DRM, Orwellian book zaps and eBabel: Will the press TRULY grasp the importance of e-book ownership?
I started TeleRead in the 1990s to fight for well-stocked national digital library systems in the U.S. and elsewhere—a cause that I still love.
Most librarians even years later aren’t ready for the TeleRead idea. But I can tell you what does count as an e-book issue for our well-educated readers from a variety of occupations: digital rights management. So does the Tower of eBabel, all those clashing e-book formats, some of which may fade away, leaving book-owners stranded when they move on to new hardware or when their existing devices break. What’s more, for months, on and off, the TeleRead community has helped alert the world about Amazon’s dangerous ability to erase your Kindle books remotely without your permission. In fact, we were warning of potential zapping problems in a generic sense even before Amazon unveilved the Kindle.
All those issues, DRM, formats and Orwellian book zaps, share a common thread: the ability to own books for real. Related is the desire of Google and others to store your so-called library in the clouds—on their own servers—without local copies necessarily residing on your hard drive. The concept of networked books, with content coming from many sources on the Web, just further complicates the ownership issue. No, the right to read books isn’t enough by itself; we also need the right to own.
The right to own books: Not just a technical debate
The ownership question should be not just a technical debate—it is a political and intellectual one; and as a group, the usual technical journalists have miserably failed to understand and alert the public about the huge stakes here, such as the keen desire of certain governments to use DRM, remote book-zapping and other technology in the service of censorship.
Even so, we’re seeing progress on ownership issues. For example, I was pleased that Rob Pegoraro at the Washington Post once again evinced his skepticism toward DRM, in his critique of the Barnes & Noble bookstore. He is a much-appreciated exception, and beyond that, many writers dislike DRM and other ownership problems at the annoyance level. It’s just that they don’t look beyond that and see DRM’s full downside when mega-corporations impose it on book buyers (I’m a bit more tolerant of library DRM, although even that has its risks).
Ahead I’ll write more on the media’s failings on the book-ownership issue, while also indulging in a little hope.
Amazon’s accidental spotlight on DRM
Unwittingly, Amazon may have helped the pro-ownership case when it remotely zapped 1984 and Animal Farm from the Kindles of purchasers. That may or may not have been DRM in the strictest sense. But it heighted awareness of the ownership issue. Now the New York Times is out with a follow-up, “Amazon faces a fight over its e-books”, in which it addresses both the zapping and the DRM controversies. Let’s hope that more pieces like follow in the same vein.
That leaves open the matter of what to use in place of DRM. The best solution would be, “Nothing.” But as a compromise, one solution would be social DRM, the embedding of owners’ names and contact information in books to discourage piracy, while allowing sharing within fair use. I’m not the first with the idea. Sites such as The Pragmatic Programmers have been executing it the idea, and none other than Bill McCoy (photo), an Adobe e-publishing executive, endorsed the use of social DRM when content providers wanted it. Bill laudably told “print publishers and authors”: “Why not support ‘social DRM,’ rather than heavyweight DRM? If that’s a direction you are willing to go, Adobe will back you up, 1000%.”
Oh, to think of the progress the book industry would have made if the New York Times and the rest of the mass media had pounced on that one and encouraged Bill! Social DRM is far from perfect—privacy issues can arise if hackers break into the computers of legal buyers, for example—but it should be an alternative for book buyers who worry that traditional DRM will create problems such as reducing the usefulness of purchases on certain gizmos they own. The best way to deal with DRM’s compatibility problems is to avoid so-called protection, a laugh anyway in this era of the scanner and P2P.
The social DRM issue as an example of media obtuseness
So far, alas, at least via Google and the New York Times index, I can’t find one reference to the phrase “social DRM” on the Times site despite the newspaper’s stellar Tech section. I won’t get angry with the Times. This is a just one example of the difference between the mass media—preoccupied with many issues—and a site like TeleRead that has specialized in e-books for years. I hope that the Times and other newspapers will catch up, and I’m pondering the possibility of content alliances and/other other relationships to help make mainstream coverage more comprehensive and perceptive on high-stakes consumer issues related to book ownership. How ironic that some in the mass media could get excited over the snooping that the Patriotic Act authorized—and yet fail to grasp the full extent of the corporate threat to book ownership or even sheer access.
The eBabel issue: Another one the media has neglected for the most part
It will also help for the media to care more about format issue, itself a threat to genuine book ownership.
