DRM hurting publishers?

[Steerpike]

Charles Stross makes the argument on his blog that the use of DRM hurts traditional publishers because it locks readers into a platform (namely, Amazon's Kindle platform). It is an interesting read, and he makes points worth considering, though I'm not sure I'm entirely convinced. I suppose his argument hinges to some degree on the extent to which Amazon's products are viewable on other platforms even if there is no DRM. Are there other eReader devices that read .azw files, for example? If not, then the problem appears to be a combination of DRM and proprietary format that reduces the chances a reader will change platforms. You can convert between formats using something like Calibre, but the conversion isn't always perfect and I wonder if many more average eBook readers would go through that process than the process to remove the DRM.

Here is the blog post: Cutting their own throats - Charlie's Diary

 

[Shadoe]

I don't think he's taking into consideration that the Kindle and the Nook aren't the only readers out there. I can read books from both Nook and Kindle on my iPod Touch and iPad. At Best Buy last weekend, I saw at least a dozen kinds of pads and I'm betting they all have reader apps. If you buy a book for Kindle or Nook, you can eventually read it on just about anything.

Certainly, the folks at Amazon and B&N want their customers locked in to using only their reader - that's just business sense. And of course they don't want the people who buy the books to turn around and distribute them to the rest of the world.

The idea that DRM hurts publishers seems silly to me. It doesn't help other readers to go with a bunch of different proprietary formats, so eventually, I think there will be a single standard.

The problem that's going to come from DRM is going to be when the format changes - which is sure to happen. Customers are the ones who'll pay that price as they have to repurchase the books they already have in one format to replace them with the new format. Kind of like the record-cassette-CD issue. With publishers getting to sell yet another copy of the same work, I think they'll do fine.

I do think the e-book format is going to change the traditional publishing business drastically, though.

 

[Steerpike]

I don't think he's taking into consideration that the Kindle and the Nook aren't the only readers out there. I can read books from both Nook and Kindle on my iPod Touch and iPad. At Best Buy last weekend, I saw at least a dozen kinds of pads and I'm betting they all have reader apps. If you buy a book for Kindle or Nook, you can eventually read it on just about anything.

Certainly, the folks at Amazon and B&N want their customers locked in to using only their reader - that's just business sense. And of course they don't want the people who buy the books to turn around and distribute them to the rest of the world.

The idea that DRM hurts publishers seems silly to me. It doesn't help other readers to go with a bunch of different proprietary formats, so eventually, I think there will be a single standard.

The problem that's going to come from DRM is going to be when the format changes - which is sure to happen. Customers are the ones who'll pay that price as they have to repurchase the books they already have in one format to replace them with the new format. Kind of like the record-cassette-CD issue. With publishers getting to sell yet another copy of the same work, I think they'll do fine.

I do think the e-book format is going to change the traditional publishing business drastically, though.

Yes, I think that all makes a lot of sense. I wasn't clear on the extent to which Amazon's Kindle format can be read on other readers, though. I don't think you can read it on the Nook, for example, without converting it. Same for the Sony eReader, Kobo, and most of the other e-ink display devices. But the Android-based devices, and maybe the iPad as well, do have Kindle software that will allow reading, so I think you are right in that Amazon's books can be read on a wide variety of devices and the industry seems to be moving more and more toward those devices.

Hopefully the format will in fact be standardized over time. If nothing else, that makes things easier for those of us who self-publish an eBook. I had to format mine for Kindle, then tweak it quite a bit to get it to work right on ePub, and I'm still not 100% certain how it looks on other readers that I didn't have handy. A standardized format would be nice.

 

[Shadoe]

I haven't really explored teh other e-readers. I know when I was looking for mine, the selling point was that Kindle could read more formats than the others. I don't think you can read a Kindle book on a Nook, but I think I can read a Nook book on a Kindle. Though I forget which format those come in, so I'd have to check to be sure. I think any reader that has an exclusive format is asking to be left behind.

 

[Steerpike]

I think the Nook is ePub. At least, for the e-ink versions. I'm not 100% certain about that, though. The conversion using Calibre is fairly easy, though. I have a Kindle as well. I'm giving someone a Kindle Fire for Christmas, but I prefer the e-ink display to the back-lit LCD.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

DRM hurts everyone, always, except for DRM manufacturers. It hurts creators, publishers, and consumers.

You might think that DRM would help publishers and creators, by stopping those nasty ol' pirates? Well, turns out, that just isn't the case. DRM is never more than the tiniest speedbump to pirates. All DRM does is inconvenience the people who actually buy the product legitimately; the pirated version has all the DRM stripped out, meaning that the pirated version is usually a better product than the legit version, for most of the use cases. (A pirated movie might not come with all the DVD extras, but if all you want is to watch the movie -- which is what 99% of the audience wants 99% of the time -- the pirated version is more useful to you.)

