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DRM can work, and DRM finds immediate and implicit acceptance by the customers, if it does not jeopardize the ease of use. Even the littlest discomfort in accessing the content caused by DRM immediately annoys the customer.
Itunes has shown how to do this. Itunes has demonstrated what it means to make content access hassle-free. The entire music industry has not achieved this before. Ironically, Itunes has always been cited as the example of a DRM free and still well working business model.
However, ITunes is NOT DRM free. Indeed, ITunes makes extensive use of DRM, but if they apply DRM, then it is easy, it is embedded, it is invisible, and it is NOT ANNOYING (at least, let’s say, better than the rest).
Publishers may repeat the mistakes of the music industry and the video industry: Add inflexible DRM, and you will only attract people who hack the DRM. Folks, one of my favorite CDs, Norah Jones, has a copy protection. I cannot copy it to my own MP3 player, and cannot listen to it, when I travel. One of my favorite DVDs, the last Pink Floyd concert, has a copy protection. I cannot copy the soundtrack to a CD and cannot hear it in my car (of course, my car does not play DVDs). What is this, please? (and imagine for a second, how I will solve this).
My opinion is: Make use of reasonable, hassle-free mechanisms to protect your content, and the customers will accept it. If you can’t keep it hassle-free, don’t do it. Customers are a sensible species.
Best, Gregor
1. DRM thwarts competition by locking content to particular devices. If Barnes & Noble came out with a great Kindle competitor, for example, Kindle owners couldn't switch without losing access to all the ebooks they'd purchased from Amazon. This is bad for consumers as dominant market players gain more and more power and innovation is thwarted.
2. DRM makes content less valuable. Regardless of whether price is a simple function of supply and demand or not (I don't think you're on board with Chris Anderson about the endless supply of digital goods at a marginal cost near zero), "demand" from consumers is a function of real and perceived value. A printed book can be shared, resold or donated to charity. It can be read by anyone, anywhere without need of an additional (usually expensive) device. Because of DRM, ebooks have limited readership, limited uses and limited value.
Thwarting competition, of course, is exactly what Amazon had in mind with
its DRM, its unique device, and its failure to comply with the ePub
standard. The long run may change things, but, so far, you have to say they
did the right thing *for them!* The purpose of retailing is not to enable
other customers. They had a jump on the market and they used it very
effectively. Customers might object but Kindle sales don't seem to suggest a
failure here.
I did get the other point. I understand that the inability to share, etc.
can diminish value in consumer eyes. That may end up being reflected in the
price publishers can charge. But, as I said, price is a largely a matter of
supply and demand (there is also the factor of retailers going for market
capture, but that's a component of supply and demand.)
Your point about lock-in through DRM is well-taken, but that's a competitive
point that each vendor will have to consider for itself.
Mike
--------------------
Mike Shatzkin
http://idealog.com/blog
mike@idealog.com
Founder & CEO
The Idea Logical Company, Inc.
Co-founder: Filedby, Inc.
212-758-5670
Taking a position that is anti-reader will always be 'commercial stupidity' for publishers regardless if we are in the establishment stage or not. This is really the only line of argument that counts.
wasted on some people.
Mike
--------------------
Mike Shatzkin
http://idealog.com/blog
mike@idealog.com
Founder & CEO
The Idea Logical Company, Inc.
Co-founder: Filedby, Inc.
212-758-5670
Michael -- I left my comment because your post glossed over the anti-consumer nature of DRM. I advocate that we call it what it is. Content with DRM is licensed content. Content with copy protection is locked content. No euphemisms. No obfuscation. Once we establish a baseline then we can add nuance. This isn't an absolutist position. This is one of honesty.
Let me rephrase my comment above -- being honest with your customer is the only thing that counts.
I don't think we disagree -- unless of course you think DRM is helpful to the consumer?
consumer expects a certain degree of non-interoperability.