A Google search of the New York Times site turns up just eight or so mentions of the words “International Digital Publishing Forum,” the first in 2006, even though the IDPF is the main trade and standards organization in e-bookdom. The phrase “Open eBook Forum,” earlier name of the IDPF, appears a mere five times. Total count: 13 times, mostly without the e-book standards issue coming up in detail. Under one name or another, OeBF or IDPF, the group has been around formally in incorporated form since January 2000.
Great, isn’t it? An average of fewer than one and a half mentions a year of the IDPF/OeBPF in the Times. While standards references can appear without use of IDPF and while the group hasn’t cared as much about standards as it should—even now—this is a good illustration of the scanty attention that the media have given eBabel as a long-term threat to ownership of books. I’ve zeroed in on the Times not to pick on it, but because, by far, it publishes the most comprehensive technology and book sections. While ePub is currently winning, its ultimate victory is by no means assured. More conscientious coverage by the Times could go a long way to educate the public about the risks of not having ePub.
Sarah Palin and the books-in-the-cloud issue
I would also urge closer examination of the books-in-the-cloud issue. Like the others, it could open up all kinds of new censorship opportunities for governments—not just in China, but here at home. Imagine One Nation Indivisible under Sarah Palin, which just might happen if she wins the Republican nomination and Murphy’s Law prevails at the expense of freedom of expression. Somehow could a Sarah-friendly Congress ban access to “offensive” titles even in areas beyond porn? It is not impossible. As a mayor, Palin broached the idea of censorship, later claiming that she didn’t mean it—even though she fired a librarian opposed to the idea (cause-effect?).
Why e-book ownership should matter even to Luddites
Old-time, paper-oriented bibliophiles may not care about the dependability and permanent accessibility of E and the related ownership issues, but the corporate world may leave them with no other choice someday. I myself hope that doesn’t happen. But it might. While not currently accusing Amazon of anything deliberate, I continue to be baffled why my own novel is visible to most casual shoppers only in the Kindle edition. I applaud Nicholson Baker, long a skeptic toward E, for taking the trouble to try out a Kindle and an iPhone or Touch and reflect on the ramifications for society—including the ownership issue.
July 27th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
David,
While I share your concern over DRM (costly to small publishers, costly to distributors in terms of support issues, annoying to customers, only partially effective in limiting piracy), I think your beating the drum over book ‘ownership’ misses the point. Readers don’t really own the books. They own the paper (media) they’re printed on. They own the right to read those books and limited additional rights in terms of sharing and resale in the case of books embedded in media. But if they really owned the books, they’d have the right to make copies for resale, to redistribute them under different author names, that sort of thing.
Because books are a physical manifestation of intellectual property (sorry to those of you who don’t like that word), ownership rights over them will always be limited as long as copyright is in force, regardless of whether they’re physical books or eBooks.
Rob Preece
Publisher
July 27th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Rob,
Tell the reader he doesn’t own his books. Tell the book collector he doesn’t own his books.
Your point may be valid, we just own the paper we can’t redistribute (of course tell that to libraries), but if you ignore that feeling of ownership your business will suffer. You come off as tone deaf.
July 27th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
“…we also need the right to own.”
Do we? The very existence of libraries tells me that many, many folks don’t have a compulsion to own the books they read.
Some folks want to own DVD’s. Others are content to rent them. Some folks need to own a house, car, or tux. Others are quite content to rent.
My personal position on ebooks is that my concern for “ownership” rights are sort of on a sliding scale related to the price of the title. The cheaper the title the more tolerant I’ll be of publisher shenanigans regarding DRM. The more expensive the price the less I’ll tolerate DRM (Note to publishers: if you really want to try and charge me anywhere near the same price for an ebook as a pbook it damn well better be sans DRM!!)
Actually, I hope the market evolves towards a monthly subscriber service a la Rhapsody or Netflix.
What if Amazon were to offer a subscription service similar to Rhapsody? For a fixed monthly fee you step up to the book buffet and “eat” all you want. You keep the titles you want as long as you continue your subscription. However, when you stop your subscription Amazon will delete all the titles you might still have on your Kindle. Could that be a possible reason Amazon implemented the “reach out and delete from your Kindle” functionality that has gained notoriety of late?
People will make purchase decisions based upon their own particular needs. If YOU feel that you need clear title (so to speak) to the titles you buy that’s your decision. Just don’t assume that everyone else shares the same belief and sense of outrage over “just leasing” in this matter.
