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Adobe-Amazon DRM snafu shows need for librarians to help e-stores to back up ‘protected’ books
December 2, 2007 | 9:32 am
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By David Rothman
“I had a system crash two years ago and after restoring 60 e-books in PDF format I was unable to get them authorized again,” PC Magazine quotes an angry e-book shopper named Harrie Frericks. “I contacted both Amazon and Adobe but both were unable to help. In fact, Adobe never replied to my emails. Amazon seems not to sell e-books any more and they are unable to give me a re-download.”
The Kindle, appearing a few months after Frericks’ complaint, doesn’t change the rules at all despite Jeff Bezos’ pledge to store customers’ books reliably. Amazon remains a profit-driven company whose CEO has even said in the past that he might give up on books.
And looking beyond Amazon and Adobe, Frericks’ horror story is one more example of the distrust—so often justified—that consumers now have toward DRMed books. I’m not happy with Adobe’s “solutions” so far. See my past post Lipstick on the DRM pig: Adobe makes it easier to read e-books off a bunch of gizmos–but I still hear LOUD oinks.
I urge Adobe, Amazon/Mobipocket and other IDPF members to read What MLB fans can teach eBook readers about Kindle and other eReading devices, a just-published essay in Dear Author, which explains the not-so-mysterious ways of consumers; namely, a fondness for expecting companies to stand behind existing purchases, the very problem that Frericks’ e-book nightmare illustrates. Amazon didn’t help matters when, in the period after Frericks’ purchase, it stopped carrying Adobe books and others not in the Mobi format (actually Mobi has a special store, apart from Amazon’s main one). It even deleted lockers of customers who had expected books to be preserved at Amazon. DRM, alas, makes e-books like Britney Spears’ CDs—ephemeral; see Rx for the Best Buy Syndrome, posted on November 12, 2003. Others such as Peter Brantley and Dorothea Salo have also noted the problem.
Hesitant to buy DRM books—because I can’t own them for real–but here’s a solution
Just how many DRMed books are you buying these days? I still try to avoid them if I can—because, as we know, there’s no guarantee that publishers, bookstores or software companies will be immortal or even helpful, as the Frericks case shows. I’d love to see some kind of alliance between the library world and the IDPF, the main e-book standards-setting organization, so that consumers could own even DRMed e-books for real or at least stand better chances than they do now. Hello, Brewster Kahle at the Internet Archive? Might this be something for the Archive-related Open Content Alliance to join libraries in tackling? Or if you don’t want to do order fulfillment, could you at least help with such efforts, while focusing on storage?
Under this plan, as I see it, consumers could register their ownership, though a checkmark when they bought their books, and be assured eternal access. Librarians would be best for running such a backup service because they justifiably enjoy far more credibility than software companies and trade organizations and most retailers; and, yes, bookstores and others could pay them in return for being able to use a “Trusted Storage” logo in e-book promo. Such an approach would or wouldn’t replace bookstore lockers; but if nothing else, it should be available as a last resort.
Insured access
Along with the Trusted Storage proposal, may I also suggest that e-book sellers offer to insure customers’ e-book purchases so readers are reimbursed if they lose access. A possibility for Lloyd’s of London? If the Trusted Storage system were effective, premiums would be extremely low. If they weren’t, then Trusted Storage would not be doing its job.
Far from being opposed to Amazon and others making profits off e-books, I believe that the Trusted Storage logo would help grow earnings.
Hello, Steve Levy, Newsweek? Care to follow up your K-rave and do a column urging not just e-book standards but also a way to address the problem about which Jane and I and others have writen? Of course, the best solution by far is no DRM or social DRM, but if publishers won’t allow alternatives to Draconian DRM, don’t we need ways to protect the property rights not just of publishers but also of the consumers who buy their books?
Another function of Trusted Storage: Book registration could be used as a way to pass on DRMed books to friends or children. The original owners would lose access.
Detail: If Trusted Storage is now a trademark somewhere, which I suspect it is, perhaps arrangements could be made for authorized use. Or the IDPF could use another term such as Trusted E-Book.
Related: A new MobileRead item, Adobe executives point the finger at Amazon Kindle. Check out, too, a fresh TeleBlog post: Yahoo 360 blog threat: Time to help preserve people’s blog posts and book annotations, not just their e-books per se.
Memo to Robert Nagle: I’ve raised the e-book preservation issue in the past, as noted. If memory serves, you also brought it up in a comment; and if so, pass on a link!
