Ebook readers - a challenge to average users

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by tompe

Odd? I thought everybody did that...

I myself have a bunch of books going at the same time. I'll have to edit my signature to show which ones.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

I won't argue with most of your comments, other than to say that you may be a bit harsh. I think you're grouping "ignorant" people in with those who, honestly, just don't care.

But in essence, you're right: People should know that their HW and SW isn't perfect, and will likely only last a few years, and if they want something that will be more lasting, they should be using HW and SW that can be easily converted to universal formats and systems, to be ported to "the next device or app" down the line. They should also be smart enough to back things up and do preventive maintenance on their systems... anyone who doesn't, has no one to blame when their systems go down and everything is lost.

It's harder for people to appreciate how transitory a company or service can be (for some reason), but that lesson is being learned by more and more people every day. Even iTunes could disappear, if someone else develops AlphaOmegaTunes and Apple loses all of their business. Even iTunes users should prepare for that, if they want to keep their music, plain and simple.

Originally Posted by recycledelectron

I mean that the students can rip books for their own use. As for the time, let's get togeather half-a-dozen able students that are all using the same 5 textbooks, averaging 600 pages each. At a ripping rate of 400 pages per hour, it doesn't take even 90 minutes per student to have digital editions available.

I was thinking of programs that have students ripping non-textbooks for other people's use. I wouldn't want to see professors going to their students and saying, "For class today, we're going to all go over to the campus library, and work for Google scanning and OCRing the books in the Rs of the fiction section..." If students are being paid for the work, fine.

Originally Posted by recycledelectron

I've been cheated time after time by companies that deliberately kept their software from working on my PCs. That is bad in my view, but you find it acceptable. We have different morals.

No, I don't find that acceptable. However, when you say "deliberately," you're implying that they honestly didn't want the software to work for you. Isn't it more likely that they simply didn't anticipate the way you intended to use it, so their DRM couldn't take that into account? Or that they did design it that way, but in order to prevent the possibility of the SW being pirated, a perfectly legitimate concern on their part, and with no malice towards you in particular?

Granted, maybe they did know it wouldn't work, and simply neglected to give adequate warning of that, in order to see bigger sales. In most cases, however, the SW maker simply can't anticipate every system and contingency. I myself have had problems with SW that was designed to run on the "average" PC, with "average" SW installed, but with my tweaks and additional system-monitoring SW, certain things wouldn't run on mine, and I'd have to return them. Even happens with Macs. Until computers are better-designed, and SW better-programmed, those things are going to happen, and you just have to understand and accept that.

And as you say, anyone who won't accept that is... well... ignorant.

Originally Posted by recycledelectron

More than anything else, I demand that my authoring system (which has never been connected to the Internet) work, without phoning home.

All I can say is, start thinking about designing and building all of your own HW/SW. That's the only way you are going to guarantee something like that.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by shousa

You do lose substantial quality in ripping the CD back to MP3s which is a legitimate use - so in my view I agree with Andy.

Loss of quality is true of any CD to MP3 conversion. For myself, I've ripped iTunes material to CD, then burned to MP3, and I have not noticed a "substantial" drop in sound quality. Possibly your MP3 conversion method needs tweaking.

[HarryT]

I generally create MP3s at 320kbit sampling rate. At that rate, I can no longer hear any difference between the MP3 and the CD original. I am, however, "middle aged" and so have lost the upper frequencies in my hearing.

[safjazz]

You can't commit to an e-book reader. I get that. I used a PDA for a year before I purchased an e-book to read on it. I was hooked after that. I didn't know what the experience of reading an entire book on a PDA was like until I tried it. I looked at the Sony Reader in the Borders store dozens of times over about six months before I purchased one. I didn't know how much I would enjoy it until I had one.

I'm not aware of an e-book reader being tied to one store. I read multiformat books from Fictionwise all of the time. It's true that the quality varies because the titles tend to be from small presses, but I find that to be true of books that make it to the NY Times Bestseller list, which are published by large houses. Between Sony Connect, Fictionwise, and Project Gutenberg, thousands of titles are available to the average consumer who doesn't want to break DRM.

