The eBook Wars: Reality vs. Fantasy in Expectations

First, let me repeat. The only person who owns content is the copyright owner. In a paper book, you buy paper, ink, and binding, but you don’t own the content. That means you can’t print it out and sell it, you can’t scan it and sell or give it away online, and you can’t use the characters or large parts of the words in your own creation.

In an ebook, you only lease the right to read the book since there is no paper, etc.

In other words, you lose no content when you buy an ebook over a paper book because you don’t own it in either case.

I agree that DRM is a pain, but until public opinion turns away from the pirates and toward the owners of copyright and stolen ebooks aren’t downloaded in major numbers, don’t expect publishers to toss away DRM with a happy heart.

Yeah, I’ve heard all the comments here about stolen books not being a real factor, but it’s THEIR stuff that’s being stolen so publishers have a right to be unhappy about it and apply DRM on their books. It’s the cheapest solution they have right now to a growing problem.

Marilynn — Maybe I’m missing something but I thought I was advocating a single, universal DRM scheme, not doing away with DRM. I don’t think I suggested that the book buyer owns the content. So I’m not sure where you are coming from.

How about this question: Once copyright expires, who owns the content?

Reality is in the eye of the beholder.

My reality is that nobody has ever had to pay for books and many don’t. When people ask me about my electronic reader I’ve been asking them questions about their book buying habits. (I want to understand how they get their books so I can recommend if it’s a good fit for them).

The vast majority admit to buying a small percentage of the books they read. They get books from the library, swap with friends, exchange at free lending libraries.

The people that do buy books do it for the convenience, because they want a personal library or because they want to support the industry. Your reality goes against the first two and only addresses the third.

Electronic books provide free access to the best literature of all time. They provide authors direct access to the readers. There is more reading material available to the average reader then there has ever been before. The question is how to get money from the readers, it’s not “how can we protect our property”.

Barriers are not the answer. DRM only hurts the people that are willing to pay. Trying to tell people they can’t own the books is not the answer.

“…but they there is a strong likelihood that they will e-mail the latest book to dozens of their friends if they can”

Is there? Many smaller (e-)publishers release books without DRM; are these pirated more than the DRM’d books? I’m never entirely sure how much money Baen makes from its Webscriptions store, but they’ve been doing this for a decade and are still going…

I mean, let’s face it: Even if you stick to paper, you can always buy a book second hand, usually much cheaper than new; so why do people ever buy new books? Maybe people are willing to support the authors – and yes, maybe even the publishers, too!

TBH, I’m a little confused by the point of this article! It’s all well and good to say that banging your head against a wall serves no purpose (it’s an apt analogy for conveying ideas to large publishers, though), but the take home message seems to be: Customers don’t like DRM? Tough, it’s here to stay. Object to high prices? Well, not much you can do about it, is there. These points may well be true, but they’re too depressing for words.

For myself, I’m a lot more willing to ‘compromise’ on price (ie. pay more than $10) than I am on DRM. As long as the ebook is available cheaper than the cheapest paper version (and I’m not just talking list price!), I’m happy. I don’t hold out much hope of this happening any time soon, though.

Having said that, I live in the UK, so publishers and retailers usually refuse to let me give them money for an ebook, anyway…

“…eBookers expect low prices, no DRM, no geographical restrictions, near-perfect editing and formatting; publishers expect high prices, DRM, and good-but-not-perfect editing and formatting.”

Substitute the word “readers” for eBookers and I think you’ll understand why the publishing industry is in upheaval. Even printed book readers expect low prices and near-perfect editing and formatting, as well as a book they can read anywhere and anytime.

It makes zero business sense to ignore the needs of your customer if you want your business to thrive. I suspect this attitude comes from a mistaken belief that publishers united in the marketplace will have no competition.

They are wrong.

DRM will not stop piracy. Most pirated books are not copies of legally bought ebooks but scans of paper books. Even books that don’t have a legal ebook edition, like the Harry Potter novels have been pirated. And even if the pirates are not willing to scan they can easily remove the DRM in most cases. So the main effect of DRM is to harras honest people who get fed up and then might start looking for illegal versions. Music is sold in iTunes DRM-free with a price that people consider to be fair, and most people are willing to pay instead of downloading a pirated version.

