TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for the ‘Bill McCoy’ Category

By Bill McCoy

Earlier I raised the issue of how many e-books Amazon was selling that were truly commercial. I’m not the only one. Here are personal opinions of Adobe’s Bill McCoy, adapted with his permission from the Reading 2.0 e-mail list. - D.R.

Apple is unlikely to be able to pull an iPod here, but not because Amazon has any kind of insurmountable lead in e-book selection. I don’t think that’s the case, not at all.

First, the selection of commercially relevant e-books at the Kindle Store is still very thin. Less coverage of what really sells in trade than a decent airport bookstore. Much of the “vast” Kindle Store selection is filler eDocs. Some major publisher lists are MIA. This has already been discussed on the list so I won’t belabor the point. But the race to get everything that sells in digital isn’t over, it isn’t even half over. When you get beyond U.S. market, it has barely begun, and Kindle is not the leader.

Secondly, the aggregation of e-books by Ingram and others includes not only the content but the commercial relationships that enable multiples downstream retailers. To map to physical book value chain, they are not just distributors, they can act as wholesalers. In this model the publisher retains more control over the pricing (vs. a retailer being able to impose their own will), but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

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By Jon Noring

When I was in college I collected 78 RPM phonograph records, primarily jazz records from the late 1920’s and early 1930’s. Either I was good at collecting, or just lucky. I found and acquired several large jazz and blues collections (a total of over 100,000 records, about 25 tons, passed through my fingers), and didn’t lose a dime in the process.

I’ve long since given up massively collecting the “old 78’s”, and today have only kept a few favorites. One favorite I kept, a quite rare classic jazz recording from late 1928, is shown to the right. [note 1] My experience collecting older sound recordings has given me some unique perspectives as it relates to media, e-books, copyright, conversion, archiving, formats, etc.

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By David Rothman

Who could ignore Jane’s cat graphic—along with her plea for an end to eBabel? Adobe’s Bill McCoy, in fact, came up with a very speedy reply.

Yes, Bill: there’s hope in .epub. It’s the DRM-standards part I’m worried about: this is no small detail. Meanwhile perhaps you can return to your interest in social DRM, which could help address interoperability problems. Why isn’t the e-book business getting serious about SDRM? Or maybe watermarking? Random House seems pleased so far with watermarking for audio books and is ditching DRM requirements in most cases. Why are e-books so bleepin’ different?

Question of the day: Who’s Bill referring to when he writes: “Tellingly, one major eBook retailer, despite promoting their own proprietary format, has quietly begun accepting EPUB submissions from publishers”? Amazon? Fictionwise? Another? Of course, in Hachette’s case, retailers haven’t any choice. Laudably, .epub is now standard distribution format from Hachette, which owns Warner Books. Oh, for consumer formats to catch up—ideally with traditional DRM not cluttering up the works!

By David Rothman

Adobe Digital Editions 1.5, on the way, uses more flexible DRM called Named Activation.

You’ll be able to tie your books to your personal ID, not suffer the usual machine-linked approach. The ML approach is torture if you own a whole bunch of e-book-capable machines—or when a hard drive goes south, as they’re all likely to do in time.

Perhaps with that in mind, eReader has been using an ID-based approach for eons by way of encrypted credit card-related information.

Oink! Oink!

Adobe’s plans are Good News even for us DRM haters, but they’re still just lipstick on a pig. Even Adobe concedes the “inconvenience” of “the user ID and activation processes” associated with Named Activation. And yet we know people want e-books on many devices, which eReader allows, via its credit-card-linked approach. Will Adobe Digital Editions, too, rely on card-linked IDs? My hunch is no. What I can say, however, is that I still hear LOUD oinks.

As I’ll show later in this post, even Adobe’s new DRM (as in “New Nixon”?) could be a long way from “iPod simple” if you include the registration process.

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By David Rothman

Greg Newby, CEO of Project Gutenberg, says he’s open to creation of .epub files on the fly, via the main Gutenberg site. And he is also willing to consider links to sites that store IDPF-standard files in ready-to-go form.

At the same time, however, Greg writes on a Gutenberg list that he needs convincing evidence that .epub will indeed be an open, honest standard without gotchas coming in from Adobe or any other company. He’ll also need the right software tools—free and open source.

“On the fly” explained

But first, what does “on the fly” mean? It means that Gutenberg would treat .epub as it now does Plucker.

