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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.
from the another-one-bites-the-dust dept.
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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duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:duh. (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Baen (Score:2)
Baen Webscriptions [webscription.net], Baen free library [baen.com]
Audible.com not allowing non DRM books (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Audible.com not allowing non DRM books (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Avoid Audible.com for your own peace of mind (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
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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
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Good luck.
Are they even listening? (Score:2, Informative)
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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
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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)
Wtf? A business person actually seeing whats been f...king obvious for years now?
I'm impressed. (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe these books that everyone talks about actually do make you smarter.
They really would be better off with just PDFs (Score:4, Insightful)
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...
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So Just Watermark Them Then (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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The watermarks can't be so easily detected or removed. The simple
Bleah... wake me up when they add eBooks... (Score:3, Insightful)
Guess I'll stick with Fictionwise and Baen for a while more.
inaccurate subject (Score:3, Insightful)
Confirmation of my three-stage theory? (Score:3, Interesting)
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)
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)
Parent
Is it not ironic... (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re:Is it not ironic... (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Parent
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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?
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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)
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.
Parent
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AUDIO book (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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Re:abandon ebooks too (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Parent
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> 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)
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.
Parent
My take on ebooks and readers (Score:3, Interesting)
http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/2007/11/ereaders-and-ebooks.html [blogspot.com]
Summary:
You need a great reader at a great price.
eBooks should be way less than regular books people.
Have every regular book come with an eBook in a sleeve in the back or have a code printed in it that allows for a free download of the book.
A bit more at the link and a place for more permanent comments.
all the best,
drew
http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]
7. Variable type (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:abandon ebooks too (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Parent
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Re:abandon ebooks too (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
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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
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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:
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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?