs. Physical Goods

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

But there really is little doubt that recordings are suffering (contrary to KevinH's claims), or that piracy has reduced sales and drastically slowed the adoption of paid downloads of music.

Well piracy had a good 10 year headstart on legal downloads because of music industry resistance, but I don't really see how you can say it is responsible for any lost sales. It's a completely different demographic. If something isn't there to download nobody is going to rush out and buy it, they will just download something else instead. It's like saying if a song isn't played on the radio everyone will go out and buy it instead of just listening to whatever else is played on the radio. If anything it is more likely to increase sales.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by susan_cassidy

You distributed content to a third party by leaving it on the Kindle.

But I no longer have the Kindle. I agree to be held to the ToS in exchange for using it. How can I still be under the ToS if I don't have it, or the content? It makes no sense to be held to a ToS for a service you no longer have.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by leebase

That's just silly. People mass distribute digital content because they have no regard for intellectual property. There is no justification or incentive such that if the content author changed their ways, the pirates would respect their ip.

Why would anyone pay you for your "used ebook" <stifles a snicker> when they can just steal the file. If they are going to steal from the author, why would they not steal from some guy trying to resell is "used" digital file <ok, now I can't actually hold the laughter in>

Lee

I think the point is, if people could sell their used ebooks they wouldn't put it on the internet for free because that would make it less likely that someone would buy it from them.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

I think the point is, if people could sell their used ebooks they wouldn't put it on the internet for free because that would make it less likely that someone would buy it from them.

It only takes one guy -- not you perse -- to put a file on the internet for worldwide dissemination.

The content creator must contend with the difference between a digital good and a physical good. The difference requires a new paradigm of "ownership" and thus we have "licensing".

DRM may not currently be 100% effective in stopping piracy -- and it may be a great PIA for legitimate customers -- but it is rational for digital content to be licensed and for content creators to strive to protect their intellectual property.

Having no DRM is pretty close to having no copyright. Copyright exists for the benefit of both content creators and society. If we don't figure out how secure IP for content creators in the digital age, we'll all be poorer.

Lee

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

If the device is being sold along with the content, how is that violating the terms of service? If I sell that Kindle, I'm no longer getting the service, am I?

Kindle books you buy aren't tied to a physical Kindle, but to your Amazon account. You can sell the Kindle, and still have full access to all the books you bought while you owned it through your Amazon account.

You are still getting the service.

[susan_cassidy]

And the TOS applies to all the content, not just the physical device.

[whitearrow]

All DRM accomplishes is to frustrate paying customers. Look at how many threads are on the front page of this forum right now complaining about problems with ADE.

The number of torrent users who have trouble with ADE? Zero.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Kindle books you buy aren't tied to a physical Kindle, but to your Amazon account. You can sell the Kindle, and still have full access to all the books you bought while you owned it through your Amazon account.

You are still getting the service.

Oh, right. I forgot that the books are still available through the Amazon account, even when you de-register the Kindle. Damn. I hate when that happens.

[Fayth]

Originally Posted by GreenMonkey

DRM does nothing to stop piracy. Nothing. It doesn't even stop casual copying between friends. People simply download a torrent instead.

I disagree. I have plenty of friends and family who know nothing about torrents. Some of those know about limewire and programs like that, but are afraid to use them because they don't want viruses. I understand that this is the minority in this day and age, but there are still a decent amount of people out there who don't know how easily accessible pirated content is.

That being said, I still believe DRM is useless. Those people who don't know how to torrent likely aren't going out of their way to copy files and give them to friends.

I'm of the strong opinion that DRM does nothing helpful for any party. If content distributors want to minimize piracy they need to find someway else to do it, or ignore it. There will always be people willing to buy a good product.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by Fayth

I disagree. I have plenty of friends and family who know nothing about torrents. Some of those know about limewire and programs like that, but are afraid to use them because they don't want viruses. I understand that this is the minority in this day and age, but there are still a decent amount of people out there who don't know how easily accessible pirated content is.

That being said, I still believe DRM is useless. Those people who don't know how to torrent likely aren't going out of their way to copy files and give them to friends.

I think you're half-right. I think the vast majority of people have no idea what torrents are or how to use them. But I think that, particularly in the book culture, there's a strong impulse to lend books to other readers. All the people I know would think nothing of lending a book to a friend. I've certainly done that more than a few times with paper books. I think that same impulse would lead readers to give books to other readers. Now, I don't see the non-technical book lover going on to a torrent site and sharing their book with 100,000 of their closest "friends", but because e-readers are a tech gadget, technically-adept people are going to be attracted to them.

I would also point this out: Music and books are fundamentally different steps in communication -- not just different types of communication. Proposing that authors make their money from public readings, book signings, etc., will result in fewer people writing, and it will ultimately send us back to being an oral culture, rather than a written culture. That would be a massive step backward for society.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by leebase

Having no DRM is pretty close to having no copyright. Copyright exists for the benefit of both content creators and society. If we don't figure out how secure IP for content creators in the digital age, we'll all be poorer.

This is why Baen went bankrupt several years ago.

Oh, wait.
---

We do need to sort out IP rights in a digital age. We may not be able to do it without a complete overhaul of copyright law, which the media production companies will fight tooth and nail against, because any serious look at the law will show huge gaps and problems, and any *actual* fixes, as opposed to more unregulated extensions, will not be in their favor.

DRM, in the current sense of "only a registered device can view this content," isn't going to work. The software isn't able to register enough devices, or allow customized settings on the registered content, and companies aren't invested in keeping the registration servers active indefinitely. And since consumers know--enough of them, anyway--that DRM means "your file is dead" when the seller goes out of business, there'll always be an incentive to crack it, just for personal use.