You’d type in a number to identify the e-book file, then wait while the conversion gears ground away and generated .epub from another format such as HTML or .txt. This isn’t an optimal solution, but it’s a good start, especially if Gutenberg also uses direct links to sites with ready-to-go .epub.

Catnip for consumers, if IDPF doesn’t play games

The benefit for Gutenberg visitors would be for future Sony Readers—expected to come with Digital Editions, Adobe’s software that can read .epub, not just PDF—to be able to read .the IDPF format without conversion hassles at the human readers’ end. The same could happen with Bookeen’s forthcoming Cybook Gen3; in fact, an entire generation of E Ink machines with .epub-reading capabilities, whether or not they originated from Adobe software, which apparently won’t happen in the case of the Cybook.

Adobe funds the IDPF, whose executive director, Nick Bogaty, is about to start a job there. While the public domain community will benefit from .epub and mustn’t walk away from the possibilities by ostracizing the IDPF just because Adobe’s involved, we also need verifiable assurances that no one will compromise the integrity of the standard. Integrity is the key to many different brands of commercial software and hardware—not to mention open source freeware and shareware programs—working with .epub from Gutenberg and other sites. (more…)

By David Rothman

OK, here’s the reason Nick Bogaty’s leaving as exec director at the IDPF.

Bill McCoy at Adobe has hired Nick, effective next month, “to lead our digital publishing business development.” From Bill’s blog:

“While Nick understandably decided to seek new challenges after an almost six year stint at the helm of IDPF, his passion for promoting the broader adoption of digital publishing was clearly unabated, so I’m delighted that he’s chosen to come on board and play a key role in advancing Adobe’s contributions.”

Best of luck to Nick and Bill. I hope they’ll both give serious consideration to actual implementation of social DRM (a possibility Bill’s talked up) and the epub1/epub2 logo idea, both of which could help grow Adobe along with the rest of the e-book industry.

By David Rothman

Mobipocket’s Web site is still down as I write this. Some old customers just might stop buying Mobi-format books in the future.

E-book software companies, publishers, distributors and e-stores, then, should consider social DRM as an alternative to traditional, Mobi-style DRM. Social DRM works by embedding names and/or other identifying information into files you buy, so P2Ping isn’t as tempting. It’s hardly perfect. But it isn’t the e-book toxin that Mobi-style DRM is. With social DRM, e-books can be much easier to buy and own than with the traditional variety.

Best protection is none, but…

The best protection is none in this era when pirates can so easily scan paper books. Fictionwise is smartly offering thousands of DRMfree books, in cases when publishers will allow. Mobi DRM, although actually gentler than many competitors, is still a hassle. Last I knew, Mobi wouldn’t even let you use a book on more than four devices at once—a barrier I’m constantly up against.

But many large publishers still hate the idea of using nothing. So social DRM could be a compromise. For software companies, stores and retailers alike, social DRM could be a way to get the jump on the competition.

Hello, Mobi? Social DRM would be one way of bouncing back from your debacle. Your owner, Amazon, is already experimenting with DRMfree music, which a far, far more radical step than social DRM.

Social DRM as a way to take e-books more seriously

At least with social DRM, buyers would never lose access, even temporarily, to already-bought books—no small concern when hard drives and the like may go south.

We could take e-books more seriously as a medium if we could truly buy them, especially for future use on new machines with different operating systems. Or present use on the cellphones, PDAs and other gizmos now proliferating in many households.

The result? We’d buy more e-books, probably lots more, especially with a standard format in use, such as the IDPF’s epub. No longer would our use of e-books be so closely tied to the competence or survival of the company behind a specific format and protection system. E-reader companies could compete in such areas as ergonomics and features. (more…)

By Bill McCoy

Google, Others Contest Copyright Warnings, in the Wall Street Journal, notes a pending complaint that the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) , a trade group in which Google, Microsoft and others are members, is filing about copyright notices that, according to the CCIA, misled users by not noting legitimate fair-use reproduction rights.

What Google’s role, if any, in the complaint is not entirely clear, but it certainly seems ironic that Google is being associated with this complaint, at the same time as they are putting putting highly misleading notices on scanned public domain works.

Supposedly “essential” watermark

The Google notice, found as page 1 on downloadable PDFs of public domain works available via Google Book Search, “asks” users to:

Make non-commercial use of the files. We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for personal, non-commercial purposes…Maintain attribution The Google “watermark” you see on each file is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.