I’d say the end result is going to be based on convenience and impatience.

When a book is released, the chances of me paying for it in any format is going to depend of where I can obtain it (supply) and how much I want to read it (demand).

If it’s something i’m only vaguely interested in, i’m going to wait until I can obtain it free of charge from a library.

If I want to read it right away, it’s going to be the first copy I find, print or ebook. There’s extremly few authors that I have to read the book instantly, chances are it’s the fifth or so book in a series.

Basically, the maximum price i’m willing to pay for the majority of ebooks is going to be based on my desire to read it sooner, rather then waiting a month or two for it to be available free in a library. It’s up to the publisher to figure out what that price would be, but I will state for me personally it better be less then the price of a paperback.

I think your opinion here is premised on many assumptions that have not been proven true. For example, if it is ‘human nature’ that people will not pay for something if they can get it for free, then why has iTunes sold more than a billion songs? And why have people ever bought books at all if they could get them for free from the library?

I really don’t think that some of the things readers ‘expect’ are unreasonable. Properly edited books free of errors? How is that unreasonable? Books we can read on our next device if we buy another one? Why is that wrong? If they want to treat ebooks like rentals and tell us we can’t move them with us to our next device, they need to price them like rentals, and saying so does not mean I do not support authors and am being unreasonable.

My problem is, I don’t trust the publishers. They *say* the higher price will be just on the initial release, to capitalize on the rabid fans who must have it now. This would be fair—as long as they really could be trusted to lower it later so it is comparable with the cheaper paperback versions. But past history has not suggested they can be trusted to do this. I’m not out to cheat anybody, but they have to be not out to cheat me either…

Hmmm. Anyone who prefers Leonard Pitts over Michelle Malkin doesn’t think very deeply. Sorry.

While I prefer no DRM, I wouldn’t mind a truly universal DRM that all ebooks and ereaders use. However, if a book is going to have DRM, it should be difficult to remove. Adobe’s DRM now is so ridiculously easy to remove that there is absolutely no point in using it in the first place. That sort of DRM is just annoying and completely ineffective. If there’s going to be DRM, it should be extremely hard to crack.

I agree that a universal DRM available on all devices would be a huge step in the right direction. It’s also a step nobody seems especially interested in making. I’m not holding my breath.

It is true that many small publishers don’t use DRM (I don’t use DRM except for those books sold through Amazon/Mobipocket where the DRM is automatically applied). But we tend to sell our books to a self-selected minority of book-lovers. If Dan Brown or J. K. Rowling came to me with their latest, I’d be far more concerned about piracy than I am with lesser-known authors. As it is, I have authors who won’t do business with me because I don’t support DRM.

As for prices, I’m a fan of low prices. (Some potential authors disagree with that as well). I don’t, however, pretend to offer advice to other publishers on what to charge for their books. I just set what I consider reasonable prices for my books. But I certainly agree with Ficbot that there is little evidence that publishers will suddenly become pro-active in lowering eBook prices over time as they deal with time-elasticity of demand.

Thank you, Marilyn, for your clear explanation of the concept of ‘owning’ books. Whether eBook or paper, we don’t ‘own’ the book, we own certain rights to use the book (e.g., to read it). I find the own/lease argument to be unhelpful…sort of a religious thing rather than a policy directive. Others, of course, may disagree.

Rob Preece
Publisher

Marilynn,

Public opinion will swing back to copyright owners about the time they stop crying and actually give something back – say, roll back an extension or even lose the DRM.

Given current behaviour of said entities, you can expect this to happen approximately ten minutes before Hell freezes over.

Or, they’ve lost it pretty much permanently. Only way to get it back is work very hard at it for some considerable time.

“…If Dan Brown or J. K. Rowling came to me with their latest, I’d be far more concerned about piracy than I am with lesser-known authors.”

I guess this is the big disconnect between large publishers and e-readers; currently, e-reading is a relatively “enthusiast” market, with small number of customers buying a large number of products – inevitably, mostly from mid-list titles.