One thing DRM does very well is prevent person A, who legally purchased the product, from sharing it with friend B, who (in the olden days) would go "Hey, this is great" and buy a copy for themselves, or start buying that creator's other works. Well, now they just have their friend's verbal recommendation, which definitely can help, but not as much as actually experiencing the product themselves.

I'm not trying to justify piracy on ethical or moral grounds at all; that's a different discussion. I'm simply talking about the pure practical perspective of the content creators and publishers. If you want to maximize your revenue, putting DRM on something is going to hurt you in virtually all cases.

 

[Shadoe]

One thing DRM does very well is prevent person A, who legally purchased the product, from sharing it with friend B, who (in the olden days) would go "Hey, this is great" and buy a copy for themselves, or start buying that creator's other works. Well, now they just have their friend's verbal recommendation, which definitely can help, but not as much as actually experiencing the product themselves.

It's been my experience that when someone receives something for free, they generally do not then go out and purchase it.

I'm not trying to justify piracy on ethical or moral grounds at all; that's a different discussion. I'm simply talking about the pure practical perspective of the content creators and publishers. If you want to maximize your revenue, putting DRM on something is going to hurt you in virtually all cases.

I think publishers - and artists - have the right to protect their work and their income. I don't mind a good author getting paid to write - it generally makes them write more. I'd think, if they were going to get paid considerably less, because their work was being distributed for free, they would stop doing it. I love to write, but if someone offered me a job doing it for $30 an hour, I'd turn it down. If that was the only game in town, I'd go find a different job.

I think as DRM fails, they'll find a new way to handle it. Or maybe we'll see a paradigm shift, which would be better for all, I think.

 

[myrddin173]

It's been my experience that when someone receives something for free, they generally do not then go out and purchase it.

I think he meant letting the friend borrow said item. Not just giving it to them.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

I think publishers - and artists - have the right to protect their work and their income.

Agreed, they have that right. I was not discussing rights at all, though, just practicality. Putting DRM on your work is your right, and it will always hurt you to do it.

 

[Shadoe]

I think he meant letting the friend borrow said item. Not just giving it to them.

But people aren't borrowing the non-protected files. They're distributing. There is where the problem comes from.

And, the DRM files can be borrowed, which doesn't hurt the author and allows sharing without distributing.

 

[Shadoe]

Agreed, they have that right. I was not discussing rights at all, though, just practicality. Putting DRM on your work is your right, and it will always hurt you to do it.

Seeing how books are distributed, just like music files, I don't see the DRMs causing any harm. I don't think they're providing the protection that they were intended to, but I'm not seeing any sales go down because of them. I really just can't see where that might come in.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

Sorry, it would have been more accurate to say that DRM never helps the publisher. At best, it accomplishes nothing at all positive for the publisher. Sometimes, it:

1) slows down normal usage of the material (DRM decryption/checksums/decoding/etc. takes up processing power and time), though this is usually minor at worst.

2) prevents legitimate, legal uses of a work by an end-user who purchased it legally (what if I don't like the Kindle reading platforms Amazon provides? who is hurt by me taking the book I paid for and putting it on some other device to read it? as it stands, it is a federal crime (DMCA) to break the DRM on a Kindle ebook and read it in some other way, and there is no good reason for that to be the case).

3) breaks and gets in the way, making it actually difficult to simply use the thing you paid for.

For ebooks, so far, I don't think it's been a huge disaster (the way it was with many early music and video DRM schemes), partly because the rate of book piracy is far lower than music/video piracy, partly because they've had more experience watching music and video DRM schemes fail and have learned how not to make those mistakes.

The fact remains that putting DRM on a work does nothing at all for the publisher or creator. Yes, it might not hurt anyone directly or noticeably, but "does nothing" is not really a good reason for putting DRM on works.

I will never put DRM on any of my works and will, if I can afford to do so, refuse to let any publisher I work with do so for my works.

 

[Shadoe]

Well, I agree that it's not the ultimate protection it was designed to be. Most books are available out there in Webdom for free. So the books aren't all that protected. I'm sure it does discourage some folks from redistributing the books or downloading them from illegitimate sources, if only because they're not tech-savvy enough to know how.

Does it discourage users from reading the books on non-Kindle devices? On the one hand, not really. I own a lot of devices, and I can read my Kindle books on all of them, even swapping back and forth. On the other hand, I don't own every device that's ever been devised, so I'm sure there are devices that aren't Kindle-ready.

As far as it slowing down normal usage - I don't see that. I have many files that are from Amazon with their protection, and many that are not. They all load about the same. Actually, I can think of a few non-Amazon files that have given me trouble.

I guess I'm neutral on DRM.

 

[Devor]

The fact remains that putting DRM on a work does nothing at all for the publisher or creator. Yes, it might not hurt anyone directly or noticeably, but "does nothing" is not really a good reason for putting DRM on works.

Oh I don't know. I think DRM has helped Amazon to lock in its customer base, which brings down the price of the Kindle and helps Amazon sell the hardware below cost. And I genuinely believe that the Kindle helps people to read more.

