E-books, copyright and social media, other topics now online from O’Reilly conference—including music industry’s lessons for e-bookers
E-Book tech, back-list digitization, copyright and social media, DRM lessons from the music industry—those were a few of the dozens of topics at O’Reilly’s recent Tools of Change conference. Didn’t go? Well, now you can at least check out the Web-posted presentations.
An entertainment media expert’s PDF, on music and DRM from an e-book perspective, serves up a snappy reply to a quote from the RIAA’s lawsuit against the Diamond Rio.
“We filed this lawsuit because unchecked piracy on the Internet threatens the development of a legitimate marketplace that consumers want,” said the RIAA. And then, on the next page, comes a pithy observation from the author of the PDF, Medialoper contributor Kirk Biglione, a consultant with Oxford Media Works: “Actually consumers wanted portable MP3.”
The Kindle and the music biz
Applicable to e-books? You bet—in fact, even more so. People don’t want to read e-books just on their Kindles, however portable the tablets are. Readers also would like to be able to display the same Amazon e-books on cellphones and PDAs and desktops. Biglione noted that fifty percent of Fictionwise’s gross revenue comes from non-DRMed books. And his presentation also took a jab at eBabel, a blight that DRM of course worsens since the DMCA prevents you from converting books from one encrypted format to another (that’s my opinion and wording: I wasn’t at the Biglione talk).
Warning to Amazon worshippers
Publishers dreaming of a nice, orderly Amazon-centric industry, meanwhile, might ponder a quote Biglione dug up from Douglas Morris, CEO of Universal Music Group: “We were just grateful that someone was selling online. The problem is, he [Steve Jobs] became the gatekeeper. We make a lot of money from him, and suddenly you’re wearing golden handcuffs.” Why would Amazon’s Jeff Bezos be any different?
The bottom line according to Biglione: Consumers value “reasonable pricing,” “wide selection” and “interoperability, preferably DRM free.”
Hello, IDPF? Time to brand the nonDRMed flavor of .epub and show that the core format isn’t just a stalking horse for DRM. A logo covering all versions, DRMed and not, can follow. But first, if you want to win over the skeptical, you need to do the logo for DRM-free .epub. At least two of the nine IDPF board members, Garth Conboy and George Kerscher, appear rather open to an .epub logo coming out in the near future, and I hope that other members will follow—one way to show that book publishers won’t repeat the music industry’s mistakes.
If you work for a large publisher and are trying to effect change from within: The Biglione presentation might help.
March 1st, 2008 at 9:21 pm
[...] E-books, copyright and social media, other topics now online from O?Reilly conference?including musi…TeleRead does a lovely summation of Kirk’s ToC presentation. Even though we are extremely biased here, we believe everyone should absorb the message Kirk lays out. digg_url=’http://www.medialoper.com/columns/the-daily-loper/daily-loper-570/’; digg_skin = ”; digg_bgcolor = ‘#FFFFFF’; digg_title = ‘The+Daily+Loper+-+March+1%2C+2008′; digg_bodytext = ”; digg_topic = ”; Powered by Gregarious (21) [...]
March 1st, 2008 at 10:21 pm
[...] E-books, copyright and social media, other topics now online from O?Reilly conference - including mu…TeleRead does a lovely summation of Kirk’s ToC presentation. Even though we are extremely biased here, we believe everyone should absorb the message Kirk lays out. [...]