The effect of piracy on these titles might be negligible (or even positive), with lower sales from people not buying the books balanced by people buying the books who would not have heard of the author without having a ‘free sample’, so to speak.

Of course, that upside doesn’t exist with best-seller authors, which (I believe) are the main source of profit for large publishers.

Personally, I’d take that deal without a second thought – a larger, healthier set of mid-list titles, with reduced importance on occasional best-selling titles would be a good thing all round from my perspective. But I’m not someone whose livelihood depends on making that call, so I can see how other people differ.

But this is all by the wayside: with best selling books, the most effective DRM in the world is not going to stop books being widely pirated – as demonstrated by the last Harry Potter book. And yet, it still sold bucketloads. And that means one of two things: either the ebook market was so small, the loss of sales didn’t register, or widespread ebook piracy simply doesn’t impact on the sales of even bestselling books.

From my point of view, I’m not overly fussed. Best-selling books will always be published – unless book publishing truly does implode, and I don’t think that’s really on the table. The point that concerns me are those books that balance on the edge of “will they/won’t they” question – TA Pratt’s Marla Mason series that’s recently been dropped, for ex. And it’s this type of book – I think – that has the most to gain from the transition to epublishing…

Of course, I could also be talking nonsense. It has been known to happen, after all…

I have been against DRM in the past, trying to avoid it if the DRM book costs money, but this article points out that I am not really against DRM, I am against the freedom to put the book I thought I bought on any device I may own, whether that be a Kindle, Palm, nook, Sony, iPad, MacBook, Dell or a home made Linux computer. If DRM is truly transparent, then I really have no objection to it, other than the unwarranted increase in book price to cover the DRM license that is useless. On the other hand, why are public domain books burdened with DRM? Does Amazon really want us all to go to Smashwords, Feedbooks, Manybooks, Lulu, Baen, etc to get our books because they are able to be read on any device we may own? Apparently so.

“Given the opportunity to get an ebook free or to pay for it, most people will take it for free.”

And so what?

The basic reason is not whether people have stolen the book but whether they would have bought the book in the first place. “Lost revenue” should be the criterion.

If someone stole the book — and probably never even read it — and was certainly never going to buy the book, then so who cares?

In other words, you lose no content when you buy an ebook over a paper book because you don’t own it in either case.

Marilyn, I’ve never seen complaints from ebook buyers about not owning the content and the right to do what they please with the content. You seem to be arguing with pirates (who do feel they “own” all content of all digital media) rather than book lovers who just want a fair deal on their purchases in this relatively new medium.

What we complain about is that our digital copy of the content is severely restricted compared to a paper copy of the same content. We can’t lend it to a single person at a time, sell it to a single secondhand buyer, donate it to a local library or charitable group, or trade it in at a used bookstore for credit (“sell 3, get 1 free” kinds of places, for example). These are all things we can do with our paper copies of the content. Nobody is talking about mass redistribution, stealing copyrights, and so on.

I feel publishers are ripping us off when they want us to pay the same (or sometimes higher) prices for a digital copy of the content with restrictions that greatly lower its future value and usefulness to the customer. We don’t lose content (which we never had in any medium), but we do lose value.

I continue to be amazed by how many people don’t understand the basics of copyright (at least how it works in the United States) or DRM.

Lets start with the notion of owning content in a book. The basic fact of the matter is that in any true sense, neither the rights holder nor the book buyer owns the content in a novel. The rights holders have been granted a certain set of rights over the material for a limited period of time. These rights however were never intended and at least currently are not universal in scope nor infinite in duration. Buying a copy of a book actually gives the purchaser of said work certain rights not just to the paper in the book but also to the content. Certainly if I buy a paper book, it is certainly in my rights to lend that book to each and every friend I have regardless of what the author may wish. Further I have the right to write about said book for the purposes of criticism or academic research and also to write works satirizing the original work. In other words, I have rights to use the content in ways that the original author might object to. This certainly implies that the content is not owned by the author in the traditional sense of the word (For example, no one has a right to use the physical property of someone else without their permission).

