The joys of OWNING books: A powerful argument against DRM
By Peter Brantley, Executive Director, Digital Library Federation
Moderator: Peter Brantley, executive director of the Digital Library Federation, is our newest contributor. See his biography at the end. Welcome, Peter! - D.R.
For various reasons, in the last month I have been filled with "life-nostalgia." Our daughter recently turned seven, her celebration prompting like shadow puppets faint memories of my own childhood. My mother’s birthday recently passed, but then, so had she a few years ago, so she was not around to enjoy it. I’ve watched the news reports on Edward Kennedy’s cancer with profound sadness; a loved family member had his own brush with a glioma a decade ago. It all makes one pause.
The delights of growing old: taking enjoyment from many small things. For me, one tenacious root of happiness is a shared enjoyment of reading with my father. It is to him that I must give credit for a love of books. For years he was a professor of contemporary American literature; and his book suggestions turned to Barthelme, Barth, and Pynchon when I was still in middle school. And for my father now, reading is something for him to hold onto: a love that only failing eyesight might stand to disperse—and then there will be audiobooks.
I speak with my father weekly, and we reserve time to compare what is being read, how we heard about it, how it relates to other things we have enjoyed. And no doubt in part as a result of growing up in house filled with books, we’ve discovered that the walls of our house now bridge whole sections of the continent, for we mail books to each other regularly.
My father will mail me a copy of Willie Morris’ North Toward Home and a few Durrells; I will mail him the hilarious and poignant A Thousand Shall Fall, and an old edition of Grimble’s We Chose the Islands. And we argue over whom first heard about Andy Adam’s The Log of a Cowboy; then we realize we both have editions in our homes.
Here is the thing: it’s hard to say who owns these books. They are ours, collectively; they fling back and forth between Texas and California, and either household is only a temporary resting place. These books are shared, because they are appreciated; loved, because they are enjoyed with others.
Ultimately, I do not much care whether these books are paper or made of some other less organic substance, whether substrates and electrons, or plastic polymers. Instead what matters is that we are able to share books with each other; in return for the gift of spreading delight, a wait of days and the cost of media rate shipping are very modest penalties.
Whatever digital (e-book) books look like in the future, if they do not embody the right to share, in an unrestricted and platform independent manner, they will be poorer things.
This is called the first sale doctrine. It’s part of why people love books — a love built from sharing. It’s what makes libraries possible. A world where content is licensed, and sold with restrictions on use, is a world less full of enthusiastic readers; less full of love.
To any publisher who sees the wisdom of DRM: don’t.
Related: First sale victory in Vernor, in Google lawyer William Patry’s blog, found via Peter. The decision involved the right to resell software, but perhaps the same concept could apply to e-books. Also see We wanted to do DRMless music, says Microsoft exec Rob Bennett: Lesson for e-bookers?–one more indication that when you "buy" DRMed content, you’re only renting it. - D.R.
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Peter Brantley lives in the San Francisco area, is executive director of the Digital Library Federation and has worked for the University of California and other academic institutions (on digital library-related matters), as well as for Random House (as a systems analyst). Also, Peter is on the board of the International Digital Publishing Forum. His interests include "Digital libraries; new media; scholarly communication; ebooks, information retrieval; content discovery; federated identity management." He also writes for his own blog, shimenawa (see Wikipedia item) and for O’Reilly’s Under the Radar. The views here and in future posts are and will be his own and not necessarily those of the federation. - D.R.
About the image: CC-licensed and found on the Flickr page of Cindiann the librarian, showing off her favorite books. No, I don’t know if those are library books or from her personal collection, but either way, the photo communicates how she feels about them. - D.R.
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