With the emergence of the .epub format and the way the music industry is going in regards to DRM, I have a feeling that your legitimate concern about DRM will not be as much of an issue in a year or two.

Will I challenge your conclusion that "all current e-book readers will die"? Of course not. They will die. Is anyone truly disputing this? When I was a little girl in the 1970s, we had a 19 in. black and white Zenith TV that was for the kids' use. That TV lasted about 25 years. Can I go out to Best Buy today and buy one? I wouldn't want to even though it was highly reliable. I have a Magnavox HDTV today. It's superior. I want a superior e-book reader in the future. Does this make me a techno-freak or am I reflecting the attitude of the "average consumer?"

Here comes the part where I address your challenge. I can't use it for all of my paperback needs (I'm assuming here you mean novels or other books that are mostly text). How could I? Only a small fraction of books are available digitally. I read such a variety of books that I can't always find what I want electronically. However, I still bought an e-reader. Does that make me a techno-freak fond of "useless gadgets" or am I an average consumer who likes the features an e-reader offers?

In the future, I think my dad will be able to answer your challenge. I showed my 76-year-old dad my Sony Reader. He loved the legibility. I would say he has average technical skills. Will he buy one? No. He wants a Kindle because he saw it in Newsweek, and he likes the idea of buying books wirelessly. Will he care about DRM? No. He wants to read a book once and doesn't care what happens to it later. I think average consumers are like that. Keeping books forever tends to be what bibliophiles do and your challenge seems to exclude them.

My stepmom wants me to let her know when Amazon has Kindles in stock again, so she can buy my Dad one for his birthday.

Is my dad an average consumer? Yes. Is he a techno-freak that loves to buy useless gadgets? No. We kept a black and white TV for a little over 25 years because it still worked. Will he find the books he wants? Since he is a NY Times Bestseller kind of reader, I don't think he'll have a problem. Does that represent the average consumer? I would say yes because that's how the books become bestsellers is that the average reader buys them.

I can't find any report on real sales figures for the Sony Reader. I do know that the SonyStyle store has been out of stock for weeks. In my opinion, that could be because of the media coverage about the Kindle has made people aware of the Reader. Maybe we'll hear a positive report of sales in the future.

However, I don't think you should get an e-reader. Seriously. Wait until it's absolutely perfect for you and has what you want. Then, it won't be a waste of money for you.

It definitely hasn't been a waste of money for me.

[shousa]

Thanks for that - it was just a challenge not my view.

In the end I bought a Sony 505!

[safjazz]

Oh, very cool. I hope you are enjoying it.

[recycledelectron]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You are mistaken, Andy. iTunes DRM doesn't prevent this. You can burn an audio CD of any music from iTunes, including DRM-protected music. I think personally that iTunes DRM works extremely well. It really doesn't interfere with any "legitimate" use of the music.

I apologize - I do not use iTunes and was guessing based on reviews & posts. (a bad habit.)

Now for tonight's exciting installment of:
"DRM users are either ignorant (and don't know they will be screwed) or are ticked off because they have been screwed!"

A friend of mine bought a set-top VCR / DVD Burner at Sears' about a year ago, and paid around $200 for the Samsung unit. The problem is that it only plays 2/3 of his commercial DVDs. Tonight, we popped in a the first DVD of my friend's collectors edition, digitally remastered, 8(?)-volume "Planet of the Apes" boxed set. The DVD player refused to play it. It said "Unrecognized Disc."

For the ignorant (i.e., those who have not yet been screwed by DRM) DVDs are digitally encrypted with secret technology. That means that they may or may not play in a given player, depending on the revision of the CSS algorithm on the DVD and in the player.

I didn't bother with my locally purchased anime DVDs, as they are not encoded for region 1.

For the ignorant, DVDs are also encoded to only play in 1 of several regions.