Now lets look at DRM yet again. No DRM yet developed has been at all effective in stopping piracy. I am not sure it can be mathematically proven, but I strongly suspect that it is impossible to develop DRM that can not be broken.

Indeed, at least among certain groups of people, DRM may be turning them into pirates. Some will not want to spend money on books that have DRM, so they turn to the dark-net to obtain the books they want to read. Others will buy the books and then find the tools that will strip the DRM from the books. Once the DRM is stripped, they will feel that they should save other people the effort they went through and post the book on the torrents for others to download.

Finally I would submit that anyone who claims that no one will pay for a book that they can get for free really doesn’t understand that many of us are happy to support the authors we like (and even their publishers) provided we feel we are getting a good deal. Authors like Eric Flint and David Weber make many or all of their novels available for free and yet still manage to be some of the better selling authors in their genre. In addition, pretty much any new book that is available to buy (in paper or e-book form) can be found somewhere for free.. yet people still buy books.

If someone stole the book — and probably never even read it — and was certainly never going to buy the book, then so who cares?

Intended use of a stolen product has never been a criteria for assigning guilt to theft before… just the fact that it was taken without paying for it has always been enough.

I realize that, with the absence of a physical container and the attendant production costs, stealing said product is more of a theoretical exercise than a financial concern. Yet, we are still concerned about whether or not the creator is being fairly compensated for his work. And they must be compensated, or there is no reason for them to produce further work, and society will be lessened by their absence.

And we cannot simply assume that a stolen product does not equate with a lost sale, since the result of such stolen products is usually exposure to the darknet, which by its very nature results in lost sales of everything downloaded from it. Just as valuables are stolen from people’s homes, only to be sold in pawn shops and on the street, stolen e-books can be logically assumed to end up “on the street” for free download after they are stolen in the majority of cases.

So we must approach this issue from a theoretical basis, which suggests that any downloaded book equates to loss of revenue, regardless of whether or not the book was actually read. So, to prevent loss of revenue, security must be applied to the product.

DRM, as a security measure, may be ineffective at present to the task. But I do not expect that to be so forever… and unless human nature undergoes a significant change, I expect we’ll need some form of digital product security in the future.

Steve,
A couple of points…

“…we must approach this issue from a theoretical basis, which suggests that any downloaded book equates to loss of revenue”

Firstly, we don’t need to approach this from a theoretical basis, as we have a decade or more of statistical data (if you take “we” to mean the publishing industry). David Weber, for ex, has hardbacks published with Tor (Macmillan) and Baen, so might be able to make a comparison. Aggregate the data from the whole industry, and I think you could draw some conclusions.

Secondly, as you say, “DRM, as a security measure, may be ineffective at present to the task” (although I’d replace “may be” with “is certainly”), and yet the ebook market is still growing by leaps and bounds with people paying money for books – when they can, easily, get higher quality products for free. To repeat a phrase that’s often repeated (again, and again, and again…): DRM does not stop piracy. It simply irritates legitimate customers.

Thirdly, you say that you do not expect DRM to be ineffective forever. I’m a little curious as to why… Even in a fantasy land where digital locks are effective (and in a situation where the (cryptographic) “attacker” and “receiver” are one and the same, this _is_ a fantasy), it’s always possible – easy, in fact – for the paper version to be scanned, OCR’d, and uploaded. Just ask Project Gutenberg! Or JK Rowling, for that matter…

Stuart,
You’re confusing “effective” for “perfect.” I do not presume to say any DRM system will ever be perfect, just as no security system is perfect. However, with the cooperation of the market, DRM can be made to be effective–that is, it minimizes loss through theft to an acceptable level for the sellers–just as security exists and is effective in many other markets.

As to your first and last examples, I’d point out that the market issues related to books that are both printed and digitally distributed, will necessarily be different from the market issues of books that are exclusively digitally distributed. As we can expect more books to skew to exclusively digital distribution in the future, we need to move past the aspects of paper distribution and look more carefully at developing a digital-only market.

