TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Steve Potash and the DRM-entertainment complex

By David Rothman

DRM is a little like the military-industrial complex against which Dwight Eisenhower warned America. It means buckets of money for the right people, whether or not a war’s going on—and more money if one is.

In the case of e-books, a war is in fact happening, against DRM-hating consumers, who, judging from experiences at stores such as Fictionwise, vastly prefer books without this “feature.” One of the issues for e-publishers is whether they should follow the lead of certain recording studios and phase out DRM or at least reduce its use, especially among people willing to pay extra to avoid “protection.”

Steve Potash among the generals

But what happens if Steve Potash, the president of the IDPF, the leading e-book trade organization, is himself a major provider of DRM services in his other role as president and CEO of OverDrive? Would he be open to a phasing out of major source of OverDrive’s revenue? For now, Steve is part of the DRM-entertainment complex, and, via a news release, here is a preview of some remarks he’ll make to the LexisNexis Digital Rights Management (DRM) Conference held April 23-24 in Beverly Hills with outfits such as MPAA and the RIAA participating:

“‘Our company encourages owners and distributors of premium digital content to expand the reach of their music, movies, and books by utilizing practical solutions for digital rights management,’ Mr. Potash said. ‘At the Digital Rights Management conference, we will assure members of the entertainment industry that they can confidently continue to provide their content online while protecting it from piracy.’

It’ll be interesting to see what Steve has to say in Hollywood and at the IDPF’s Digital Book 2007 conference in New York on May 9. If he and other e-bookers want DRM, it will be time for the IDPF to get hopping on an effort to standardize the technology or at least make it interoperable, lest the Tower of eBabel keep looming over e-bookdom. My own choice is, “No ‘protection,’” especially given the ease of pirating paper books via scanning. But if DRM is to exist, then let it be much easier on consumers.

Destroy the book village to save it?

Some publishers might say, “Who cares—just so we sell paper books.” But future readers will be more and more insistent on E, and I believe that they’ll resist either Draconian DRM or efforts to make E-Book Museums the only alternative. So in the end another military-related comparison comes to mind for the global book industry. Do we want “to destroy this village in order to save it”?

In fairness to OverDrive: DRM is still a cause dear to many large publishers, who see DRM as a security blanket, and Steve serves this market. But, given the ease of OCRing paper books, is it instead time to educate publishers to change their ways rather than just catering to their current wishes? Or at least try harder to encourage them to use gentler approaches? To OverDrive’s credit, its DRM is capable of letting library patrons burn music into CDs for permanent use. That’s a laudable experiment, and we need something similar for e-books, at least selected ones. I can remember AAP-sponsored projects to get books into the hands of children—to make them feel like owners. Alas, DRM in its current form does the opposite of that: it disconnects readers from purchased content, which, given the constant changes in technology, they may or may not be able to enjoy in the future.

Related: Digital Rights Management and the secret war against your Fair Use rights, from Reclaim the media.