When you consider that the new Kindle will let you "lend" books to someone, and that the Kindle books are usable on pretty much everything but the Nook, I don't really think I see much of a downside to it.

 

[MichaelSullivan]

I've always been very opposed to DRM. When I self-publish I always turn DRM off. My Riyria Revelations that are now published through Orbit I of course have no control over. For a long time I got "mad" when I saw my ebooks on torrent sites being downloaded for free. I used to play the "wack-a-mole" game of requesting them to be taken down...but then I'd fine it somwhere else and just determined it was an exercise in futility. I now look at pirated copies as potential word-of-mouth advertising. In many respects, obscurity is worse than theft. The mere fact that people are taking the time to steal your work and give it to others indicates that there are people who want to read it.

 

[Kevin O. McLaughlin]

I think as DRM fails, they'll find a new way to handle it. Or maybe we'll see a paradigm shift, which would be better for all, I think..

I agree with this bit. I think we've already seen that shift in music, and it's coming for books as well.

When anyone can download a free plugin for a free software program and break any existing DRM, the DRM is seriously not doing that much but annoying honest users.

The DMCA was even altered, in summer 2009, to make breaking DRM *legal* in certain cases (such as every book where the DRM disables the "read aloud" feature - which is almost every Big Publisher ebook sold on Amazon). The Library of Congress makes regulatory changes to the DMCA every three years, and made these changes because it was deemed unfair to people with disabilities to prevent them from accessing the content in a reasonable manner (so they can break the DRM, and then read-aloud works). The LOC is expected to make more regulatory changes in summer 2012 which further reduce restrictions on users' ability to legally break DRM for *legal* purposes. In the long run, I think DRM will become totally legal to hack - and we'll see people selling software to convert your entire digital library from any format to any format with the click of one button.

Or possibly, before that time publishers will wake up and realize that the music industry already waged this battle, and realized that DRM did nothing to protect their work (it only takes one person hacking something before it becomes available to everyone), irritated customers, and cost them a ton of money. DRM was removed from music downloads quite a while ago, not because of regulation, but because it's a dumb idea. Book publishers are a little slow on the adaptation thing, but they're going to realize this eventually. I think.

 

[myrddin173]

When you consider that the new Kindle will let you "lend" books to someone, and that the Kindle books are usable on pretty much everything but the Nook, I don't really think I see much of a downside to it.

Lending books is a feature that the NOOK had from the very beginning. Also I think you have that backwards, Kindle editions can only be read on Kindle devices (or Kindle reading apps). NOOKbooks however use the epub format which anything can read.

I hope that didn't read like I was trying to attack you, its just I'm on Team NOOK...

 

[Steerpike]

Lending books is a feature that the NOOK had from the very beginning. Also I think you have that backwards, Kindle editions can only be read on Kindle devices (or Kindle reading apps). NOOKbooks however use the epub format which anything can read.

I hope that didn't read like I was trying to attack you, its just I'm on Team NOOK...

It only take a moment to convert the Kindle format to epub, however. And, alternately, to convert epub to .mobi or other formats you can read on Kindle. So I don't think the format is terribly limiting. I went with Kindle simply because I already shop a lot at Amazon and I'm a prime member, so it made sense.

I don't view it so much as a Team thing, but I guess many people do, like like iOS v. Android or Mac v. PC. That kind of stuff doesn't matter so much to me - I just go with what I like best and I'm happy to see others do the same.

 

[MichaelSullivan]

I'm all for lending of books...but it should mirror "real books" - in other words I shouldn't be able to "lend" the book to 500 of my closest friends by emailing it to them. The book should be "unavailable" to me while my friend has it and once they return it then I should be able to lend to someone else. If they never return it....then it should be gone - just as a real book can be lost in the same fashion.

ebooks allow for the potential of "mass lending" which I think would greatly impact author's income and we deserve to be compensated for our work just as other professionals are.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

ebooks allow for the potential of "mass lending" which I think would greatly impact author's income and we deserve to be compensated for our work just as other professionals are.

We do deserve to be compensated, but DRM will never stop piracy; it's barely even a speed bump. All it does is make it harder for legit users (who already paid you) from sharing with their friends, an act which is more likely to result in additional sales than it is to result in lost sales.

Louis CK just released a film of a performance he did, with the following message:

To those who might wish to “torrent” this video: look, I don’t really get the whole “torrent” thing. I don’t know enough about it to judge either way. But I’d just like you to consider this: I made this video extremely easy to use against well-informed advice. I was told that it would be easier to torrent the way I made it, but I chose to do it this way anyway, because I want it to be easy for people to watch and enjoy this video in any way they want without “corporate” restrictions.
Please bear in mind that I am not a company or a corporation. I’m just some guy. I paid for the production and posting of this video with my own money. I would like to be able to post more material to the fans in this way, which makes it cheaper for the buyer and more pleasant for me. So, please help me keep this being a good idea. I can’t stop you from torrenting; all I can do is politely ask you to pay your five little dollars, enjoy the video, and let other people find it in the same way.

He gets it.