TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

I wrote about precisely that in my 2003 essay Share the Music :

I don’t usually buy CD’s, but but while browsing around half.com, I remembered singer Patti Rothberg (who sang that terrific feel-good song Inside (Real Audio)). It’s one of my all-time favorites. It came from the album Between the 1 and 9 which I bought on half.com. A used CD cost $1, and shipping cost $2.50, bringing the total to $3.50. When I received the copy, I discovered that it was a promotional copy (i.e., not intended for sale). (See Note).

So let’s look at the economics. The new CD probably cost about $12 or 13$, out of which Rothberg probably received a $1 profit (at best). But when people buy used CD’s (and its lower price makes it foolish not to), neither the artist nor music label receives anything. Presumably the music label or retailer recovers a fraction of cost when the item is remaindered and discounted. But in this particular case, the promotional cost is deducted as overhead from the bottom line, so it’s unlikely that Rothberg recovered ANY money from this transaction. In fact, it’s possible that this promotional copy counted against her royalties.

Out of that $3.50 I paid, $2.50 went to ebay/half.com for managing the transaction, and $1 went to an unscrupulous music journalist or DJ who resold the CD. How could I have bought this CD in a way that might have benefitted the artist most? I went to her website for a hint about how to give her a tip. But signed artists usually don’t ask for tips. EMI produced this CD, and I’m guessing that Rothberg bought old copies and was reselling them for $16.50 (at least that’s my guess; could I really be sure?).

Well, $3.50 v. $16.50. What did I choose? So I buy the $3.50 CD. I’m happy that I didn’t pay full price. The unscrupulous music reviewer is happy that s/he made a $1 profit. Ebay is happy because it profitted $2.50 from the transaction. Everybody’s happy now, right? Well, except for the artist…

David Rothman said “But Bantam Books and/or Robinson apparently insist that FW (Fictionwise) sell only a “protected” version (with DRM – digital rights management).”

This raises the obvious question: “Were the pirates thwarted by rusty padlocks of DRM?”
I decided to investigate this compelling issue on the high seas. The acquisition of a parrot and an eyepatch along with extensive linguistic practice allowed me to enter the nefarious piratical realm.

With quick success I found four works by Kim Stanley Robinson: “Roter Mars”, “Grüner Mars”, “Blauer Mars” and “Flucht aus Katmandu”. The texts were all in PDF format. But wait. Confusion. I could talk like a pirate - arrrgh - but I could not speak German!
Looking further I found the English books “Red Mars”, “Blue Mars”, “Green Mars” in lit format; also “The Years of Rice and Salt” in html and pdf. Next I found the Mars trilogy audiobooks in MP3 format.

So the rusty padlocks of DRM were smashed and did not stop the “black net” from distributing the works under investigation.

David says:

“Why can’t Amazon do DRMless books, just as it does DRMless music? With some exceptions, Amazon insists on DRM.”

I’m curious David - do you know for a fact that it is Amazon insisting on DRMed ebooks and not the publishers?

HeavyG wonders if Amazon is insisting on DRM for e-books or if publishers are insisting on the use of crippling DRM.

The experience of the author Cory Doctorow gives some insight into who is demanding DRM for audiobooks. Doctorow authored a recently released book called Little Brother and wanted to release an audiobook version without DRM.

When my agent started shopping the audio rights for Little Brother, I was shocked to discover that Audible refused to release any books without DRM — even if the author didn’t want it — and that they had the exclusive contract to supply audiobooks to the iTunes Store.

This quote is from a post at Boingboing dated February 21, 2008 and Amazon acquired Audible in January 2008. However it sometimes takes a period of digestion before a new parent company starts altering the policies of an acquired company. So it is unclear if Amazon will enforce this misguided policy of mandatory DRM on audiobooks in perpetuity. Also note that it is possible to remove the DRM from Audible audiobooks by using the officially sanctioned and facilitated ability to burn CDs. The CD content can then be reripped into MP3 or other convenient formats though the overall process can be awkward and time consuming.

Doctorow’s experience with the publisher Random House was different.

My agent had negotiated a one-off no-DRM deal with them for that edition, but now it seems like everyone’s going to have the same option: authors who don’t want DRM won’t be forced by Random House to include it.

Heck, HG, I don’t think the customers would cotton too well to a reDRMing of music at Amazon’s MP3 store. Are you saying there’ll be a big conspiracy and all the stores will link up with the studios to get DRM back in place? Furthermore, publishers are experimenting with no DRM. “Protection” is just plain bad for business when people have multiple devices and multiple operating systems and DRM registration can be hellish.

The current oil crisis, which could jack up the price of P, just might boost the interest in E to the point where big publishers finally grasp why DRM has to go.

Some agents and authors might howl. But it’s the publishers who hold the cards.

Thanks,
David