Comments on: SF author Simon Haynes’ case against DRM at Amazon and elsewhere

By: Sandra Chung

Sandra Chung — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 23:39:42 +0000

I have balked at buying e-books lately, as the price has skyrocketed, and I can’t see any reason to spend $27 US on an electronic copy of a book, as there is no manufacturing needed. And then there is this DRM’ed or locked to one format only.

I have already had the ‘broken device’ so lost the ability to read my legally purchased e-books, as they were in a locked format.

Jim Baen,of Baen Books/Library (RIP) had the right way to do it. It’s too bad that other publishers can’t seem to get their heads around it.

By: Tony

Tony — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 01:11:55 +0000

I agree with Simon’s points. Over the last 30 years I have amassed a collection of 3128 Print Books. As my eyes have deteriorated I need large print now and can no longer re read all my favorite authors in print. So when I switched to Electronic format I started to repurchase the favorite books and was shocked at the cost. When I realized I was only renting the books (DRMed) I stopped buying them, unless the cost was low enough to make no difference. About $5.00 US is in my opinion a fair price for a Ebook that is at the Paperback stage. Of course ill pay a premium for a new release from a favorite author (Without DRM) but not as much as a hardback copy price. I am on my sixth E-read device and want to be able to happily convert formats to whatever is required for me to re-read the book. The original DRMed ebooks I purchased are now unreadable as they no longer work on my current device and I feel I have been forced to make the choice and obtained new unDRMed copies by illicit means as I feel that I paid full price and should be entitled to reread the book whenever I want to. My auto shop doesn’t charge me a fee every time I want to drive my car to the shops, I paid for my car and its mine to use as I will, so it should be with whatever I purchase. The books that contain the DRM should have very clearly stated that I was only renting the book and not able to one day transfer it to another device, or been cheap enough that I would not care.

By: pjlyon

pjlyon — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 23:32:14 +0000

Fantastic article, couldn’t agree more on all the points made. I think one other facet the companies are trying to push is a sense of ‘artificial scarcity’. With DRM they’re trying to force a non-digital life upon digital content, where a downloaded file becomes a singular, non-transferablle entity. It’s impossible of course, even the recent release of Stephen King’s Kindle-exclusive ‘Ur’ will eventually leak out to those without a Kindle.

Just starting out on my adventure in ebook publishing and the DIY movement and these articles give a great insight into where the old models fail, and where newer, more open models will succeed.

By: Jack Tingle

Jack Tingle — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 17:26:14 +0000

I actually have an e-copy of your first one, somewhere, but I haven’t gotten around to reading it. Since I haven’t read it, I haven’t passed it along either. The idea of pirating a low cost, unprotected ebook is silly. There’s no challenge, so no incentive. The better question for authors and publishers is “Does anyone know who I am? Hello? Is anyone out there?” I haven’t read your book, but I at least recognized your name. It’s a start.

By the way, Baen has been selling reasonably priced, DRM-free ebooks for years. So has Fictionwise. I haven’t noticed either of them complaining about piracy.

Regards,
Jack Tingle

By: Rob Preece, Publisher

Rob Preece, Publisher — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 17:23:15 +0000

Lots of good thoughts here. I’m definitely on board with the low price and no DRM angle (and have been since 2000 when I first began selling affordable eBooks). I know I’ve made this point before but I think it’s important to keep making it.

The concept that paper books have intrinsic value is a dangerous and wrong-headed one (at least in my opinion). In fact, re-use of paper books is a value destroyer. The price of used books is so low, they offer almost nothing to the original customer, yet destroy the market for new books for the author (and publisher).

eBooks do not have this questionable value but they have a number of others–they can be re-sized to make reading easy, they can be carried conveniently, when moving, you don’t have to purchase extra pods to cart them across the country, if you have a house fire, you can recover them, they’re less likely to be stolen from your dorm room, they’re more ecological. From a value perspective, I’d argue that eBooks are worth more than paper. However, I also recognize that customers need incentives to change behavior and believe that affordable prices represent such an incentive.

Rob Preece
Publisher, http://www.BooksForABuck.com