More on TechnologyTell: Gadget News | Apple News
DRM sucks, but do we really want devices without it?
April 7, 2007 | 10:26 am
|
By Robert Nagle
You have a choice between buying two ebook devices: same price and same e-ink display. The first has the ability to read only ebook formats without DRM (Digital Rights Management). The second has the ability to read exactly one format with DRM and other formats without DRM. What then could possibly be the advantage of buying the first device?
|
Previous
SUBSCRIBE TO RSS
Comments:
Ah, but the key is perspective. I don’t think anyone would argue with your statement, although some people are so against DRM that they don’t even want an e-book reader that handles it.
But it’s not a device dictated issue. From the device perspective, you get more if you can read various DRM protected formats. Our frustration for devices is more aimed at lack of support for the DRM’d content we want to read, and any limitations by the device sellers that keep other DRM types from being supported.
From the book publishing/selling perspective, we are limited and frustrated when DRM is forced upon us along with the book content.
Even here, there are those that believe DRM is good because it makes more content available that wouldn’t be offered if there were not anti-copying assurances. Seems that this view is believed by most publishers and ridiculed by most consumers. Go figure.
It depends on if there are any books that I want to read that are only available under DRM. If not then it doesn’t matter. Actually there are so few ebooks that are published that it wouldn’t make a difference to me. As long as Baen books are DRM free then I am ok. It is actually easier for me just to scan and OCR what I want than to mess with the DRM crippled books.
I got unpleasantly surprised recently when I purchased some music CDs only to find that I didn’t have a CD playing device in my house that they would play on. I was told that I needed to buy a more modern CD player. Guess I’ll be buying only used older music CDs from now on.
“What then could possibly be the advantage of buying the first device?”
Assuming that is the only difference, then the only reason to buy the non-DRMed version would be to not provide any support for the DRM business model.
For example, if Apple offerd an iPod the would only play non-DRMed MP3/AAC files, I can imagine a lot of anti-DRM types going with that instead of the version that also plays the DRM versions.
Obviously, for example, some people prefer computer OSes that don’t have crappy DRM features built in.
The benefit to the first device is obviously more content!
Or, to be more precise, more content that is not locked up in data silos that present opportunities for the publisher to control your access to your bookshelf contents.
The only content that has value is content that I purchase. Content for “rent”? I don’t think so. I don’t want a publisher to have the ability to come into my home and take my books off my bookshelf. In a DRM-ed world this could happen literally (publisher invalidating my content) or figuratively (ask the people about the Microsoft Plays for Sure DRM-ed music initiative now that the Zune is on the market).
Buying the device that supports DRM makes them believe that the market thinks DRMed content is good enough. The pain of DRM will cause more bad experiences for early adopters and slow adoption. The result? Slow uptake. The result? Less content.
If you want an environment with more content support openness and interoperability.
Vote with your dollars.
Brad
I don’t trust a company that uses DRM to have my best interest at heart. They are more likely to try and lock down their ebook device somehow. And even if they don’t now, it’s only a simple update to change it.
As long as they make money by selling their ebook format, they have a vested interest in making it easier to buy their format/harder to use other formats. I’d rather buy from a company that makes all their money off the hardware. Their incentive is to make the hardware more usable, i.e. play more formats, easier to get files in, etc.
Additionally, by supporting DRM devices you are voting with your dollars. If there is ever any hope of defeating DRM, you have to make it financially unprofitable to sell DRM devices.
There would be no advantage to the first device, but such twin devices don’t exist. The choice today is between DRM-ed devices with (presumably) good support for the vendor’s own format and little or no support for other formats, and various software solutions from 3rd parties that provide high quality support for a range of non-DRM formats. Moreover, you typically have a choice of software readers – so if one does not meet your needs try another. The 3rd party software solutions are not available on “closed” devices, and this means that (all else being equal) the best e-reading experience is available on general purpose devices. Unfortunately, the only “open” E-Ink device is the iLiad and so for most people the E-Ink experience will be with a closed device. The iLiad is expensive, but when MobiPocket reader (finally) becomes available it will provide native non-DRM PDF support, FBReader for non-DRM reflowable formats ,and MobiPocket for DRMed books.