Steve,
With respect, I think you over estimate the abilities of DRM software by an order of magnitude. Exclusive e-book titles will not slow the pirates down for more than a day. The software industry has been trying to protect their products for 30 years and have had little to no success. I have no reason to believe that e-books will be easier to protect that software has been. Indeed, because all e-books will have to conform to the the same DRM standard for a given device or piece of software, it ought to be easier to break than it has been for software (Where each piece of software can have its own unique DRM scheme).

Currently only a relatively small percentage of the world is really interested in e-books, and yet pretty much every DRM scheme developed has been broken. As more people take interest in e-books, there will be more computer geeks looking to break the new DRM schemes. Ultimately I expect DRM to be become less effective over time. And with respect, anything less than perfect is pointless; all you need is one person to upload a copy to a torrent and there will be dozens or hundreds of copies circulating with in a few hours.

The problem with e-books and piracy is social, not technical. If the consumer believes they are getting a good deal, then they are not likely to start searching for ways to get the book for free. DRM in fact might actually encourage piracy because many feel like it reduces the value of the books. It also poses a technical challenge that many hackers are drawn to. My belief is that there will ultimately be less piracy if e-books are cheap and DRM free.

The issue is not even remotely theoretical. It’s about money.

And if the “lost revenues” are not really lost as never-would/never-will, then no one cares. Put it in perspective.

No one files a lawsuit on theory.

Steve, I am wondering how you feel about DRM removal for personal use. Let’s take a book like ‘Generation A’ by Douglas Coupland, which at the time I bought it, was only available at Kobo. I, as a Canadian, am within the geographical zone where this book is sold. I have an account with Kobo. I want the book and I buy it. So far, so good, right?

Now, let’s say I get rid of my Sony Reader (as I did) and now have the Kindle. Do you have any moral issues with me removing the DRM on the book so I can read it on the Kindle instead of on the Sony? The book is legally acquired and paid for. I have no plans to share it. I just want to read it on one device instead of another. Overlooking any technicalities of EULAS or what have you and going strictly on the ‘moral’ argument, how do you feel about DRM removal in such a case?

Steve,
When you say I’m confusing “effective” for “perfect” – yes, you’re right. My bad, sorry. But how do you tell them apart? As you say, it only takes one copy pirated to make it available to the whole world.

You also make the perfectly valid point that data gathered today – in a primarily paper-publishing world – may not hold true after ebook-only titles enter the mainstream. But it is (or at least would be, if anyone could gather it) data, and that’s desperately thin on the ground!

Indeed, the people best suited to gather data on this sort of thing are the small publishers. Most – if not all – publish DRM free. If the predations of pirates are serious, then the e-publishers are making a mistake, and an ebook-only release with DRM would sell more than one without. Has anyone carried out that sort of experiment? If so, does anyone know the result?

@ficbot: I don’t see any reason why an e-book owner should not be able to transfer their e-book from one format to another. The only thing DRM should prevent is the unintended obtaining of e-books by those who did not pay for it.

@Stuart: Your first paragraph hits upon the exact problem: Creating a system that prevents a pirated book from being downloaded by the whole world without paying for it. I say “system,” because it would have to be a combination of elements, such as DRM and consumer cooperation, and possibly other elements, for such a system to actually work.

I frequently mention the cable TV industry, which uses a combination of DRM (their cable boxes and accounts), consumer cooperation (I want to watch those 100 channels!) and a combo of service and legal pressure (misbehave, and you will not only lose your 100 channels, but be fined to-boot), and has proven to be an “effective” method of providing their content to satisfied customers and making a profit. This is what the industry should be striving for, and what customers should be willing to accept (if the alternative is practically no e-book content), in order for the industry to grow and thrive.

And you’re right about needing more data, to replace print-based data that doesn’t really apply to digital products and selling. As I said, e-books are likely to have more in common with cable TV than print publishing… maybe that’s where the data should be coming from.

But that brings up another reality: That we might have to get used to different rules when it comes to how we treat e-books… just as we had to learn different rules when it came to cable TV versus wireless TV. Maybe time-shifting, while desirable, will not be workable with a new system. That would suck, but it would probably result in some other change to the system to compensate (say, lower prices, or limited-shifting licenses with a purchase, etc).