The idea is to keep pirates from taking an American DVD and playing it in Australia. The result is to make it difficult or impossible for film aficionados to watch that one rare British, French, or Japanese movie that they love. Worse yet, you might play an anime DVD, changing your region encoding on your PC. Because you are only allowed 5 changes, this might be the last one. You may accidentally permanently lock your DVD player to Japanese movies only.

Pirates who are making money off this can easily afford a correct-region DVD player, or have software to change the region encoding as many times as they like. (Even linking to this software is illegal in the USA. Using it is a felony under the DMCA's "anti-circumvention" clause.)

Andy

[recycledelectron]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

They should also be smart enough to back things up and do preventive maintenance on their systems... anyone who doesn't, has no one to blame when their systems go down and everything is lost.

DRM prevents backing up data. For example the protection in many versions of Microsoft Software prevents a backup copy of a hard disk from running on a different PC, or in a virtual machine.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

It's harder for people to appreciate how transitory a company or service can be (for some reason), but that lesson is being learned by more and more people every day. Even iTunes could disappear, if someone else develops AlphaOmegaTunes and Apple loses all of their business. Even iTunes users should prepare for that, if they want to keep their music, plain and simple.

You always refer to how the manufacturer intends us to use their software. Intending it to only be used while a license server is up, and then claiming that you can use it forever is an act of fraud. Remember when Lotus went kaput? I lost my business due to the DMCA.

I've said we have different morals. Anyone who defends any DRM scheme that involves a license server is immoral. Such as defense concludes that it's OK for a company to lock down S/W so that it can not be used after they go bust. How many of the early silent movie companies survive today? If they had to spend $10,000 per year to keep a license server running from the days of silent movies until today, if the anti-circumvention clause of the DMCA had been in effect, if the term of copyrights had been 95 years, would we have ANY silent movies left? OF COURSE NOT!

DRM supporters are immoral because they are willing to throw our society away for a few bucks.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

when you say "deliberately," you're implying that they honestly didn't want the software to work for you. Isn't it more likely that they simply didn't anticipate the way you intended to use it, so their DRM couldn't take that into account? Or that they did design it that way, but in order to prevent the possibility of the SW being pirated, a perfectly legitimate concern on their part, and with no malice towards you in particular?

That's a nice straw man in the argument.

When I say "deliberately" I do not mean they had my name on a memo. I mean that they knew their product would not work on a percentage of users equipment - BECAUSE OF THE DRM - and they decided to rip us off with no hope of a refund. A legit company would allow a full refund if you sent in a pic of the TV screen not playing a DVD, with the DVD.

Selling products you know will not work part of the time, due to your deliberately inserted code, and then refusing refunds is immoral.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Granted, maybe they did know it wouldn't work, and simply neglected to give adequate warning of that, in order to see bigger sales. In most cases, however, the SW maker simply can't anticipate every system and contingency. I myself have had problems with SW that was designed to run on the "average" PC, with "average" SW installed, but with my tweaks and additional system-monitoring SW, certain things wouldn't run on mine, and I'd have to return them. Even happens with Macs. Until computers are better-designed, and SW better-programmed, those things are going to happen, and you just have to understand and accept that.

Let me repeat your words..."the SW maker simply can't anticipate every system and contingency"

As time goes on, it will be more difficult to anticipate the changes. Eventually, it is impossible.

I can get an emulator to run an old (not-DRMed) bit of software or media. People have even used optical page scanners to read old LPs.

Therefore, to limit products to only run in their approved circumstances with deliberate software locks that are illegal to bypass under the DMCA is to prevent their products from being useful.

I can read old formats with creative programs, but I can not legally bypass old digital locks.

Imagine if the old LPs were software locked, so it was a felony to play them with your freely downloaded program that reads a .TIFF from a scanner. 95 year copyrights mean that almost all audio from certain eras would be lost.

I would not have the great speeched from Churchill, JFK, and Reagan. I would have never heard the voice of Teddy Roosevelt ripping into his congressional opponents.

Of course, DRM supporters think that's OK if you make an extra $1.50.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

All I can say is, start thinking about designing and building all of your own HW/SW. That's the only way you are going to guarantee something like that.