Robert Nagle asks a good question. What “could possibly be the advantage of buying” a DRM-free device versus a device that also supports a DRM format? One might argue that a device that reads only DRM-free formats would be able to access only a strict subset of e-books. Below are some of the underlying serious disadvantages of a device that includes DRM:
1) The DRM using device would probably be more complicated and therefore more error-prone. It would freeze more often and require more irritating reboots. It would corrupt memory and damage e-books more often. The battery life would be inferior and it would generate more excess heat. The e-book hardware would probably be more complicated with additional modules required to support the implementation of the DRM. Even if the basic e-book hardware is the same the DRM would require additional complicated error-prone software.
2) The DRM using device would probably have a substantially slower boot-up. During boot-up the machine would perform a complicated internal-integrity-check to test to see if the DRM-scheme has been cracked. The integrity-check would have to be complicated because the DRM-scheme would be under continuous attack by crackers. A DRM-free device would not perform these kinds of intensive checks during boot-up. It would likely perform a simpler faster integrity-check and boot-up more quickly.
3) The DRM using device would probably require frequent annoying updates. The track-record of DRM-schemes is quite poor. The schemes are regularly broken by crackers. Thus, the device would require frequent software patches and updates that try to repair the broken DRM-scheme. If a user decides not to do an update then the machine might lock-up or it might enter a lower-functionality mode (similar to Windows Vista OS). This might happen even if the user never uses the DRM and is trying to ignore it. On a DRM-free device this behavior is unlikely.
4) The DRM using device might accidentally flag legitimate items as invalid and prevent access. It might mislabel an item as fraudulent and delete it. Since DRM-schemes are complicated and error-prone and since they are supposed to conditionally block access they can cause major difficulties when they malfunction. On a DRM-free device this would not happen.
5) Crackers could exploit the additional complexity of a DRM scheme to compromise a machine. A user might download an e-book that looks fine but actually damages or compromises the machine by using some obscure hook in the convoluted DRM-scheme. A DRM-free device would not have obscure undocumented proprietary DRM hooks.
6) There is another class of reasons to prefer DRM-free devices based on the desire to send a strong “market signal”. Publishers often examine the market penetration of a DRM-scheme to determine if they should use the scheme. If buyers purchase DRM-free machines then they are sending a powerful market-signal to publishers when they see the data showing lower market penetration for DRM-schemes. This might push some publishers toward formats without DRM.
The best counterargument to the reasons listed above is probably the one presented at the top. Machines that support formats with and without DRM are potentially more flexible and able to access more items. However, the liabilities seem substantial.
My reason for the question is more practical: if I am going to spend $300+ on a device, it seems a bit foolish to not even have the option to read DRM content.
Maybe EMI will try out selling non-DRM content; maybe it will succeed. On the other hand maybe it won’t and publishers will learn not to try such foolish experiments again.
The Sony reader can read rtf and pdfs without drm. Maybe that isn’t enough. (Actually I have no idea where bbeb format has its own unique features that give it an advantage over rtf/pds). But that doesn’t seem to be reason enough to opt for a DRM-free solution. At least with ipods, the quality of their DRM format was a little higher than the standard mp3.
For me an important criteria for a device would be whether the firmware could be easily updated with improved support for formats (and also whether third parties could contribute software/firmware updates). Does having a DRM on the firmware negate that possibility?
(I honestly don’t know).
Maybe my question boils down to: would a DRM-equipped device be cheaper or more expensive than a similar device? At first glance, it would seem that DRM adds complexity (and more development time) to the process. On the other hand, why wouldn’t mobipocket and adobe make their development kits easy and cheap for device manufacturers to use? The Sony Reader is not a cheap device, but neither is the ILIAD; the only case where I can see harm to the consumer was if kindle supported only mobipocket; but that is a special case since Amazon would control all three components.