There is clear U.S. precedent that scanning a public domain work does not create a new copyright so there seems to be absolutely zero legal basis for restricting use or forcing users to preserve inserted per-page watermarks-cum-advertisements. (more…)

By David Rothman

OpenReader is dead, dead, dead as a major format to implement, though I hope that the IDPF picks up its better traits. Here’s yet another idea that we intended originally for OR. Why not a logo for the IDPF standard?

You see a catchy circle or other image on your PDA or e-book device with included software—or the logo appears on an e-software site. If you buy a book from an online e-retailer displaying the logo, then you’ll absolutely positively be able to read the format. Same if you want to borrow a book from a library site displaying the logo. Market problem #1 for e-book companies isn’t the competition among them, but convincing people to read e-books, period. An IDPF standards logo could help.

Idea: A logo now for nonDRMed books in the IDPF format

This needn’t be a fantasy. All it would take would be for the IDPF to agree on a system for DRM interoperability. Meanwhile, even now, the IDPF could promote the logo or a variant for nonDRMed books using the new OPS/epub standard. It would be cool way of showing that the standard wasn’t just intended as a Trojan to promote DRM sales. And it could work with social DRM of the kind that IDPF board member Bill McCoy has laudably talked up.

Logos aren’t mere details—they’re a sign of commitment, just what buyers are making when they pay good money for e-titles. I’m rooting for the IDPF to do the right things here. Who knows, this might give e-books such a big jolt that the big houses would stop worrying so much about DRM.

By David Rothman

What do the IDPF’s new e-book standards mean to publishers? Just what’s a container format? And will the old OEPBS system be readable by software based on the new standards? Those are among the questions answered in a Digital Book 2007 presentation by Garth Conboy of eBook Technologies, Inc., one of the key players in the IDPF’s standards initiative.

This post also contains direct links to dozens of other presentations from the IDPF’s Digital Book 2007 and conferences from earlier years. Later I’ll highlight a few presentations, and meanwhile I’d encourage TeleBlog readers to look through the files and share their own thoughts in the comment area, taking care to be fair and accurate. Just click on “Read the rest of this entry” to reach the direct links here, which, by the way, should make the individual presentations more discoverable by search engines.

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By David Rothman

“Big news on the UMPC front this morning folks. Looks like Intel is shedding the Origami gorilla (read: Microsoft) as they prep a Linux-based platform to compete with Vista and XP-based UMPCs. Intel will unveil their new MID (Mobile Internet Device) platform at the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing later this week.” - Engadget.

The TeleRead take: So does this mean that the outrageous prices of UMPCs, generally above $1,000, will drop a little? I’m keen, keen, keen on e-book-capable machines running linux, by the way. The more Microsoft alternatives, the less chance of Richmond controlling e-book formats. I hope that Bill McCoy and the rest of the gang at Adobe—plus people at other vendors—will go full blast after the UMPC market if/when prices decline sufficiently.

And speaking of Microsoft vs. Adobe: Techmeme roundup on Microsoft’s Flash rival.

Related: Google News UMPC items, plus Laptop Logic and UMPC Portal. Also see A UMPC Prototype at IDF, from Gotta Be Mobile. It’s Vista-powered.

By David Rothman

Color e-paper from E Ink might hit the market next year.

If this happens, it could be great news for e-bookers and the magazine and newspaper industries.

Well, the actual words in the Reuters story are “could be launched”—however you want to interpret them in terms of use in real machines. May this rocket take off!

Source is Russell Wilcox, E Ink president, quoted in “Electronic Paper” Edging Toward Reality. E Ink is testing a prototype now. Meanwhile Reuters says the company’s “revenues have grown at a rate of 200 to 300 percent annually in the last three years.”

Sony Reader screen test II

Coincidentally, when I was p-book-shopping at Borders yesterday, I tried out the Sony Reader once more—the best-selling E Ink machine.

Sorry, people. The screen contrast between text and background was just as inadequate for me as I remembered it from my last brush with the reader. But, hey, each to his/her own, and I know the technology will improve.

In fact, I wildly applaud the NAEB project to create a Sony Reader equivalent while freeing publishers and readers from a proprietary approach. It will use multiformat e-reading software. I’d love to see other publishers join Baen in supporting NAEB and similar projects. Photo is of the STAReBOOK, whose basic design is a starting point for NAEB.

Related hardware and format news

In other hardware/format news, Sony has unveiled a developers’ site devoted to such matters as creation of content in the BBeB format. Just remember who controls the format, the only way to read DRMed e-books on the Sony Reader. (more…)