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Book Publishers Abandoning DRM

Posted by Zonk on Tue Mar 11, 2008 04:42 AM
from the another-one-bites-the-dust dept.
Media Books Businesses
tmalone writes "The New York Times is reporting that book publishers are beginning to phase out DRM-protected audio books. This month the world's largest publisher, Random House, started offering DRM-free mp3s; Penguin has announced that it will follow suit. Their logic? DRM just doesn't work. 'Publishers, like the music labels and movie studios, stuck to DRM out of fear that pirated copies would diminish revenue. Random House tested the justification for this fear when it introduced the DRM-less concept with eMusic last fall. It encoded those audio books with a digital watermark and monitored online file sharing networks, only to find that pirated copies of its audio books had been made from physical CDs or DRM-encoded digital downloads whose anticopying protections were overridden.'"
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Submission: Book Publishers Abandoning DRM by tmalone (534172)
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  • duh. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dance_Dance_Karnov (793804) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @04:52AM (#22713528) Homepage
    the blindingly obvious usually will win out in time.

    • Re:duh. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by IBBoard (1128019) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @05:06AM (#22713574) Homepage
      I think this is needed as a tag for this article - suddenoutbreakofcommonsense.

      Isn't this all based on something we try to teach children? If you give someone trust then they will do the right thing, but if you're instantly distrustful then they're never going to do the right thing.

      Hurrah for non-DRM! It's good to see they put some effort in to this rather than just going "we must put digital restricting management on the files because of 'teh leet haxxorz' who will cost us trillions of dollars and destroy the world economy by being selfish enough to want to do what they wish with the file they've paid for".

      If only I had the cabling to format-shift my two Discworld audio book tapes.

      • Re:duh. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Idimmu Xul (204345) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @06:28AM (#22713886) Homepage
        Way to not read!

        Isn't this all based on something we try to teach children? If you give someone trust then they will do the right thing, but if you're instantly distrustful then they're never going to do the right thing.
        From the blurb

        It encoded those audio books with a digital watermark and monitored online file sharing networks, only to find that pirated copies of its audio books had been made from physical CDs or DRM-encoded digital downloads whose anticopying protections were overridden.
        People are going to pirate whether their is DRM or not, which is pretty much what their study found.. the DRM did not stop piracy, so why pay extra for a mechanism that doesn't work and inconveniences legitimate purchasers?
    • And some did the right thing way back:

      Baen Webscriptions [webscription.net], Baen free library [baen.com]

  • Audible.com not allowing non DRM books (Score:4, Informative)

    by DKlineburg (1074921) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @04:54AM (#22713540)
    I understand this was originally causing quite a stir with Audible.com [audible.com]. Audible stats that it will not allow any non DRM books to be placed on there site. Even if the author requests that they do so. I know of one author mentioned on TWIT - This Week In Tech [twit.tv]. (I believe was John C Dvorak, but can't remember) that we was not going to put his book up on Audible.com just for the reason he wanted it not DRM'd. With all the major book companies shifting to a none DRM format, I wonder if sites like this that are smaller will change there attitude.
    • Even pdf ebooks are f*cked up. The one I bought from PACKT Publishing [in the UK] was watermarked with my email and mailing address [fine, didn't interfere with me using it], but the book also has errata. A) They don't have a version with the errata applied [which has been expounded as being a reason for having ebooks, because they are SO EASY TO UPDATE]. B) The permissions on the PDF are set so I can't even manually add annotations to the various pages with the errata

    • Re:Audible.com not allowing non DRM books (Score:5, Insightful)

      by allcar (1111567) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @05:19AM (#22713604)
      Audible insists on DRM, so I won't use audible.
      Whenever the free, pirated version is technically superior to the costly commercial version, the business case is on pretty rocky ground.
      There are an increasing number of examples showing that people will pay real money for products that can easily be obtained for nothing, but it must be worth their while. Well presented, high quality, DRM free recording, perhaps accompanied by supporting extras, such as maps and illustrations will sell. The recent experiment by the Nine Inch Nails is an excellent example of people being prepared to pay for a premium product.
      • As the unwilling DRM expert in the school district I work for, I've told all the Librarians to NOT buy from either the Apple iTunes store or Audible.com, to instead buy the books as CD's or even Cassette Tapes and then make their own DRM-less MP3 files for use on the players the district checks out to students.