I avoid all software locks. Any product that is software locked after I purchase it, that was not labeled as such is I treat as fraud.

I much prefer Linux and other open source software due to the freedom - and I don't mean free as in beer. I mean the freedom to run it in an emulator in the distant future.

I demand that my important computer resources be rugged and portable. I am currently moving to (only) a set of solar cells, a car charger, a few HDDs, a UMPC, and a reader. I keep TB backups cached all over Texas and neighboring states.

Someone like you or Zahi Hawass will tell a cop (like the one that destroyed my library years ago at a traffic stop) to trash my library - it might contain an unauthorized picture of the great pyramid in a history book from 1893. It might be on recordable media. I might not need all those files. There might be something in there that I don't need to be reading. Maybe my time could be better spent elsewhere.

Andy

Andy

[recycledelectron]

Now for tonight's exciting installment of:
"DRM users are either ignorant (and don't know they will be screwed) or are ticked off because they have been screwed!"

I teach computer programming classes using Microsoft's Visual Studio .NET (when the University makes me use it.)

The first challenge is when students want to order the S/W and take forever to get it to work.

I took a poll:

Question: Who has gotten VS.NET 2005 to work on their laptop / home computer?
Answer: About half the class, the rest are living in the computer lab.

Question: Who bought a legitimate copy?
Answer: About half the class, but it seemed like there were a lot of students in this group that were not in the previous group, and vice versa.

Question: Who had a pirated copy not work?
Answer: Nobody. Not one hand. (Maybe they don't want to admit trying to pirate the s/w.)

Question: Who got a pirated copy, and has it working?
Answer: About half the class.

Question: Who has a legit copy, and has it working?
Answer: One student, who puts up his hand until his friend pulls his errant hand down and says "no, I lied to you - that's a warez copy I put on your laptop."

Question: Who has a legit copy, and has not gotten it to work?
Answer: About half the class.

The moral of the story is this: Don't buy Microsoft software and expect it to work. Cracked copies are much more likely to work on the versions of Microsoft Windows that are included on new laptops.

I got a free copy of VS.NET 2005 from Microsoft at their "Rock the Launch" event, which worked on 1 out of 7 PCs that I tried to install it on. It never stated it would not work on certain licenses or vrsions of Windows, but it has severe limitations. Looking over my students' shoulders, it seems that cracked copies work everywhere.

Andy

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by recycledelectron

Pirates who are making money off this can easily afford a correct-region DVD player, or have software to change the region encoding as many times as they like. (Even linking to this software is illegal in the USA. Using it is a felony under the DMCA's "anti-circumvention" clause.)

Andy

I purchased my Phillips DVD player because it plays DiVX and XViD as well as DVDs and can be set to play region free. I did not have to load any special software or convert any DVDs. It just works as is.

[HarryT]

Pretty much every DVD player can be "region unlocked" these days. Region coding is pretty much of a "non-problem".

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by recycledelectron

The moral of the story is this: Don't buy Microsoft software and expect it to work. Cracked copies are much more likely to work on the versions of Microsoft Windows that are included on new laptops.

There's something VERY odd there, Andy. The company I work for uses exclusively laptops and we've been installing Visual Studio (VS6, VS2003, VS2005) for many years - we've installed literally hundreds of (legit) copies of it. Never had a single installation problem, that I can remember; it just works. I wonder what it is about your laptops that make is so unreliable? If your university has a support contract with Microsoft it might be worthwhile to raise it as a support issue and try and track it down.

We find VS to be competely stable. I certainly wouldn't just accept the fact that "it's unreliable" - it isn't, in our experience. I've been developing with VS (and its predecessors) for something like 15 years and find it to be a superb development tool.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Pretty much every DVD player can be "region unlocked" these days. Region coding is pretty much of a "non-problem".

It's almost like the manufacturers are going out of their way to make it easy.
As if they're afraid they'd lose customers if they didn't.

[HarryT]

I think it's just that they've accepted the fact that it's a world-wide market these days. It's just as easy for me to buy region 1 (US) DVDs from Amazon as it is to buy region 2 (UK) ones.