Looking at mp3 players; have mp3 players without DRM been significantly cheaper or have better features than players with some sort of DRM support?
Garson: that is an excellent response. I don’t know enough about DRM on multimedia devices to know whether your general criticisms apply here to ebooks.
One thing you reminded me about is that devices often include a desktop component, and we can assume that there’s not going to be a catalog/converter utility with DRM support for the linux desktop. That’s another anti DRM reason.
I have not seen evidence that DRM on mp3 players has made playing mp3s harder. On the other hand, to be fair, with my iriver (which supported wma) I couldn’t figure out how to get my .wma books-on-tape files from netlibrary to work (and I didn’t bother to learn).
When Nuvomedia invented the Rocketbook, DRM may or may not have been on their mind. But mostly they wanted to provide a decent ebook reading experience. The desktop software they released allowed you to convert unencumbered content into something that could be read on the device. This fits the “unlimited + 1 DRM” model you describe.
They sold their company to RCA, who then sold it to Gemstar. Gemstar wanted people to ONLY read stuff bought from Gemstar — even if you already bought the device before Gemstar had any plans of getting involved. They removed access to the conversion software. They released firmware “upgrades” whose sole purpose was to deny you the right to read anything not signed with Gemstar’s key. When that didn’t work too well – people refused to install the upgrades — they introduced an “exchange” program where you were supposed to mail in your device in exchange for a new one, properly encumbered.
Finally they gave up and dumped the device entirely.
If the choice you propose actually existed, I might choose the 1DRM+open device. Then again, I might not. It would depend on other factors — whether the reading experience was the same, how cumbersome it was to convert content, whether I already had a grudge against the company. But nearly every large player that has entered into the ebook device market has had its sights set on ONLY allowing DRMed material. It’s only after people start complaining that they allow converted material — and always as a second class citizen.
It’s not too hard to see why they act this way: money. But it’s also not too hard to see why the readers act this way: money. Everyone on the sales side — from manufacturers to publishers to authors — seems to think everyone else is a “consumer” who owes them a living, and is evil if they don’t spend money. It ain’t so.
DRM is fine — if it’s cheap enough. Abstract arguments aside, if I could read the books I wanted for $1 a time then I wouldn’t care how uncrackable and obstructive their DMR was. Bring on the device!
But the evidence suggests that DRM always raises prices, by adding enormously to the costs of technology development and support, and reducing the customer base over which to spread them. There doesn’t seem to be any overlap between the prices that (enough) people are willing to pay for eBooks with DRM and the prices that (enough) publishers are willing to sell them at.
Your device sounds like the late unlamented Franklin eBookman, which was going to be the low-cost ‘razor’ for which the Franklin site sold DRM books — the high-cost ‘blades’. Unfortunately nobody bought eBooks from Franklin because they could get them elsewhere for free, and pretty soon people stopped buying the eBookman too, partly because its restrictive file management made backing up or restoring a real pain.
Nowadays the biggest boosters of DRM are public libraries. My city library partners with Netlibrary to provide digital content. If this continues, that means that an ebook device without DRM will never be able to access holdings of the public library system! Is that truly the answer?
EITHER the library system is irrelevant OR it needs to be persuaded not to purchase DRM-protected content OR the individual needs to make peace with the fact that an ebook reader without DRM will not help him or her make use of public library resources.
As a consumer, the first device is not as desirable (if sold at the same price) as the second. Most popular new releases are only available in some type of DRM format. I purchased a Samsung Q1 and extended battery which allows me to run most DRM readers as well as access non-DRM materials. I absolutely understand that in purchasing DRM-enabled content that I am “supporting” or perhaps even encouraging DRM. But the whole point is that I’m wanting a device to read books on. If I can’t access popular (semi-recent) content, then the only other alternative is to go back to p-books. I have purchased many ebooks and find that I have little to no desire to make copies of them to distribute. But I do want to be able to read them and know that should I choose, I can go back in a few years and read them again. As mentioned earlier, the issue with maintaining DRMed content is whether the company responsible for the DRMed format will still be around and supporting the software on new hardware.