        We don't do this to get around copyright law, we buy as many copies as are made available, but it is simply NOT WORTH THE TIME AND TROUBLE to deal with DRM.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by douthat (568842)
          Both Audible and iTunes audio books support CD Burning out of the box. If it is your prerogative, you can then rip the CDs to DRM-free mp3s or oggs, or whatever. The DRM is annoying, but not invasive, but using these services is really about the instant gratification. (You can also authorize your audible account on a seemingly endless number of computers and devices. There are also apparently some tools to strip the DRM in pure software.)

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Alon Tal (784059)
      It was Cory Doctorow who complained about Audible's mandatory DRM, in TWiT 124 [twit.tv], around the 43 minute mark.
    • I shall watch with interest to see who wins out: the large publishers or Audible.com

      I tried Audible.com last month - I actually tried to get into Audio books full stop, but on Linux it's a miserable disaster. All the methods I tried failed - for obvious reasons. Audible, however, while having the best site, quality and selection, was the worst experience. Their subscription model is hard to get your head around - especially if you are trying from scratch. And by the time you find out you can't use it on
      • If you have not called them on the phone and waited on hold for 15-30 minutes, your account is probably still active.

        Good luck.
  • I realize almost everyone here knew this back when this whole thing began, but I fear that the music and movie industries will largely ignore this, or, worse, try to improve upon it somehow. The current models are failing, but they don't want to admit it. They'll probably continue investing more into an arms race they can't win. Maybe a mixture of diminishing sales and wasted money will cripple them enough that others can rise up and take their place.
    • ``I realize almost everyone here knew this back when this whole thing began,
      but I fear that the music and movie industries will largely ignore this,
      or, worse, try to improve upon it somehow.''

      I don't mind if they improve it. If they can come up with a scheme that
      allows legitimate use (using the software and hardware of _my_ choice,
      thank you very much) while making unauthorized use harder, I will be
      happy. The problem I have with current DRM schemes is that they
      restrict legitimate use (which then isn't even l

    • I realize almost everyone here knew this back when this whole thing began, but I fear that the music and movie industries will largely ignore this, or, worse, try to improve upon it somehow. The current models are failing, but they don't want to admit it. They'll probably continue investing more into an arms race they can't win. Maybe a mixture of diminishing sales and wasted money will cripple them enough that others can rise up and take their place.

      I'm not so sure. There have already been moves to get music DRM free. Now Audio books seem to be following suit, so perhaps the penny is finally dropping. DRM is not a safeguard, its a challenge.

  • Is the sky falling? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by 49152 (690909) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @05:08AM (#22713580)
    From the article: "Our feeling is that D.R.M. is not actually doing anything to prevent piracy," said Ms. McIntosh of Random House Audio.

    Wtf? A business person actually seeing whats been f...king obvious for years now? :-)

  • I'm impressed. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by v(*_*)vvvv (233078) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @05:16AM (#22713592)
    How often does a company actually get the queue and do something right? The fact that they tested their assumption and made a move based on evidence is praise worthy. Not that they will give up, but at least they figured out how they aren't going to win.

    Maybe these books that everyone talks about actually do make you smarter.

  • They really would be better off with just PDFs (Score:4, Insightful)

    by MikeRT (947531) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @06:17AM (#22713820) Homepage
    What the publishers need to do is make an agreement with a few distribution channels to get their books out there in PDF format incredibly cheap. If I could buy a typical $8 paperback book on the iTMS and sync it to my iPod Touch for $3, I'd buy a lot more books. Not only that, but if you got it down to around $3, the publisher would have much fewer worries about piracy because it'd be clearly discounted for internet sales. One of the things that is just asinine is that most ebooks cost as much as the printed copies!

    I've debated a few IP expansionists on a subject that would do much more to hamper piracy: bringing IP under state property laws. You catch someone making a business off of your IP without you releasing it for free? How does grand theft sound instead of "copyright infringement" if it's really property? You want to get rid of serial piracy, especially the for-profit kind? Throw the punks in with the guys who commit real felony property crimes.

    Of course that's assuming IP is real property...

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by STrinity (723872)

      What the publishers need to do is make an agreement with a few distribution channels to get their books out there in PDF format incredibly cheap
      Please, no. PDFs should be reserved for files where the layout is important. With ebooks, I don't care if the pagination matches that of the dead-tree version. I'd much rather have some form of text markup language where the software can rewrap to make optimal use of my screen space.

