Why DRM won’t let you own books for real: Don Brubaker’s tale of woe
Don Brubaker loyally bought hundreds of books in the DRMed Mobipocket format for his Cybook Gen3. But guess what. He’d like a second reader, and from what he’s heard, the new Cybook apparently won’t be able to read Mobi. See his tale of woe and my reply.
Bookeen, maker of the Cybook, almost surely isn’t at fault. The villain is probably Amazon, the owner of Mobi. Last I knew, Amazon wouldn’t let e-reader makers embed both Mobi and a DRM-capable e-reader in a different format in the same devices. What’s more, if Don is in the U.S., the DMCA won’t let him legally convert from DRMed Mobipocket since he’d be cracking the code.
Just wait until people tire of their Kindles and want to move on to another gizmo from another hardware maker. As others have said, a DRM timebomb is ticking away.
More Amazon fun: I’ve got another outrageous Amazon tale to tell on a different topic, but it’ll just have to wait since I promised to take a vacation from mentions of — ——- ——–.
June 9th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
The whole “DRM won’t let you own books for real” doesn’t hold together.
I used to own a DOS based computer, bought DOS software, but it all became unless after I moved on to Windows, and the Windows became useless when I got a Mac. I would still own that software today if I hadn’t thrown it away. Was I wrong to upgrade my hardware with incompatible operating systems? Why can’t I have all the old software I once owned made available for my Mac for free?
What about my unabridged audio books on cassette tape? They are useless now that I don’t have a cassette deck, but I still own them as much as I did in the days when I had the technology to play them. Should I be allowed to trade them in for MP3 versions?
What about Beta, LaserDic, VHS, and HD-DVD? Don’t the buyers still own them?
How does DRM prevent ownership? Just because you can’t legally copy ebooks from one device to another doesn’t mean the buyer doesn’t really own them.
There are enough issues and negative aspects to DRM, but lack of ownership isn’t one of them. I think it would be better to say something along the lines of “DRM artificially creates incompatibility problems.”
June 9th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Greg,
I have to support David’s argument here. I understand what you are saying and semantically you are correct, but it may be a case of old world language meeting new media.
The problem is that our point of comparison is a paper book. Once we buy a paper book we can do many different things with it. We can read it and reread it for years. The reading equipment never wears out. I can give it to my son or friend to read. I can even sell it to someone else.
Now, let’s say you are a publisher producing a replacement good — an electronic book. You sell me the book for $15. I expect that I will have similar rights as compared to the paper book. For example, I expect to be able to put it on my bookshelf and then reread it five years from now — even though my book reader will undoubtedly be different over the next five years. If you as the publisher price the book similar, or even more than, the paper book then my expectation is that the use of the good is similar.
I prefer reading electronically and I have had several different devices over the years. If you sell me a book that can only be read on my current device, you might as well as sell it to me for a limited time — say 90 days — because I will not be able to access it in the next year or so. If you ‘rent’ the book to me for $1 or $2 then I will understand that I am only purchasing temporary rights to the book.
So, I understand that your ‘ownership’ rights are not taken away in the strict sense of the word, but I would argue that they are damaged in the common understanding.
June 9th, 2009 at 11:08 pm
Greg, you are arguing using a very scenario, and it isn’t all about consumer expectations as Michel writes.
One vital piece you are ignoring is that you can convert your old media into the new media (assuming DRM is not present). Although much easier with digital formats, there is no reason why you couldn’t convert your cassette tapes to MP3. Not to mention that with even less effort you can run your old DOS software. In both cases, you simply choose not to because it isn’t worth the effort to you.
I do not agree that the original producer is under any obligation to help you make the change, but they should be under an obligation to not actively prevent you from such a task.
You are also ignoring the difference between natural antiquation of technology and malice on the part of the producer. Natural antiquation affects you in the far off future and the change occurs slowly due to consumer inertia. Malice, such as DRM, affects your use of the product now and prematurely antiquates the product.