Locking up Dickens: Why DRM is a lit and biz toxin
I’ve just posted my latest to the home page of Publishers Weekly—Locking up Dickens: Why DRM is a lit and biz toxin.
Keep in mind this is just David speaking, not PW, but it’s still great to be able to do what I can in the battle to unshackle e-books.
Later this week I’ll be writing on business models that avoid the use of DRM, and I’ll welcome people’s thoughts and experiences for possible quotation in PW. Anyone from Baen around—staffers or authors? Hint, hint. I’ll be in touch with you guys anyway, but it won’t hurt if you want to comment in the TeleBlog.
Meanwhile TeleBlog folks should feel free to hop on over to the comment area of the PW blog and tell why DRM is a pain in the rear and hurts readers, writers and publishers alike. Share the horrors.
November 5th, 2007 at 10:31 am
Placing the works of Dickens into a digital lockbox with DRM is self-defeating. Companies that lock up public domain works damage the trust that they should be trying to build. Consumers learn that the company will cynically exploit naïve buyers by charging for content that is free elsewhere. Instead of following a shortsighted strategy that emphasizes a minuscule revenue stream the company should be building goodwill by providing a large free library of high-quality public-domain texts.
The free e-books can be placed on web pages adjacent to companion e-books that are not in the public domain. For example a novel by Dickens could appear adjacent to a recent biography of Dickens; or it might appear near a critical edition of the novel with annotations and commentaries. This would facilitate cross-selling.
Removing DRM from the works of Dickens could also help to resolve a mystery. Consider the following quote attributed to Dickens:
This quote is understandably popular in books and articles discussing electronic networks, but it does not appear in any of the texts authored by Dickens that have been indexed by Google Book Search at this time. Wikiquote lists it as “unsourced”. Perhaps there is an un-indexed DRM encrusted text that reveals the proper provenance of this quotation. Removing DRM and indexing texts will be a boon to general research and understanding.
November 5th, 2007 at 11:17 am
Great post, Garson! Totally agree with your cross-promo suggestion. As for that Dickens quote, I’d love for someone to be able to determine if it’s true. Thanks. David