  • So Just Watermark Them Then (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby (173196) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @06:52AM (#22714066) Homepage Journal
    Since the watermarks survive, as the content plays indistinguishably with them in there, but don't prevent copying, why don't they just watermark everything?

    If they charge your credit card when you download the watermarked content, they can just watermark the content with your card ID. Then if they catch a file out there in the wild, they can see who it came from, and investigate the cardholder and the contentholder with violating copyright law.

    If it's even worth the bother. They'll realize that people distributing some of the content for free to their friends the best advert for more content. And even if they give all the content away free, they'll realize that the content is just a way for people to connect to its author, so the content is advertisement for all kinds of other products: presubscription premiere releases, physical copy collector's items, schwag like T-shirts/posters/actionfigures, personal appearances, "author's picks" compilations of other content, recommendations of other authors, branded SUVs with the author's signature...

    The audience has already moved into the 21st Century "free content" economy. These dinosaurs are still selling CDs as if they're still in the business of selling plastic discs, that they emboss with content-encoded patterns as a marketing stunt. Well, they can't custom-watermark CDs so easily, and the costs of trucking them around is more than they "lose" on free downloads. They should get with the program before they're nothing but an obstacle.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Doc Ruby (173196)
        I said "investigate", not "prosecute". The evidence of your watermark in the wild isn't enough to conclude that you were party to illegal copying. In fact, the recent ruling that just exposing your storage to the public on the Internet doesn't make you liable for copying means that many legitimate downloaders aren't liable even when it's copied. But transaction records can show that the person who downloaded it didn't have the right to do it.

        The watermarks can't be so easily detected or removed. The simple
  • I was briefly excited until I realized that this had nothing to do with multi-format eBooks.

    Guess I'll stick with Fictionwise and Baen for a while more.

  • inaccurate subject (Score:3, Insightful)

    by trawg (308495) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @07:06AM (#22714166) Homepage
    would it have been that hard to prefix it with 'audio'? I don't care about audiobooks

  • Confirmation of my three-stage theory? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Rhapsody Scarlet (1139063) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @08:27AM (#22715020) Homepage

    I've made a three-stage theory on DRM:

    1) DRM is introduced, many bold claims are made about it, manufacturers are very excited about it, cracking efforts begin.
    2) The DRM starts to get cracked, new schemes are introduced with equally bold claims, many legal threats are made, but it starts to become clear that this isn't working.
    3) Investigations are done into how beneficial DRM is, and the results aren't favourable to DRM. The DRM is deemed to be costly and useless, and is promptly abandoned.

    e-books seem to be moving towards stage 3 right now. Of course, there is the possible stage 4 to be concerned about.

    4) Stage 3 is somehow forgotten, DRM is re-introduced, many bold claims are made about it...

  • mas vale tarde que nunca (Score:3, Insightful)

    by poot_rootbeer (188613) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @10:12AM (#22716718)

    The computer software industry generally realized twenty years ago that copy protection schemes cause more problems than they solve. (When was the last time you had to look up a word in a printed manual, or attach a hardware dongle, in order to run a piece of software?) Copy protection is rarely difficult to circumvent, adds to the costs of media distribution, provides no benefit to the legitimate customer, and often drives legitimate customers to become illegitimate for the sake of convenience.

    It's nice to see a sign of hope that other digital content industries may finally be coming to the same conclusions.

    • Re:abandon ebooks too (Score:5, Interesting)

      by DKlineburg (1074921) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @04:58AM (#22713554)
      I disagree. I rarely if ever will pick up book anymore. I can't do it while I'm driving, while I'm jogging, or while I do a host of other things. Living in the greater Seattle area, a commute that takes an hour is common place. If you can figure out how to get back a useless hour of your time, I think that it is very profitable.
      • that so many people listen to audiobooks in their cars? Who would have thought that poor transportation and urban sprawl lead to appreciation for literacy? Then again... automotive accidents are always on the rise, and surely most of them are due to distractions. Yet if we fix this problem, the economy fails! Efficiency is a bitch...
        • Well, quite a few people also listen to them on subways, trains, buses, and airplanes. I also listen to them at the gym, and pretty much anyplace where I have to wait in line.

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by Kimos (859729)
            I'm envious of people who can read on the bus. I get motion sick reading more than a couple sentences while in a moving vehicle. Audio books and an MP3 player give me something interesting and entertaining to do while commuting.