July 27th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
As I’ve noted in the past, I can see room for different biz models. It’s just that Amazon and other DRM pushers seem at odds with fair use and consumer choice. Why, Amazon isn’t even making my PAPER edition easily findable in its e-catalog. Something is wrong here. Granted, a subscription model, even with DRM, would be an interesting option. But please don’t take away my readers’ ability to buy my book for real. I WANT them to feel they own The Solomon Scandals—in which case they’re more likely to talk it up to their friends. Ownership for a reader is not the same as ownership for a writer, but it’s ownership just the same.
Thanks,
David
July 28th, 2009 at 9:44 am
It seems to me the issues of ‘ownership’ and DRM are indeed related. The problem is, how do we read most ebooks from this year, a hundred years from now, when their formats are obsoleted, but the copyrights are still in effect? (Maybe by then copyright terms will be life + 1,000 years?)
Subscription models are well and good for most library users and textbook users. I fully expect this will be a flourishing business model pretty soon, as it allows publishers and ‘rights holders’ to collect money every time a text is read. But it still suffers from the Big Brother problems of texts being changed and censored — and the original editions simply vanishing.
I’d like to call for a simple solution (at least in the USA): for the Library of Congress to grant exemptions for all ‘device-shifting’ use and programs. This would make legal all the ‘cracking’ software people could use to overcome the barriers of DRM, convert one format of eBabel to another, read on any device they have (including new devices and formats as they arise, thus ensuring the possibility of reading the etexts going forward, even when the last Kindle made breaks and nothing reads the proprietary Amazon format anymore), and preserve and ‘own’ their books.
It would be a sword that cuts to the heart of DRM, encouraging publishers to look for other answers to their problems, as well as the heart of eBabel, since over time ‘the best or most popular format would win,’ and device manufacturers would cluster around that format, and publishers would be encouraged to save costs and release in this best-liked format.
And it would be up to the Librarian, whose position (we may hope) is less influenced by lobbyists, and more by considerations of the public good.
Well, it won’t happen, but I like to dream at times.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:47 am
The press isn’t the only group that needs to understand the issue… most consumers and publishers have not yet fully come to grips with the fact that an e-book is not the same as a printed book, and cannot be treated exactly like a printed book, any more than a television show is the same as a story told by a campfire.
The sooner everyone understands the true nature of e-books, therefore, the sooner we can stop wasting so much time with argument and semantics and get around to building an industry as healthy as the TV or music industries (or at least as lucrative).
E-books are quite literally a new medium, or package, for literature, and as a medium, have more in common with other electronic media (like music, television programs, etc) than with printed matter. Electronic media have developed forms of delivery, pricing structures, and yes, DRM, that reflect the realities of that media… and they actually work. E-books have not, because everyone in the biz continues to try to fit round electronic pegs into square paper holes.
I agree with Rob P: Consumers buy, and own, a package. But they have limited options as far as how they can use the content in that package… the actual literature. In the case of Amazon (or with any dedicated e-book reader), the device itself is the package, and one of the downsides of the Kindle system is that it can exercise control over the content. Don’t like that? Use a device, or package, that will not take your content away without your say-so.
The fact that the “Orwellian Kindle Fiasco” (as it will probably go down in history) happened is not an indictment of the e-book industry… it is a warning about one of the biggest potential downsides of a particular package. As long as everyone obsesses over that one package, no use will come of this fiasco. But if consumers, publishers, and the press, take advantage of this to alert everyone to the other packages out there, and their options to avoid undesirable e-book packaging, they will be doing a service to the industry.
July 28th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
David, have you followed up with the tech writers at the Times who write about ebooks? Pitch an article about your TeleRead project, the history of ebooks, DRM, all the stuff the press is not covering. Explain that the Times can be the leader in thoroughly covering this story, getting the angles no one else has. Offer to hook up the author with the heavyweight folks you know at the manufacturers, Adobe, eReader, whatever. (You might want to contact them first to make sure they want to participate.)
Complaining in a blog won’t make anyone write the article you want. They need to have it put under their noses. I would like to read such an article.
July 28th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Pond, Steve and Mags…
@Pond: I love the idea of an exemption. I just don’t know if the good guys have the clout for it to become reality, and you yourself seem to wonder about that. But we’ve got to start somewhere. So keep dreamin’! I like that.
@Steve: The commonsense of consumers will ideally prevail. Improved newspaper coverage of course could speed up the process.
@Mags: Thanks for the suggestion. The NYT and other major publications know of TeleRead—Age Age quoted me just days ago—and perhaps something positive can happen. I will be following through. Your thoughts expressed above can only help.
Thanks,
David