Far from limiting itself to Amazon, Sony and other giants, Macmillan is eager to reach out to independent bookstores such as Fictionwise and BooksOnBoard.
That’s the word from Fritz Foy, senior vice president of strategic technology at Macmillan.
Earlier, at Macmillan’s request, Amazon had stopped the indies’ feeds for imprints such as St. Martin’s Press. The result was that top titles like Rhett Butler’s People appeared to be gone with the wind, at least for BooksOnBoard and others. But as related by Macmillan yesterday, the reasons were far from nefarious.
Territorial rights issues
Rather there were international rights issues with a number of complexities involved. Just who are the true right-holders, for example, of various books? Amazon’s e-systems, as I understand it, and Fritz can correct me if I’m wrong, didn’t provide for all the possibilities. Rights-holder can include authors, publishers, other corporations, you name it.
Macmillan has been working to correct this so the feeds can be restored.
In Macmillan’s own words
Meanwhile here’s the lowdown directly from Fritz: “We have no direct relationship with BooksOnBoard (nor with Fictionwise, also mentioned in your blog entry). BooksOnBoard had been getting its content from Amazon. As a result of problems relating to Amazon’s distribution of our content to unaffiliated third-party sites (problems not specific to BooksOnBoard), we asked Amazon to suspend all such distribution so we can review the situation.
“We are looking into the idea of direct relationships with BooksOnBoard and other Mobipocket distributors and look forward to being in conversation with them soon. It is certainly not our intent to limit our electronic content to select big players. Quite the contrary, our goal is to put in place the systems and agreements that will enable it to be distributed as widely as possible.”
Strong .epub supporter
OK, gang, that’s good news. On top of everything else, Fritz tells me Macmillan remain a strong supporter of the .epub standard and is also hoping for interoperable DRM to accompany it. While I’m hardly a fan of DRM, interoperable DRM is far, far better than today’s totally proprietary approach. As Macmillan’s situation shows, publishing is complicated enough without a zillion and one e-book formats.
Macmillan, by the way, is the new name for the U.S. arm of the global Holtzbrinck Group and, beyond St. Martin’s, includes such distinguished imprints as Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Hey, let’s hope the time comes when FSG books from greats such as Philip Roth will easily be available all over e-bookdom!
A Kindle angle
Now here’s yet another angle. Keep in mind that under the Kindle model, the hardware is closely associated with content and an owner who lives in such and such country. And yes, you guessed it: as a result of the Kindle, territorial issues are now more on the minds of publishers than before, according to Fritz.
Technorati Tags: Fritz Foy , Holtzbrinck , Macmillan , Ficitonwise , BooksOnBoard
Good news indeed. Although I wouldn’t buy any DRM content based on a closed system (Amazon .azw or Sony Connect .lrx), an interoperable DRM on top of the .epub standard would be much better. As long as they allow multiple devices to read these files of course, and such DRM is available on all kind of devices too.
For the consumer, the best solution is still what you call “social DRM”, like “The Pragmatic Programmers” collection, where each and every book is generated with your name on every page.
“Interoperable DRM” is an oxymoron. Since DRM relies entirely on obfuscation, the more interoperable it is, the less effective it is. Certainly it’ll never be “interoperable” to the point where anyone can write a reader for it, which seems to me to be the entire point of interoperability.
Very good news. Not surprising that territorial issues muddy the waters. But at least there is no overt restraint of trade or other such shady dealings going on. This is good.
Now, if only I could get an explanation of why the Kindle amazon store has more Ken Bruen ebooks than Sony Connect does! (Bruen is published by St. Martin’s.)
[…] Macmillan: We’re eager to reach out to independent e-bookstores | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home After being attacked for allegedly sidelining independent etailers in the wake of the Kindle our sister company Macmillan US, and its boss of technology strategy Fritz Foy, answer the critics. Fritz talks about his support for the .epub and interoperable (tags: Macmillan ebooks) […]
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