        • Re:Is it not ironic... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by sm62704 (957197) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @07:56AM (#22714670) Journal
          Who would have thought that poor transportation and urban sprawl lead to appreciation for literacy?

          Er, what? My idea of "literate" isn't having someone read to you.

          You normal people should pity the poor hyperlex. There is no way that someone like us could enjoy a book while driving a car. When we read a novel by a good author, we become totally immersed. We are there.

          When the literate drive we must unfortunately concentrate on piloting thousands of pounds of steel and avoidiong the fucktards that are paying attention to the machine that's reading to them instead of the task at hand, which SHOULD BE driving the damned car.

          -mcgrew
          • Can someone please mod up that post?

            Don't listen to ebooks in the car folks. It's distracting.

            There's just no way to concentrate on the book when you are dodging traffic and other drivers.

            Won't someone think of the publishers?

                • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

                  by plague3106 (71849)
                  And lets remove advertising billboards while we are at it.

                  Excellent idea! Actually Vermont had banned such billboards, it's actually quite nice.

                  May I suggest that you are easily amazed. "quite a few" is not a quantative measurement, you cant use it to correlate distractions to accidents. While I'd wager that that over 50% of drivers get distracted daily while driving, the accident rate its quite a lot less.

                  I'm willing to be that near 100% of accidents though are directly caused by distracted drivers.

                  May I

      • Re:abandon ebooks too (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Archtech (159117) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @05:52AM (#22713728)
        One of the big lessons we all need to learn is this: People are different!

        Some get addicted to drugs; others don't.
        Some have their health ruined by alcohol; others drink like fish yet remain fairly healthy.
        Some get sick when they eat certain foods; others thrive on them.
        Some lose weight by exercising; others don't (true; look it up).
        And some will never give up paper books, while others will be happy to do so.

        It makes life more complicated, but also more fun.
        • Agreed, I have no problem reading a book on my PDA. I don't worry about "batteries" or the likes, I just read on it. It doesn't make it any less of an experience - the words are the same, just a different medium. It's kind of amusing seeing people react this way to new mediums on a "news for nerds" website... very very amusing.

      • I think you and the parent are talking about different things. eBooks SHOULD be digital books, text documents. You are talking about AUDIO books, books being read by someone. Note how he talks about low-light, while you talk about driving.

        Granted, the original article gets pretty confused about it as well.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by kitsunewarlock (971818)
      Since the only ebooks I've purchased are Role-Playing Game modules, I'd have to disagree. Going cover to cover: yes, I enjoy physical books much more. But searching for a tidbit of information (for school projects as well, in which Google Books is quite the useful tool), I prefer the ability to search through an entire text for a single word instead of flipping through a book for the page I need.
    • Actually, the main problem with ebooks now that paper-like displays are seeing some progress is the cost. $400 for a Kindle is just nasty. When the cost comes down, people will snap those up like crazy, because it's all the benefits of ebooks without the eye strain that kept them away from the concept before. I know I want one, and I've always hated reading stuff on a screen.

      • Re:abandon ebooks too (Score:4, Interesting)

        by harlows_monkeys (106428) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @05:43AM (#22713706) Homepage

        Actually, the main problem with ebooks now that paper-like displays are seeing some progress is the cost. $400 for a Kindle is just nasty

        Actually, $400 is basically free, if you are a heavy reader. Kindle books seem to be uniformly, and significantly, cheaper than the non-Kindle editions. A heavy reader will make up that $400 in a year or so, and then start pulling ahead.

        • There are plenty of heavy readers who don't have a big (or any) book budget. See, there's these things called libraries...

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Mathinker (909784)
          Your comment ignores the plethora of free content for ebook readers. Never heard of Project Gutenberg [gutenberg.org]? And it's not the only game in town, lots of publishers are trying to raise interest by free giveaways, at least in the science fiction / fantasy genre (Tor, Baen).

          > if you are a heavy reader. -----> if you are a heavy reader of expensive enough ebooks.

          There, fixed that for you.

