Comments on: Note to publishers: Your addiction to DRM is killing you

By: Natasha

Natasha — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 12:52:24 +0000

In case it wasn’t clear from my original post, Calibre doesn’t just convert from .mobi to .epub, it also converts from .epub to .mobi. It will convert just about any ebook format, broadly defined, into any other.

By: Natasha

Natasha — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 12:37:31 +0000

It’s true that Amazon’s Kindle uses a different format (.mobi) than B&N’s Nook(.epub. Note, however, that once the DRM has been stripped off either version it is very easy to convert a .mobi book into an .epub book. Calibre — a free program — does it nicely.

It really is the DRM that keeps readers locked into a proprietary device. Many Kindle and Nook users either don’t realize DRM there; don’t realize how simple it is to strip off; or aren’t tech-savvy enough to find the necessary scripts on line, download them, and use them. As more and more “digital natives” join the ranks of the larger consumer market, that’s not going to last.

By: Mathew Ingram

Mathew Ingram — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 21:18:40 +0000

That’s a good point, John — thanks for the comment.

By: supply,demand and piracy

supply,demand and piracy — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 20:49:49 +0000

John,
You are wrong. DRM does absolutely nothing to protect your works. The only eBooks I have not found cracked/cleaned/pirated or scanned were sleepers by relatively unknown authors whose cult following doesn’t include pirates and who never offered an eBook version to begin with. You speak of the Digital Age of Publishing but cannot grasp that it is the Digital Age of Piracy, Pirates were on the net before You, Pirates invest more time and effort into breaking encryption efforts, Pirates will always look for ways to get your stuff cheaper and faster than you provide it. Well until it is no longer worth the weeks of sleepless nights to crack a new DRM scheme and invent ways of circumventing idiotic sharing rules because You have wised up. Look at iTunes, 99c a song… for the vast majority of casual pirates that was the price point where pirating was too much effort. And the Piracy focus shifted to something other than pirating single songs, it went to ripping entire albums or discographies because the iTunes price point for those is still above the #effort# threshold.
The same exact principle is at work in all areas of piracy. If the price point is perceived to be too high or heaven help you, unjust, pirates will be all over your work. DRM and content rules just makes legitimate customers angry and frustrated dealing with it.

By: saumya

saumya — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 17:13:13 +0000

Funny. Why don’t the publishers start their own estores, decide their own prices and sell their own content, in a platform agnostic way (?) Some will be DRMd, some won’t be. The best content and ease of purchase will win. When I didn’t like working for other people, I started my own little design shop and its probably been one of the best decisions of my life.

By: John F. Harnish

John F. Harnish — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:37:06 +0000

As the author of 18 ebooks, I want them DRM protected. I don’t want to discover some XYZ ebook vendor has “harvested” copies and are selling knock-offs at cut-rate prices and cutting me out of royalties.

Free apps enable ebooks to be displayed and read on a variety of devices. This feature has helped to increase the popularity of ebooks. The corporate bean-counters finally figured out that selling more ebooks is more profitable than selling the platform. DRM bridges the platform and protects the content.

The big six are trying in vain to control an industry in the turmoil of change. At the turn of the century they tried to keep POB digitally published books out of the bookstore chains. Now they are attempting to muck-up the evolving ebook branch of publishing with unrealistic pricing schemes. Ebook consumers are wise to the fact that the cost of producing and distributing an ebook is a fraction of the expense of a printed on paper book—that comes with the weight of the publisher’s high overhead.
Increasingly authors are asking publishers what are they doing to earn their slice of the profit pie. The author is entitled to the higher royalties that are possible with ebooks without resorting to an inflated price established by the publisher. The author needs to be free to set a fair ebook price—not the dominating publisher. Without authors creating content there is no pie.

In this Digital Age of publishing the author owns and controls what is done with the content they have created. Content rules and DRM helps to protect the content owned by the author.

Enjoy often… John

By: CfC

CfC — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:49:02 +0000

Matt Dotcom, If you were a journalist, you would find and report on those hurt by piracy. I’m not going to do the job got you. You need to do some reporting work, and kick out the soapbox and the megaphone.

By: David Thomas

David Thomas — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:48:48 +0000

Terms of sale is why it can be said that Amazon’s price was artificially low. On a $24 list price the best Amazon would have gotten from a publisher is a 50% discount, or net $14. They sold the e-book at 9.99, subsidizing the $4.01 to the consumer as a marketing expense for the kindle. The publishers, btw, were quite anxious to be in on the iPad, and rushed to establish the Agency Plan to be in before the release.

By: John Smith

John Smith — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:34:19 +0000

You wrote: “But the Big Six enthusiastically embraced the idea, because they believed piracy was a major risk with digital content and the only way to prevent it was to wrap it in Amazon’s proprietary file format.”

Don’t confuse DRM and file format. The DRM issue aside, Amazon will only sell ebooks in their proprietary Kindle format, whereas almost every other ebook retailer sells EPUB titles that are more cross-compatible. Publishers opted for DRM in fear of piracy, but wrapping one’s book in Amazon’s proprietary file format has nothing to do with DRM — even non-DRM titles sold by Amazon have to be in their file format, readable only on Amazon devices, whereas non-DRM titles in EPUB can be read on almost every other device.

Whether DRM is damaging or not is worthy of discussion, but if your point is that publishers should “disrupt Amazon,” then DRM is beside the point; removing DRM but continuing to sell one’s books through Amazon still gives Amazon the same advantages as if the book had DRM applied.

By: CfC

CfC — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 12:11:13 +0000

Rollo,

One question, have you ever had digital content you created at great expense cracked and zipped and put on all the pirate sites globally?

By your words I’m certain that answer is no, and add Matt Dotcom to that list. So lay off the concept that it’s not theft. Stop with the psudo-intellectual redefinitions of your own behavior, you are just a common thief.

Don’t worry someday you will pay taxes and die like the rest of us. Keep living with your parents as long as you can… it’s still free, we get it.

BTW, what isn’t Matt posting some of the GigaOm Pro articles right here in the forum. His employer probably wouldn’t mind, if it’s not stealing, and it just promotes other sales… then where is it?

You guys are a bunch of whiner thief’s pretending you are intellectuals of some sort.