Book Publishers Abandoning DRM 218
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.'"
Re:abandon ebooks too (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm impressed. (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe these books that everyone talks about actually do make you smarter.
Re:abandon ebooks too (Score:3, Interesting)
Is it not ironic... (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
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.
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.
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]
Re:abandon ebooks too (Score:2, Interesting)
> 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:2, Interesting)
Unfortunately, for the some of same reasons an ebook is perfect, it also is lacking.
1. Searching instead of an index - I've stumbled upon countless, worthwhile side tracks while flipping to a particular page. It's sort of like finding a hidden treasure right there in the book you've used hundreds of times. You're digging through your perl book, looking for how to parse a string and you stumble on some database function that is EXACTLY what you need for some other project. That just doesn't happen when you search. It's serendipity at its best.
2. Commenting - buying a used book with someone else's comments is both entertaining and incredibly helpful. I don't think I would have made it through some political science classes without some of the notes scribbled in the margins of my text books. I had no idea what the hell I was doing and some of the summaries in the margins really helped me along. Today, when I borrow a cook book from someone and find all sorts of notes in the margin, it's like a gift of insight from a much more talented chef.
3. Bookmarks - On that one, I agree, bookmarks in dead-tree books suck. They fall out, they're not at all transmittable between copies.
What I'd really love to see is some sort of hybrid Ebook. A book with REAL e-paper pages and perhaps an input pad that you could write on with a stylus. You could write notes on the pad and insert them INTO the "margins" of the document where ever you wanted. I enjoy the act of turning a page; that could be simulated with a 4 page epaper book with some sort of ADVANCE> button that would display another set of pages. It wouldn't satisfy my desire for skimming, but the portability would be phenomenal.
Re:Is the sky falling? (Score:2, Interesting)
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...
Re:Is it not ironic... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Avoid Audible.com for your own peace of mind (Score:2, Interesting)
And as a librarian, I'm appalled if they listen to you. Is it easier? Yes. Is it still copyright infringement if you aren't very strict? Yes.
I think DRM is wrong, and this move is making my day. When this news first ran, I printed out the article, and I will shortly be referring to it to pressure the library e-audiobook suppliers to drop DRM from their books so that my patrons can use any mp3 player they want to listen to them.
I know DRM is a pain in the ass. Every time I get a call from a patron who can't get the (*^&^% license to download properly for their e-audiobook, I mentally imagine slapping a publisher. I am the queen of multiple versions of screenshot-heavy step-by-step instructions for senior citizens on how to find, download, transfer, and listen to e-audiobooks on various systems with various pieces of software. But sadly, that only gives me a reason to be very pointed in my conversations with reps and to examine any alternatives that pop up. It still doesn't give me the right to break copyright.
Maybe I misunderstood the way your librarians are using the books on tape/CD, though. I assumed you were using one book on CD to make multiple copies on multiple mp3 players to lend. Maybe that isn't the case. If not, I apologise.
Re:Is it not ironic... (Score:3, Interesting)
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 also suggest that driving a vehicle the size of a buss is a little more complicated than your avarage car.
How so? They handle differently, but so do all cars and trucks. Semis are a bit different, since you have two attached pieces, no one single vehicle.