In my mind there’s a legitimate purpose for DRM, but as implemented, it restricts the use and reuse of the purchased book too much. Of course no DRM would be fantastic, but…
So, as far as this consumer is concerned… the more formats (DRM and Non-DRM) the more valuable the reader will be.
Robert, I’d turn your question around and ask what’s the advantage of buying the second device?
The only plus it gives you that you can read that single DRM-ed format.
I think we all know the drawbacks of DRM so it comes down to making a decision every time when you’re about to purchase a book you cannot find elsewhere… do you really want the book regardless of the fact that it’s coming with DRM? are you ready to pay the price and treat it as a throw away item? (IMO that’s what DRM-ed content is)
Personally I think that whether a device that is open and supported is a more important factor…
Isn’t the Apple iPod the perfect answer to this question?
Tamas: here’s my answer: because my city library distributes ONLY digital downloads encrypted with Adobe PDF, I think I have little choice but to choose an ebook reader which supports it. Oh, and by, the way, not a single portable device exists (to my knowledge) which allows me to view encrypted Adobe PDFs. Update: well it looks like PDF files tagged for pocketpc can be transferred over to a pocket PC device and be made reflowable (warning: pdf). I don’t know about secure PDFs though.
I would be less bothered if 1)Netlibrary offered secure mobipocket as an alternative and if 2)Adobe provided a secure format that works with WM5 devices. Unfortunately, it looks like adobe hasn’t updated their reader for portable devices lately .
The iPod family of products mentioned above provides a forceful illustration of why devices that support just one type of proprietary DRM can cause major headaches. Apple iPod products overwhelmingly dominate the portable digital audio playback market; hence, it would be wonderful if libraries could supply audiobooks in a format that is playable on iPods. Unfortunately, the two primary websites that U.S. libraries use to distribute audiobooks do not work with iPods. The websites are called Netlibary and Overdrive and they both use a DRM system from Microsoft called Windows Media protected wma files. Portable devices using the system are branded with the logo phrase “PlaysForSure”.
Library websites in the U.S. that allow the download of digital content typically rely on a method called “automatic expiration”. For example, downloaded audiobooks become unplayable after a limited period of a few weeks. This capacity for timed expiration is implemented by Microsoft’s DRM system. On the other hand, Apple’s DRM system currently does not support the expiration of content.
Outrageously, the most popular audio players do not work with what might become the most important method for obtaining audiobook content, viz. the online library. The market for audio players is bifurcated in a way that is aggravating and damaging to everyone. There are no portable players that support both Apple’s DRM system “Fairplay” and Microsoft’s DRM system “PlaysForSure”. Apple is exceedingly reticent to license its DRM system and has not done so even under pressure from EU regulators.
There is another concern with iPods that Robert Nagle’s comment above about DRM systems and desktop companion applications brings to mind. The desktop program iTunes is the most popular way to interface with an iPod. But Apple iTunes still does not work properly on the new Microsoft Vista OS. Vista was available to Apple for quite a long time in previews and in betas, but somehow Apple did not finish porting iTunes. Maybe iTunes is very difficult to move to Vista or possibly Apple did not give the task a high priority. Certainly Apple would prefer that users switch to Apple computers instead of upgrading to Vista; however, they do not wish to alienate a growing user base. This shows another potential problem with proprietary DRM systems. A company that controls a popular DRM system might try to push users from one platform to another by making implementations available selectively for favored systems.
(Thanks to all the great commentators on this thread and thanks to Robert Nagle for the compliment above.)
The reason is the same as why armies burn bridges behind their advances. It is a preemptive alteration of the threat point that forces the opposing party (the media seller in this case) to take you seriously.
The problem here relates to collective action… This strategy only works if a significant portion of the market adopt it. Given the hatred of DRM that exists in the population, I do not think that this is unrealistic.