(Updated several times today, Dec. 2, 2007. Further update, Dec. 3: I changed “If the Trusted Storage System were in effect,” to “If the Trusted Storage system were effective.”)
Technorati Tags: IDPF,Amazon,Amazon Kindle,Jeff Bezos,Adobe
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Comments:
I’ll never buy DRMed ebooks, partly due to being stung by them early on (bought several ebooks from the palm store, then switched to a device with no reader for it), mostly due to dislike of DRM in general. Even if I can convert the books to non-DRMed formats, I refuse to inflate DRM sales, giving the publishers the impression that people don’t mind DRM.
Also, DRMed ebooks are nearly always more expensive than non-DRMed ones, and often more expensive than the hardbacks! Just take a look at Fictionwise’s offerings, for example.
I saw an owner of a Sony Reader post somewhere that he won’t buy from Connect. Instead he buys in a format he knows he can strip the DRM from and then converts for the Reader. (I’ll not mention any DRM formats! teleread regulars know what I mean.)
It just doesn’t work, nor can it be made to work in the long term.
Look at the work around, a world wide identification system. Just to ensure that something I already purchased and possessed will still be usable in the future.
Along with identifying every customer, every work that is DRMed will not only have to be preserved (a good thing) but also its particular method of DRMing, plus some kind of crack/master key for each and every work, despite how technology may change.
Open formats can be translated. Perhaps in the future PDF and every other format will be deemed archaic. Whoops there goes all the DRMed ebooks.
It just might be me, but I see the digital world on the brink of another revolution in technology, how long can we give any scheme of DRMing? Five years, perhaps ten, is there anyone silly enough to propose that it is at all likely that in fifty years time that anyone will be using even remotely similar software? Or that many of the current publishers will still be in business?
And what in the meantime will be the increase in ebook publication, and if current trends persist even for a few years, how many of them will be locked away in DRM schemes no longer supported?
One aspect of my opposition to DRMing literature is that it is so shortsighted, technologically speaking.
Greg and Mike…
Well, as I’ve said, the best solution BY FAR is no DRM or social DRM. Keep speaking up!
Meanwhile the plan I’ve proposed would make it easier to update people when formats changed. Ideally .epub will be around a LONG time. But like Greg, I believe that no format is forever.
Happy holidays,
David
David,
I wonder if the promise to have books available for re-downloading from the Amazon site is a way to simultaneously satisfy customers and also avoid FTC complaints or lawsuits that might stem from problems such as Harrie Frericks’s.
Good question, Sherman, and thanks for the link to the thread where people are talking about a lawsuit against Adobe.
I can’t read Amazon’s mind, but, yes, legal as well as marketing reasons could be at work here. Maybe. One other reason could be that some technophobic customers won’t mess with a memory card and will delete titles past the 200 limit or whatever it is. Happy holidays. David
I wouldn’t hold my breath, David. I hang out on several forums for publishers, and there is a hard core of individuals who are so obsessed with wringing every penny out of their copyrights that they firmly believe ebooks should be treated like software.
In other words, they consider it perfectly fine that the purchaser of an ebook be considered as having purchased not the book but a license to use same. They have no problem whatever with requiring that same individual to purchase a new copy if their computer crashes and the original file is lost, or should the original seller go belly-up and that version no longer be available. In short, the consumer should be required to “upgrade,” and pay full price for the privilege.
I suspect that if you were to poll the hold-out publishers who demand draconian DRM, you’d discover that’s their attitude in a nutshell, and I assure you they will NOT change their minds. It’s all about “what’s mine is mine and if you want to have it you have to pay me,” and no amount of logic or common sense or statistics about how the Internet is changing the way consumers perceive THEIR rights makes a dent.
They will adapt to less stringent protection methods only when they discover their competition is killing them on ebook sales.
Like I said–keep breathing.
Elizabeth: I’m gloomy, too, at least for now—the reason I’ve suggested the archive idea as a compromise even though some and perhaps many publishers will object to that as well. But who knows? For competitive reasons, even the real die-hards might go along eventually. Remember my logo idea? It’ll let consumers know who’s sensitive. What’s more, maybe there’s hope from the decline of DRM in music world. My idea at least would allow DRM. And meanwhile, as an enlightened publisher who understands consumers, enjoy the advantage you have. Happiest of holidays. David