BooksForABuck,

My whole point is that language is very powerful. There is a difference between something that is morally wrong and something that is illegal. You seemed to have confused the two when critiquing my comment. I suggest you follow the link I supplied for a more detailed criticism.

Theft and stealing are morally wrong and the words themselves have very strong connotations.

We can argue whether copyright violation is in all cases morally wrong or not but don’t allow the language itself to be hijacked to imply a moral equivalence that does not exist. Degrees of moral wrongness exist for different acts. For instance it is morally wrong to lie but it is much worse to kill. By allowing the hijacking of the term theft for copyright violation we are allowing corporations to determine the degree of violation of the mores of our society.

Do not think for an instance that their was not a concious decision to abandon the term piracy for theft when describing copyright violation.

The point to my comment is that an author should understand the power of language and not buy into the false moral equivalence it implies.

Publishers and authors are not obliged to offer e-books, and I do not see why we insist they offer them at the cost of drm.

They are free to drm them of course but they should not be surprised that sales are so anemic. Now I do not think that offering drm free e-books will be a panacea either, just that sales will increase considerably, though print will still be king for a long while.

Or having to replace your VHS movie with the DVD one! (And then, for the HD-DVD or Blu-Ray one… oy!)

But the same applies to any of the formats out there, DRMd or not, except for plain text.

I’d say that HTML is not likely to go anywhere any time soon either, and unlike plain text it allows certain types of formatting to be preserved as well as just the text itself. Also, by this time, it is pretty much just as universal; I think it would be very hard to find a platform that could render plain text but not HTML.

True enough. But the same applies to any of the formats out there, DRMd or not, except for plain text. I figure I’m covered for a while if I’ve got access to a Palm, Windows, or Pocket PC device. While Palm’s a bit shaky, I understand that there’s an emulator that will run Palm apps, EReader included, on the new Nokia internet tablets, and that there may also be such an emulator available for some implementations of Linux. I’ve got all the ebooks and the software installers backed up to CD and on SD cards, and a spare Palm sitting in the desk. If it all goes away on me, I’ll look at it the same way I would a flood or fire that took out my bookshelves, and replace some of the material in the format of the day, and let the rest of it go.

The prospect might bother me more if I was in my thirties, but I’m pushing 60, and of the ebooks I’ve bought there are plenty that I wouldn’t try to replace. I’d replace some, but not nearly all of them.

But I’d worry a lot more about keeping my ebooks if I were married to a Kindle, or if they were all in secured MobiPocket or Adobe. I understand that a number of folks refuse to buy anything that’s DRMd, and depending on what you’re wanting to read, that’s reasonable. But the writers I’m reading at this time aren’t putting their titles out under Creative Commons licenses or posting them on their web sites. It’s DRM, print, or pirated editions, and I don’t go after pirate copies. For older titles, given a choice between a bare-bones copy from Project Gutenberg and a DRMd Penguin Classics from ereader, I’m just as likely to go with ereader depending on the title and the extra intro and notes.

My point is that until publishers wise up, ereader’s is the most customer-friendly DRM out there, and some major platforms will have to die out before it’s impossible to find some device that will support it. I’ve been buying from ereader.com for almost 8 years now, and also from Fictionwise, and while I’ve run into problems a number of times with Adobe DRM, and a couple of times with MobiPocket, I’ve had no DRM problems at all with ereader titles on any device I’ve used. I think that speaks well of the format. It’s as close to an unrestricted format as DRM’s likely to allow until DRM finally sinks into the tar pits where it belongs.

Bests,

–tr

On the matter of “I bought it and I want to read it on multiple devices or put it on my mother’s PC or Mac or Palm or Ipaq so she can read it too” — ereader’s DRM permits this. If there’s going to be DRM, ereader does it the way it should be done. No limit on the number of devices you can read the book on — just enter the unlock code, which is the name and credit card number used in purchasing the book. Neat, simple, not nearly as inconvenient as what Adobe and Mobipocket inflict on us, and the code isn’t information that anyone will want to shotgun out all over the internet. DRM should die, as it’s beginning to do in music, but until publishers catch on, ereader editions offer the most customer-friendly DRM there is, and ereader deserves high praise for that.