And as I keep bringing up, it might result in a more stringent DRM in order to make the system work.

The reality is that progress has its ups and downs. When we got faster automobiles, we also got stoplights. And traffic cops. Sometimes you have to take the bad with the good.

I really think the solution has got to be a common format everybody uses. I would be okay with ‘DRM’ as long as it did not inhibit my rights to use the books I buy. Right now though, there is no way to allow the use I describe within the limits of the current DRM schemes, so someone who wanted to do as I proposed would have to go searching and it’s a bit of a gray area. People think readers are ‘anti-author’ and out to steal books when they say they don’t want DRM, but that is not the case at all. People like me just want to be able to read the books we pay for.

Fascinating comments everyone and you read like experts so advice please…

I am a specialist author of business books who self-publishes. I sell direct yet with 2 million copies sold in 20 languages I would say I am good at what I do.

I have not sold on Amazon.
I have not sold digitally.
I own my rights [except in some foreign languages.]

I am going to launch digitally through Amazon and through my own new webstore.

My target industry is very networked and the chances of people forwarding an ebook like mine is very likely. Thus I have not sold digitally thus far.

Yet my industry is not technically competent. So I am not too concerned about people ‘unlocking’ DRM individually UNLESS someone unlocks then forwards.

I think many people would have ethical reasons with forwarding if the titles had ‘do not forward as this is stealing…’

What are your views?
On my site, DRM or NOT?
Strong DRM or simple?

If you make the books easy to buy and priced appropriately for the digital market, and if your customers understand that, you probably won’t need DRM. You will probably have losses, but they should be minimized if your customers are okay with buying from you.

As far as being concerned about someone breaking DRM and forwarding, keep in mind that it only takes 1 person to do it. And if your industry is already established as a group that will share files if they’re available, expect them to do just that. Again, make it easy to buy from you, and they are less likely to share the files.

Edward,
You say that your industry is not technically competent? So why add more technical hoops that your audience will have to jump through to read your book?

Let me further point out that Strong DRM is a myth. Pretty much every method of DRM available has been broken and the software to strip the DRM off the work is widely available. By the time your users figure out how to get their DRM’d books working on multiple devices, they can have figured out how to strip the DRM (The level of effort is similar).

I think your notion of asking your readers to forward the work in question is a far better approach than telling your users you think they might be pirates by putting DRM on it.

Thanks for advice guys. Any more thoughts are appreciated as this is real life decisions….

Its weird… Amazon makes it easy to put an ebook on. Barnes & Noble allegedly dont want you unless you are US based and put the paper version on. Idiots.

Dont they realise that the rest of world shops online, so who cares where publisher is based.

Thus I [being non-US based] will put my titles on Amazon and promote this site globally…

Edward,

first of all let me completemnt you on your work so far and wish you even bigger success in the future.

From a consumer standpoint, there are a number of issues that I am looking for in any digital product. The most important of which is portability.

To be accurate, I only purchase products that I can use without hassle on any and all compatible devices which I own, regardless of environmental conditions (one of my computers is a secure, stricly no internet machine) . The alternative to purchasing portable products is, when I have to, is to purchase DRMed products and “jailbrake” them.

When I buy a book, I also buy several additional rights over the book which come from the book being “a whole product”. The right to take the book anywhere with me, the right to transfer the book to anyone I like and the right to toss it into the bonfire are three. I expect all these rights to exist in digital books. In truth, my selection of vendor is also derived from my ability to have these rights – these are my rights as a book purchaser.

I recently bought a computer game from Ubisoft and was fairly dissappointed when their activation servers were not operational. In order to use a game I had already bought and paid for, I had to conduct basic repairs on the game – it is the same in my mind as fixing the leg of a broken chair. The multiplayer options are still not working, thank you ubisoft you useless bunch.

Now here is the question – do I need to deal with the frustration? If this is a mostly useless fiction paperback, I’ll get it at the used book store instead of getting annoyed at “activation” schemes. If it is a book I need, I’ll probably buy it and then fix it so that it works according to MY specifications.