Non-interoperability is common in the gadget world. VERY common.
And please don't lose the context of the post. Sharing opportunities will
proliferate. Ebook reading will spread. The combination of those two things
will create a very different environment without DRM than the one we have
now, and even more different from the one we've had the past ten years,
which is the basis of everybody's experience.
Mike
--------------------
Mike Shatzkin
http://idealog.com/blog
mike@idealog.com
Founder & CEO
The Idea Logical Company, Inc.
Co-founder: Filedby, Inc.
212-758-5670
Your point about interoperability in the gadget world is interesting. The gadget world is a big place. I am not certain which part you are referring to. In my experience products in the gadget word are interoperable but services in the gadget world are not (generally). For instance there's typically a TOS agreement for the operating system but not for the computer. Customer expectations follow from there.
As an industry we need to decide if books are a product or a service and then share that decision with our customers. A book-as-service model would include a lower price, a TOS, and stricter rights restrictions. An ebook that is a product would exist similarly to the printed edition, allowing for resale.
That seems simple enough but no one wants to make that distinction. If Amazon was forthright with their customers and declared from the outset that the Kindle was a service, and not a book seller, the 1984 controversy would have been diminished.
Clarity is the key here and DRM (the term and the conversation) is anything but. Lets abandon the subterfuge of DRM and talk instead about licensing versus buying or services versus products. At least those are conversations that readers can understand and be included in. As I said above anything else is simply dishonest.
reveal that you are more sophisticated than the average consumer who, like
me, often does not even READ the TOS. So while your point is right, my
expectation is that really only a minority of consumers would notice one
way or the other.
Mike
--------------------
Mike Shatzkin
http://idealog.com/blog
mike@idealog.com
Founder & CEO
The Idea Logical Company, Inc.
Co-founder: Filedby, Inc.
212-758-5670
http://bookexpocast.com/2009/07/24/profitable-d...
1. Most DRM schemes are clunky and customers absolutely hate them.
2. People who have tried both methods of marketing eBooks found that "open" books sold better.
3. There are many DRM cracking programs available on the Internet for free.
This may change in the future, but for now, we publish books without DRM restrictions at a price that makes pirating less profitable. Hopefully, there are enough honest people left in this fallen world to keep this from becoming a major problem like it did in the music industry.
The industry is leery enough about eBooks already. JK Rawlings, for instance, absolutely refuses to let the Harry Potter series be published as eBooks.
If the dishonest people manage to destroy the marketability of "open" or DRM eBooks, your expensive e-reader may just become another paperweight as authors switch back to paper publishers and higher prices.
1. I agree DRM is klunky and I know that the outspoken digerati hates it. I
am not so sure consumers do. The most securely anchored books there are so
far are the ones in a Kindle; they're 70% of the market after people buy a
$300+ machine.
2. As I tried to make clear in the post, the threat to sales is for the
biggest books and, as I said in the post, if I weren't a big author, I would
probably be comfortable with DRM-free. So if your experimental publishers
aren't big ones, I'm not surprised at your finding, but it doesn't undercut
what I said at all.
3. If it's so easy to crack DRM, then why do you think it's a big problem if
people put it on?
JK Rowling is a noteworthy eccentric. And I believe if the first Harry
Potter were coming out NEXT year, she'd probably be singing a different
tune.
And an author that refuses to have an ebook published to avoid piracy also
hasn't read my post. I make it clear that books can be pirated without the
publisher making a digital copy available. In fact, Ms Rowling can testify
to that!
Mike
--------------------
Mike Shatzkin
http://idealog.com/blog
mike@idealog.com
Founder & CEO
The Idea Logical Company, Inc.
Co-founder: Filedby, Inc.
212-758-5670
I have been in this situation before. I spent years waiting as people downloaded digital music from Itunes, waiting for the day when I could buy digital music DRM free. It took a lot of patience, but once Amazon opened up a DRM free music shop I began filling in my digital collection.