Bests to all,

–tr

The evidence is right in front of you. When I read a book that I borrowed, was given, or found on a park bench, I know that somebody, somewhere, paid for it.

Whenever someone makes an illicit copy of a for-pay book and uploads it, a new copy has come into existence. Now two people, in two places, can enjoy that same book at the same time. Extend that to hundreds or thousands of usable copies generated from a single sale, and you can easily see the lost sales.

Now you may say those thousands of readers would never have paid anyway, so what’s the harm? But that’s a strawman: if the producer chooses that each copy of her works should be obtainable only at a price, then her wishes should be respected. The harm is that those illicit readers should have had the same choices a law-abiding reader has: pay for the copy, find someone else to pay for the copy, or do without the copy. Cutting the cash register completely out of the loop is unfair to the people who spent months or years working to bring that book into existence.

I would be 100% in favor of a DRM system which protected ebooks no more (and no less) than pbooks are protected:

1) It takes just as much investment and human effort to make a copy as it takes to scan or copy each page of a pbook.
2) Only one person at a time gets to have a copy in their possession.
3) The single copy can be sold, loaned or given away, so long as the seller/loner/giver doesn’t get keep a ‘free’ copy.

This concept is pretty simple. But a lot of DRM-haters make no room for it. They say DRM in all forms is universally bad, and offer no real solution in its place. I enjoy Baen’s free and for-pay ebooks, and applaud their willingness to take the risk. But it is their risk to take. If an author/publisher team chooses to take that risk, I’ll happily consume their wares, and sometimes make donations in return for the ‘free’ stuff they give me. But a lot of people will not - most likely the majority. Can a ‘pay as an afterthought’ model really scale to the mass market? I doubt it - and I suspect that deep in your heart of hearts, you do too.

If another author/publisher chooses not to take that risk, and instead wants cash on the barrelhead, I’m fine with that too. I have the same three choices: pay, find someone to pay (all or part of the cost), or do without. If that author/publisher implement some DRM to protect their choice - well, it’s just another factor in my choice.

A challenge for you anti-DRM folks: can you find an enforceable alternative mechanism which protects the producer’s right to determine the value of his/her work?

(side note: had to rewrite this, as the blog lost my first submission! grr. Now lost my second sumission too, re-pasting from my notepad copy …)

http://www.trannet-japan.com/ep/tjc_news_dtl.asp?dk=N0000031

I reject that. This is hegemony. You are talking about people changing their basic temperament. Good frikkin luck!

>>>The word is changing and adapting and developing, and if you want to be in BUSINESS (as opposed to being a starving artist in a slum somewhere) you need to be able to change too.

Tom Clancy and James Patterson are now businesses. Do I read them? No. (I did read some of Clancy just to see what the clamor was about. Please!)

You can tout artist as pseudo-Republican all you want. But don’t complain when everything is blanded out and you start screaming about everything being the same old crap.

An instructional (but hilarious) video:

http://www.veoh.com/videos/v1629397ydkYhmSN

(R-rated language at end)

I don’t go to movies. They’ve become roller-coaster rides. They appeal to idiots. I refuse the lobotomy.

http://analytica1st.com/analytica1st/2007/12/sharp-sh905i-first-to-feature-dolby.html
– this phone includes software called Manga Book Reader. Well, that implies a file format. Whose? It it a standard? Have the Japanese agreed on a Manga format everyone uses?

And what would it do to ebooks here in the US when most phones offer a swivel screen like this? –

http://analytica1st.com/analytica1st/2007/12/softbanks-top-ten-selling-phone-models.html

– and note in that first link the resolution of that Sharp screen:

>>>3 inch (480X854) Full Wide VGA (16,777,215 colors)

Not as big as an iPhone screen, but much higher resolution! And, if the PR is to believed, very wide viewing angle.