Some people dislike subscription models because the termination of the subscription period leaves the purchaser with nothing. Many college students who were given free access to a subscription music system did not even bother to register. When the students were asked about this curious behavior they said that they did not want all their music libraries to “disappear” at graduation. So they continued to use peer-to-peer (P2P) networks and other music sharing methods that allowed for the “permanent” acquisition of music.

Some people fear the possibility of a future dramatic increase in the subscription cost. The subscription service and publishers would have enormous pricing power. Subscribers would know that carefully constructed and annotated libraries of personally selected music were, in essence, “held hostage” by publishers.

There is an alternative model that might allay these fears and achieve great success. A hybrid model would give subscribers access to a massive library of music each month. Subscribers could download freely from the large collection but each item would have DRM with a built-in timer. However, subscribers would also be allocated a fixed number of songs each month that they could download for a permanent collection without DRM. These DRM-free songs could have watermarks and embedded ownership tags (I think David Rothman and others are calling these tags and/or watermarks “social DRM”. But that name might be confusing to some readers.)

The “marketing” goal is to ease fears of dependency and to emphasize positive feelings of accumulation and empowerment. A similar idea can be used for e-books and other electronic objects. Subscribers should be allowed to “roll-over” DRM-free credits and should not be forced to use them all each month. This would enable superior choice flexibility. (Also pseudononymous ownership and/or proxy ownership should be allowed for privacy sensitive owners and objects.)

Subscriber growth would skyrocket if Rhapsody and other services moved to a hybrid model by adding a sizable number of DRM-free downloads while maintaining the same subscription price. “But why give more music away?” some music sellers might complain; because the paid music system is collapsing. Electronic revenues are growing but they remain very small compared to the shrinkage in CD revenues. Creative thinking and risk-taking is needed.

FWIW, I think the music subscription model was laughed at initially but it appears that it’s picking up momentum. I know I wasn’t a fan of it at first but I will definitely go that route when I get my next MP3 player (my current one doesn’t support any of the existing subscription models).

L. I want to see large-scale. As for tracking, yes, I’m aware of the dangers, but one way to mitigate this would be what I suggested: multiple models. That way, if a book might be problematic in the future, there would be no record, even at the title level; I believe in the right to buy books anonymously, with digital cash and surrogates involved. Also, if I had my druthers, there would not be page-level tracking.

B. I’d love for the subscription model to happen without DRM or with social DRM in use. A Baen-style solution would be great. It’s a question of seeing how far the publishing establishment would go without DRM. The other issue is to make sure that people have an ample choice of titles. Shouldn’t be a problem with a large enough scale. Perhaps you could even subscribe within certain subject/genre areas. I love the fact that Baen apparently doesn’t require you to buy access for each month. As for ownership, that option MUST remain. People mustn’t be limited to the subscription model.

Anyway, it’ll be great to consider all the possibilities. Keep commenting on them!

Thanks,and happy holidays, both of you!

David

The other problem (and I’m surprised to see the positive moderator’s notes *only* for this reason) — is that a subscription model would permanently embed DRM in the system. We’ve already seen very clever successful attempts to route around DRM in subscription models, which seriously undermines their profitability.

What I wouldn’t mind are subscriptions models that are essentially ownership models as well. Once again, Baen has shown how to do subscriptions.