I'm in the group that believes the Bagel Story is accurate... 80% or so will pay for what they get, if the price is reasonable and the content is accessible. If he'd put out a tip jar that said "Bagels: $10," I suspect he'd've gotten a lot less payments; had he wrapped each bagel in a sealed plastic container and taped it shut with strapping tape, so that you'd need scissors to open it, I suspect many people would've decided it was too much work, or that they didn't owe him a dollar for the amount of hassle he put them through. (That they wouldn't have the hassle if they ignored the bagels wouldn't occur to them.)

Baen succeeds, in part, by convincing customers it's worth paying, and by reminding them that if they don't pay, Baen can't keep giving them what they want. In a world where copies are easy--and they're never going to get harder--Authors and publishers will have to use some variant of that method.

No DRM is going to prevent digital copies: the Harry Potter books have the perfect digital DRM (you can't read legit copies on *any* machine), and yet they're widely available. Unless we wind up in the Stallman dystopia, content is going to be shared with people who didn't pay for it. It always has been.

Authors and publishers need to figure out how much of their fanbase has never been their paid-customer base, and start working on the problem from that direction, not on the "stop people from reading what they haven't bought" idea. Most of us grew up reading books we hadn't bought.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

DRM, in the current sense of "only a registered device can view this content," isn't going to work...

True. However, it could work if it was modified to adhere to the principle that "only a registered USER can view this content."

Doing so would require an ID verification module on whatever device you used to read a document... verify your ID with a thumbprint scan, say, and the doc opens. The software would only be able to read ID-registered content, so the distributor of the content would need to ID-register any content you obtained before you loaded it into your device.

This also requires closed reading hardware/software that cannot be easily hacked or modified, like an iPad or iTouch and iOS.

Bottom line, it's do-able with today's technology. Not much different than logging into your PC before you can use it.

[KevinH]

And doomed to fail. I will not give anyone my fingerprints just to read a book.

I predict that within 5 years, all ebook DRM will be gone, good authors will still make money (as much or more than they did before), more authors will arrive that go direct to market skipping publishers, publishers that fight the change and not adapt to it will fail, and none of that will require fingerprints or other draconian measures to make it work.

When that happens we can look back at these meaningless arguments and discussions and laugh.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Doing so would require an ID verification module on whatever device you used to read a document... verify your ID with a thumbprint scan, say, and the doc opens.

Setting aside the "whodahell is going to agree to put their fingerprints on file with every company that sells them ebooks," the tech is not there yet.

When does your fingerprint get scanned to tie it to the book? At time of purchase? In which case, you can only buy it while logged into a computer that has a fingerprint scanner. The fingerprint scanners we have are touchy & buggy; the computers that use them also allow a password workaround, because if your hands are sweaty or dirty the fingerprint might not work.

Any DRM that is *more* troublesome than the current batch is going to be bypassed. Cracked if that's possible; otherwise, people will screencap & convert the documents. If that's not possible--like on an iPad, because of walled garden setups--the content just won't be bought much.

The idea of "here's this terrific DRM that doesn't work if you're in the hospital because your hands are injured" is not going to work. It has to be *more* convenient than the current DRM, or it won't catch on. (Also. Any DRM that attempts to lock to a single user, rather than just a device, is going to be wholeheartedly rejected. The idea of "I can't let my husband read my purchased ebooks" would flop horribly.)

Bottom line, it's do-able with today's technology. Not much different than logging into your PC before you can use it.

This is a non-trivial amount of technology changes, both hardware & software. Most machines today don't have fingerprint checkers. Certainly, my dedicated reader doesn't. Why would I swap to something that does? Why would I pay *more* for an ebook reader that requires an extra physical filter on access to it? Or for one that only loaded books from a program that was attached to a computer with a scanner? Why would I trust that the fingerprint scanner would always work when I want to read?

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

True. However, it could work if it was modified to adhere to the principle that "only a registered USER can view this content."

Doing so would require an ID verification module on whatever device you used to read a document... verify your ID with a thumbprint scan, say, and the doc opens. The software would only be able to read ID-registered content, so the distributor of the content would need to ID-register any content you obtained before you loaded it into your device.

This also requires closed reading hardware/software that cannot be easily hacked or modified, like an iPad or iTouch and iOS.

Bottom line, it's do-able with today's technology. Not much different than logging into your PC before you can use it.

That's how I think it should work. You put a subroutine into the file that asks for an identifier (like your name and credit card number), and then you go on about your reading. Hell, the identifier could be a key you load on to all your devices (computer, Kindle, Nook, iPad, whatever), so that the user wouldn't have to worry about entering a password or anything. It would basically be a PID, but instead of being for one device, it would be for all devices.

As for the bagel experiment, I think the difference here is that the people stealing the bagels have to do it in person, in a very concrete way. That's very different from sitting behind a keyboard. I think that most people who download pirated books would not stoop to shoplifting. And, of course, the bagels can't be replicated, so that if some of them get away for free, there's not the same potential for loss.

Stephen King experimented with "pay what you think is fair" and was very disappointed with it. Radiohead also tried it. And even if we agree that the bagel story would be a typical experience, not every business can take a sustained 13% loss due to theft.

Edited to add: I don't think the biometric idea is practical. It would add too much cost to the devices, and any fingerprint reader I've ever used has been a pain in the ass. I had an HP with a fingerprint reader a few years ago. I could spend 5 minutes swiping my finger on that machine and it'd still refuse me entry. It's not entry to the e-reader that you want to prevent. It's entry into the content. For that purpose, all that has to happen is for the software to know that the person loading the e-book is the same person who bought it. You can do that by putting identifiers in the device and the e-book, without the user's input each time.