I am willing to wait 15 years before buying major authors as ebooks if that is what it takes. I will not buy a DRMed book. I have lost too much content to DRM schemes in the past before I stopped buying restricted material. I will not do it again.
The big authors' works are the works that are going to be pirated, regardless of the DRM one puts on the book. Either it's cracked and pirated or scanned and pirated--either way, the DRM does not prevent the piracy.
So given the choice between not annoying your customer and being pirated, and annoying your customer and being pirated anyway, why would you want to annoy your customer and possibly sell fewer books?
For smaller authors, who people don't want to pirate, DRM might possibly be effective in preventing piracy--but only if nobody who wants to knows how to break the DRM. And it seems DRM cracking is getting more and more common these days.
The idea of DRM "keeping honest people honest" is a joke. As Ed Felton points out, "honest" people are honest by definition. You don't need to "keep" them that way any more than you need to "keep" a tall person tall. And what's more, Felton notes, this claim is usually a bit of hasty revisionism from people whose elaborate, overcomplicated security system proves not to have performed up to expectations. "Oh, it's not supposed to be foolproof," they claim. "It's supposed to keep honest people honest."
Yeah right. A "Keep Out" sign (or in this case, a copyright notice) "keeps honest people honest", too. But it doesn't annoy them while it's doing it.
If anything, DRM makes honest people dishonest, as consumers who would never think of driving recklessly or robbing a bank turn to illegal DRM-cracking programs just so they can read their legally-purchased encrypted Mobipocket books on their iPhone, or otherwise move their books between their devices.
think there will be sufficiently more erosion of sales if the legitimate
edition is easily passed around and along than if it isn't. Your argument
rests on the assumption that a pirated copy circulates just as effectively
as a legitimate one (which I'd say it clearly doesn't) and that a copyright
notification will be effective as stopping very honest people from passing a
file to somebody (which I'd say is untrue enough of the time to matter.)
Mike
--------------------
Mike Shatzkin
http://idealog.com/blog
mike@idealog.com
Founder & CEO
The Idea Logical Company, Inc.
Co-founder: Filedby, Inc.
212-758-5670
And if those people were willing to pass along copyrighted works, then they were never "very honest" to begin with—because "honest" people would not do that sort of thing, by definition. :)
consumers have never been to a pirate site. I have consumed hundreds of
ebooks over a 10 year period and have never considered even looking for a
book except through legitimate channels.
And you're entitled to your definition of "very honest." But I just know too
many very honest kids -- ones that would run to catch up and return it to
you if they saw you'd dropped a twenty dollar bill -- who have never paid
for music because in their peer group it is simply passed around and shared.
Most people, honest or not, don't know copyright law or the limits of fair
use.
If you want to make the case that "no DRM" would mean no increase in illicit
distribution, you're welcome to do so. But you'll have to make a CASE, not
an assertion. I find the contention totally counterintuitive and, frankly,
illogical.
Mike
--------------------
Mike Shatzkin
http://idealog.com/blog
mike@idealog.com
Founder & CEO
The Idea Logical Company, Inc.
Co-founder: Filedby, Inc.
212-758-5670
http://radar.oreilly.com/2006/08/piracy-is-prog...
http://www.janisian.com/article-internet_debacl...
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/06...
http://baens-universe.com/articles/The_Nature_o...
And in reference to my "making honest people dishonest" point above: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/05...
to change your mind and you keep ignoring what I'm saying.
There are "stages of ebook adoption." That's the logic that undergirds my
piece. You are citing the past to prove a case about the future. I say it
isn't relevant.
You're welcome to your opinion. You are not really interested in mine.
Mike
--------------------
Mike Shatzkin
http://idealog.com/blog
mike@idealog.com
Founder & CEO
The Idea Logical Company, Inc.
Co-founder: Filedby, Inc.
212-758-5670
Mike Shatzkin
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