    • Re:abandon ebooks too (Score:5, Informative)

      by Rolgar (556636) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @05:35AM (#22713664)
      Wrong


      1. Searching: An index is nice, but I can think of times that I'd rather be able to search.
      2. Portability: With an ebook reader, you can carry your entire library in a device the size of a piece of paper. Sure you have have to charge it, but you've got to sleep some time, right?
      3. Commenting: The ability to markup the book without damaging it book in some way.
      4. The ability to make as many bookmarks as you want. I don't know if any reader has instituted this yet, but this would be a killer feature that would allow you to mark all your favorite pages/passages so you can jump to any of them in a second.
      5. Portable bookstore: Decide you want to read something but don't have the time to go to the bookstore, download the book to your computer or directly to your reader.
      6. Unlimited selection: Everything ever published will eventually be available to be loaded on my ebook reader, but I have real difficulty with the selection available to me at local bookstores, especially with the lack of older titles available.

      What is stopping me from getting into the ebook game now are the cost and features of the readers available. I never pay the early adopter tax, but within five years, I'll probably get a reader. I'm also not interested in paying the same price as I would at the bookstore for a new hardback, because the bookstore and it's share of the price shouldn't be necessary any longer, but as long as I can wait a year and get the book at half of the paperback cost, I'll be sold.

    • Re:abandon ebooks too (Score:4, Interesting)

      by DrXym (126579) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @05:38AM (#22713676)
      I disagree. Ebooks are fantastically useful. I can pack 100 books onto a PocketPC and have something to read. It's just that so far book publishers and distributors have released their books in proprietary formats, slathered with DRM and that only play on devices they deign to release readers on. Consequently the whole ebook scene has been transformed into a wasteland of warring factions where no standards prevail and the attraction of the concept has fallen through the floor. Amazon Kindle is just an extension of this, choosing to implement yet another proprietary format and ensuring support for popular (free) file formats is minimal.

      Publishers really need to pull their finger out and adopt a common book file format with no active DRM. The consequence of not doing so is ebooks languish. People who want books in an electronic format will just grab them them anyway through P2P, IRC or wherever and the publishers will get nothing at all. Once an industry standard format appears, the format has a good chance of taking off.

      I also think the experience of ebooks and music should be a lesson for digital video downloads. People would have to be stupid to *buy* digital movies from Amazon, Sony, Microsoft, Apple, Netflix or whoever when the content is locked to a handful of supported devices and you are at the mercy of the provider to manage your collection. I don't want to have to own two or three software players, or only be able to play some movies on some devices. Just like with ebooks most people will just turn to P2P instead.

      Drop the DRM. Piracy happens whether DRM is there or not. Dropping the DRM just means more people will buy their direct download videos rather than get it on P2P or copy it from DVD.

    • The article is about audio books, not ebooks.

    • Re:abandon ebooks too (Score:4, Insightful)

      by RedWizzard (192002) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @05:57AM (#22713754)

      a paperback book beats an ebook in any way, any day
      Really? How much will you bet me that you can do a text search on your paperback faster than I can on my ebook?
    • I own tens of thousands of books. I love books... everything about books. Having said all of that, I also find myself pining for the next version of iRex Iliad (the current version being oh so close to compelling) and I find myself listening to more and more spoken word audio content. I have completely replaced broadcast radio with serialized Podcast presentations from NPR, BBC, APM, and variety of other producers. I have found the internet awash with audio presentations of older books, scholarly lectur
    • The ebook fills a few needs for me.

      1) wireless internet on the small and cheap
      2) A good way to read Project Gutenberg (this is the big one, there is probably enough "required" reading I have not read to pay for a Kindle
      3) If I want to read something more than a short paper back it is easier to travel with
      4) If I am traveling long enough that I want 2 books it is easier to travel with

      All that said, I am not ready to drop $400.00 because of the durability issue. But come $200.00 or less, I will be buying one

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Eivind (15695)
      As you just pointed out, Ebooks -are- infact superior to wood-pulp books in some ways, and inferior in other ways.

      As long as that remains so, they will suceed in some uses and fail in others. Notice how wood-pulp books are unlikely to improve much over the next few decades but Ebooks are certain to do so though, this likely means that ebooks will get more popular over time.

      Advantages:
      • Can be read in darkness
      • Saves space physically.
      • Free when the content is. (there is much free content)
      • Cheaper than paper to buy

    • you can use them in low light situations, but they aren't as durable and they require batteries


      I thought an ebook was simply a txt or pdf file, and an example for an "ebook reader" is less or Acrobat? What format do the files for these hardware gadgets have, and can they be read on a normal PC without buying expensive electronic toys and supplying them with batteries?

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