Book Piracy — Less DRM, More Data 304
macslocum writes "Ambiguity surrounds the real impact of digital book piracy, notes Brian O'Leary in an interview with O'Reilly Radar, but all would be better served if more data was shared and less effort was exerted on futile DRM. 'The publishing industry should be working as hard as we can to develop new and innovative business models that meet the needs of readers. And what those look like could be community-driven. I think of Baen Books, for example, which doesn't put any DRM restrictions on its content but is one of the least pirated book publishers. As to sales, Paulo Coelho is a good example. He mines the piracy data to see if there's a burgeoning interest for his books in a particular country or market. If so, he either works to get his book out in print or translate it in that market.'"
Baen (Score:4, Informative)
In all fairness, one of the reasons there's such a low piracy rate on Baen's books is that they are free to distribute as long as you don't charge for them
Baen on their own website has many first books in series available: http://www.baen.com/library/ [baen.com]
Also, they've released CD's of books in many of their hardcovers over the years, with a license that allows copying, including online. One site that has them available is http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/ [thefifthimperium.com]
The only versions of their books that are electronically available and not allowed to be distributed are the ones purchased at http://www.webscription.net/ [webscription.net]
Situation in Spain (Score:5, Informative)
Let me briefly explain what the current situation in Spain is and why it drives me nuts.
Over here in Spain all ebooks are sold and advertised as ePUB, until you notize its not really ePub, but Adobe DRMed ePUB. I think Barnes&Noble does the same. And there are lots of other platforms that use Adobe DRM to encrypt their PDF files.
It drives me nuts that adobe has such a high penetration in the ebook DRM market because they don't have tools for most platforms. AFAIK no official readers exist for any platform beyond Windows or Mac, which is great (sarcasm) given how many portable platforms exist nowadays (Symbian, BlackBerry, Android, iOS)
What good is using ePub if you are going to encrypt it in a proprietary format? I don't know why they took the time to advertise it in PDF and ePub (the two "biggest" and most popular cross platform formats) if they are going to screw everything up by turning it into a proprietary file.
I for one will avoid DRM ebooks, and like with movies and music, will just buy it from places where there is no DRM. If no such places exist then they have already lost because I'll just look through the net for hacked .epubs, simple as that. And if that happens too often I will just stop looking for legitimate ebook shops and start downloading everything. Maybe some people don't agree morally, but I am okay with it, and reality is most people will do the same...
I should mention that over here in Spain, amazon does not offer any spanish ebooks, same goes for the iBooks store and google books, all books are sold as a DRMed download and you need to register at Adobe Digital Editions, then register AGAIN at the online store where you are buying your books at (there is no "central store" like amazon.com, they tried to replicate the physical stores fragmentation to the online world), then validate your content with your device - granted thats even possible - its not possible for any android device for example, and THEN you are able to read your book, if you are lucky
It just amazes me how an industry that has been able to learn from the music industry and then the movies industry is so slow at adopting what consumers want.
Just my 2c, :P
this is all because copyright is broken (Score:2, Informative)
Content is being protected by copyright laws that guarantees the revenue stream for the life of the author + 50 years. This form of law does not encourage the authors to produced, but instead encourages them to be lazy.
Re:Kindle is a great example (Score:5, Informative)
Book "piracy" (e.g. rampant copying) has been going on for ages now. At the same time, I can't object to much of what happens with it.
I'm a collector of roleplaying system books. A large number of them are out of print. A sizable majority, not only are they out of print, the publisher itself is long gone. My options are to scour secondhand markets and convention auctions like nobody's business, but that can't find everything. Eventually, just to archive them and keep them around in case they get requested for reference, "piracy" is the last-and-only resort.
It's not half as good as having the physical book in my hand, but it's better than being unable to find the material. And when traveling to a distant convention, sometimes it's a "necessary evil" in order to transport the material in a 6-lb laptop rather than shipping an 80-lb suitcase back and forth.
Now, I'd be willing to pay $1-2 more to get a PDF copy of the book along with the print copy, but the same can't be said for Kindle/Nook/etc formats. Why? Because I have NO guarantee that there'll be a good reader for them 10 years from now. I'm hauling around (in some cases) 20 year old material here, I know I'll still be able to read a PDF a decade from now because it's non-DRM'ed, but the same can't be said for the DRM-laden formats.
Re:Baen Books (Score:3, Informative)
You need to read Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan series. The series has 3 books that have won the Hugo for Best Novel and 3 others that were nominated but didn't win. It is one of the best scifi series out there.
Available from Baen. DRM free. Heck, completely free from here.
http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/
Go to the Cryoburn CD to find the files.
This is a site that is hosting the CDs that Baen will include in some hardcover books. The CDs are freely redistributable. Baen is aware of the site and while it doesn't actively support it, they haven't asked them to stop.
You can get the complete set of the Vorkosigan books (minus one story called Memory that was forgotten when they made the disc, ironic huh) including the most recent book that had the CD included. That's right, they included an ebook version when you bought the hardcopy.
The files are all drm free and they give you the option of getting the epub, mobi, lrf, txt, html and another format I'm forgetting.