Unabashed

That Cory Doctorow is one smart cookie. And I realize I’m posting this right after I just said I don’t like to repetitiously cover content that Boing Boing has already put out there, but here’s the exception: This is original content, not just a link to something discovered, and it’s on an issue that I’ve got a lot of interest in right now.

It’s funny that in the name of protecting “intellectual property,” big media companies are willing to do such violence to the idea of real property — arguing that since everything we own, from our t-shirts to our cars to our ebooks, embody someone’s copyright, patent and trademark, that we’re basically just tenant farmers, living on the land of our gracious masters who’ve seen fit to give us a lease on our homes.

As far as ownership of media is concerned, this is a pretty big deal. As Cory points out, right now if you buy a book you can turn around and give it to a friend after you’ve read it, or donate it to a library, or just outright sell the thing on Ebay or at your Spring yard sale. But with electronic content that’s all going to change, regardless of corporate policies. The publishers don’t want us to own the material–they want us to lease it. And–in a stroke of absolutely, monumentally stupid proportions–they don’t want us to be able to loan out the material we’ve “leased” or sell it ourselves. I can still sell my reader, of course, I still own that property, but the content–they want the content rights to end once I’ve read it.

I cannot stipulate enough how little sense this makes in the real world. Sure, when you’re calculating your profit margin it might look like a coup against you if you know that someone’s given away something that you own the rights to, but at the same time, looking at the bigger picture (something done all-too rarely these days), if the person the content was given to becomes a fan and purchases other works by that publisher or writer, then it’s win-win for everyone involved.

But here’s the catch: electronic content isn’t going to be something that you’ll go to a used book store to buy. And as adamant as I am that these are really stupid ideas from a consumer perspective, if I look at it from their point of view–the publisher–I realize that they are not only against the selling of unregulated content, they are likely terrified of the prospect. You won’t convince them it’s a good idea because, well, no. 1, their pricing scheme has to change, and it can’t, much. Not enough to make electronic content more attractive to a consumer, at least. Sure, their publishing expenses drop when working with e-formats, but to keep their bottom lines intact they’re still going to have to charge a premium for the work. They still have to pay the staff and the writer, and they still have to be profitable. Besides that, with an e-format, I can “loan” out a copy of my book that’s not protected and still keep a copy of it. You can’t do that with a printed book. You loan it out and it’s gone until you get it back. With e-formats, I can essentially give away a million copies if I wanted to and it wouldn’t hurt anyone but the publisher. And I’ve still got my copy. And that is where, I believe, the true terror of the ebook strikes the hearts of publishers. From their perspective, they’ve got to regulate it, or they’ll go straight out of business.

It’s unfortunate, but I can see their dilemma.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: , Cory Doctorow, e-book, ebooks

I had the glorious idea this year to buy myself and my wife Archos media players for Xmas. My wife specifically wanted something she could listen to music and look at photos with, as well as read ebooks. I researched a little and bought her the 404 and myself the 605 w/wifi.

Of course, now there’s a problem. Much of the content I own that is, that I have purchased and now own usage rights to is DRM locked, meaning it can’t be used on more than one media contraption or it’s in a format that’s not going to work on the new player. So all my CDs I’ve got to re-import just so I can use them. But it gets worse, and there’s one particular format of DRM that’s got me mad as a hornet.

Ebooks. There are a few ebook outlets on the web. But suppose I want to buy Halting State by Charlie Stross, which I do, or did. I found it in a couple of places, and it’s usually around $24. My first reaction to that figure was Huh? I’ve got a problem right off the bat, because this isn’t a hardback copy of a novel; this is something that costs basically nothing to produce. I feel like it’s a ripoff right out of the gate. So why would I want to pay hardback prices for something like that? Well, unfortunately for Mr. Stross, I won’t. I’ll probably now pick up his book at the library.

So, fine: New books cost too much in ebook format, but there are millions of books out there, so I figured I’d just do a little research and find something cheaper, and I did; the titles are inconsequential. I found two ebooks for less than ten dollars apiece, and I bought them in Adobe format, which I presumed was .pdf, a format my Archos will handle out of the box. Wrong. This is a new ebook format that Adobe has created which restricts printing, copying text and search functions. And what’s worse? It won’t install on my Archos. But even if it did, this Adobe format won’t allow an ebook to be read from two different readers, to which I again said, “Huh?” This tells me that the publisher not only doesn’t want me to let my friends read a book I’ve purchased, they don’t want my wife to read it, either, unless I loan her my reader, which is senseless and the exact reason we bought two of these things in the first place.

So, my bright, shiny new paperweight is sitting on my desk upstairs, waiting for me to give it some content to make it worth owning. The masterminds of DRM have done their best to ensure that I can’t put anything on it without making an additional, considerable investment each time. There are ways, around it, of course; I can purchase some ripping software (illegal in the US) so I can put my DVD’s that I’ve purchased on it; I can re-d-load my CD’s also that I’ve purchased, and I can read free ebooks on the web via David Wellington’s website and a few others. My wife can’t: she didn’t want wifi (finds it complicated) so one of the caveats to my purchasing this for her was that I would handle her content. So, other than a site like Project Gutenburg, where I can download free .pdf versions of Homer and Aesop, I’m finding content is hard to come by, even for someone who’s willing to pay (a reasonable price).

Another thing that makes this so difficult to swallow is that I could care less about printing the ebooks I might buy. I do want to put it on two different readers, and I’m not about to purchase two copies so my wife and I can both read it. And I’m not going to apologize for letting my wife read the books I buy. I’m not even going to apologize for letting my friends read my books, because you know what? When I loaned my neighbor my issue of Master and Commander, the first of the Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O’brian, he read it and then went and bought all 23 books for himself. If not for my loan, he never would have read the first O’brian novel, never would have known how great the series was, and never would have contributed his wads of cash to their purchase. Sure, sometimes I loan someone a book and they don’t purchase it or any more, but those aren’t the buyers you want to cultivate anyway, are they? They are the one-time readers who buy one or two books in their lives and find that they prefer movies. If I try to get them interested in books by loaning them one, am I doing anything but helping the industry, even if it never takes? I understand that the real reason DRM exists is to stop mass piracy. To keep the bastards who take an electronic copy of something and print it off to sell cut-rate versions to the masses. But in the process of fighting them, your damaging your relationship with us. Your bread and butter.

I don’t own a pirated copy of anything; primarily because I can afford to buy things I want for myself. What’s amazing to me is that I am convinced that the bigwigs that control our content believe that we are all pirates. That we are all trying to stick it to them, that we would all stroll the streets for printed-off versions of Harry Potter instead of buying an official copy. Why else would you cripple your own hardware and inhibit your users from being able to attain it without jumping through hoops? The only real reason I can come up with is that they really believe we are all out to get them.

But basically the DRM folks have made a model of anti-piracy content that keeps willing non-pirate buyers away from their content. Of course, I envision a group of cigar-chomping big wigs sitting around a table greedily clutching wads of greenbacks, screaming at passersby: “Thieves! Pirates! Stop stealing my money!”

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: ebook, ebooks, format, pirate, pirating