Is Nook also enforcing DRM deletion like kindle ?No, but Barnes&Noble typically charges slightly more for books than Amazon.-mahesh2k (June 11, 2011, 02:44 AM)
What about e-books published in open formats that are DRM free? :huh:-Deozaan (June 10, 2011, 05:39 AM)
The device is still capable of tying personally identifiable information about you to the book, and remotely deleting or modifying it. There are no laws that I'm aware of that would keep Amazon, or any other company, from doing either of these things, or simply recording your behavior quietly, as the collected data awaits a sales opportunity or subpoena. Can't do this on a massive scale with physical books.-doctorfrog (June 11, 2011, 11:29 PM)
The device is still capable of tying personally identifiable information about you to the book, and remotely deleting or modifying it. There are no laws that I'm aware of that would keep Amazon, or any other company, from doing either of these things, or simply recording your behavior quietly, as the collected data awaits a sales opportunity or subpoena. Can't do this on a massive scale with physical books.-doctorfrog (June 11, 2011, 11:29 PM)
There are outlets other than b&n and amazon for purchasing non-drm books. And if one of them actually modified something on the device that you didn't purchase from them, that would be a very bad thing for them (and pretty stupid also, as most would have backups - or in the case of a couple of outlets you can re-download).-wraith808 (June 12, 2011, 08:50 AM)
The device is still capable of tying personally identifiable information about you to the book, and remotely deleting or modifying it. There are no laws that I'm aware of that would keep Amazon, or any other company, from doing either of these things, or simply recording your behavior quietly, as the collected data awaits a sales opportunity or subpoena. Can't do this on a massive scale with physical books.-doctorfrog (June 11, 2011, 11:29 PM)
There are outlets other than b&n and amazon for purchasing non-drm books. And if one of them actually modified something on the device that you didn't purchase from them, that would be a very bad thing for them (and pretty stupid also, as most would have backups - or in the case of a couple of outlets you can re-download).-wraith808 (June 12, 2011, 08:50 AM)
Which sites do you know of? I am always looking for some good non-drm sites to buy ebooks for my kindle.-Josh (June 12, 2011, 09:38 AM)
The device is still capable of tying personally identifiable information about you to the book, and remotely deleting or modifying it. There are no laws that I'm aware of that would keep Amazon, or any other company, from doing either of these things, or simply recording your behavior quietly, as the collected data awaits a sales opportunity or subpoena. Can't do this on a massive scale with physical books.-doctorfrog (June 11, 2011, 11:29 PM)
There are outlets other than b&n and amazon for purchasing non-drm books. And if one of them actually modified something on the device that you didn't purchase from them, that would be a very bad thing for them (and pretty stupid also, as most would have backups - or in the case of a couple of outlets you can re-download).-wraith808 (June 12, 2011, 08:50 AM)
I've had a kindle for a long while now and I have bought maybe 2 books from Amazon. I use Calibre to convert from other formats like pdf. epub, rtf, text etc etc to mobi then load them on the Kindle when I want them. If you haven't seen Calibre then you must! It is first class software and free, but welcomes contributions. It also has Plug-ins that make managing the Kindle a breeze.Calibre is great -- multi-platform open source software. I also agree the Kindle is remarkable and I'm glad Jeff Bezos stuck with it. Unlike the iPod, however, soon Kindles will likely be given away for "free" if you agree to buy 10 books with it or something. The big fat problem with Kindle is a word I dislike most when it comes to formats: proprietary. As 40hz writes above (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=27001.msg251994#msg251994):-elvisbrown (June 13, 2011, 05:59 AM)
One last thing about books. I agree with most things said previously about real, books but consider this. I can buy a book then pass it on and it gets passed on etc etc with as many as let's say 100 readers. What does the author get for that? She/he certainly doesn't get 100 payments. If there is an upside to DRM it is that authors will get better paid for their work. As a reader I say that's bloody good, it means that good authors will get rewarded more.I understand the sentiment, but if more people reading your book made you broke, then romance writers would have died off decades ago. Those paperbacks get traded and passed back and forth for a generation or more! Also, if you're in the book-writing business to make money, being an author is the wrong end of it. Prolific and popular tech writers are by no means millionaires. Maybe a few, but most aren't. Like records anymore, if you sell a half million copies, you're wildly successful. But after taxes, the profit from those copies are extremely disappointing.-elvisbrown (June 13, 2011, 05:59 AM)
From the place that shakes and shakes with endless quakes...peace from Christchurch NZSat through my first baby earthquake last week (3.4) after living through tornado hell, and it was very weird. Unlike a sonic boom, the ground rumbled from deep and upward, as if the Earth was cutting a long, rumbling fart. Cannot imagine what ChristChurch felt like. Here are a few photos from that week:-elvisbrown (June 13, 2011, 05:59 AM)
The big fat problem with Kindle is a word I dislike most when it comes to formats: proprietary.-zridling (June 13, 2011, 03:45 PM)
Agreed. I don't think there is an e-book reader that reads *only* proprietary formats. Heck, even iBooks allows you sideload other formats.The big fat problem with Kindle is a word I dislike most when it comes to formats: proprietary.-zridling (June 13, 2011, 03:45 PM)
I don't understand the debate about the "proprietary" nature of the Kindle. The Kindle is an e-reader, and a top-class one at that. You can load it with thousands of books and documents without ever buying an ebook in a proprietary format. That's how I use it anyway, and many others do likewise.-johnk (June 13, 2011, 05:59 PM)
Most musicians make music because they enjoy it, and some of them hope to make some kind of living from it through live performance. Most writers write for money, plain and simple. Without DRM, the vast majority of people will not pay for books, just as very few people under 30 pay for recorded music.
I don't think DRM will survive, but I don't see how authors will be paid, and I don't see how books will be written, aside from the small number of fiction writers who do it for love.-johnk (June 13, 2011, 05:59 PM)
The only reason eBooks can't be used in the same way is that publishers don't allow it - there is nothing to stop Kindle or any other book reader from removing rights from a book while it is lent to a friend - who temporarily inherits the rights until the book is returned. It is just pure greed on the part of publishing houses - author's only get a tiny, and dwindling, proportion of the book cover price. The only motivation for publishers is greed - that is why eBooks often cost more than printed editions on Amazon even though the publisher overheads are minimal in the eBook world.-Carol Haynes (June 13, 2011, 06:36 PM)
No-one likes DRM, but at least it means authors get a few bucks for their work.-johnk (June 13, 2011, 05:59 PM)
The lion's share of the money still goes to the publishers - who used to justify their percentage because of the mechanical reproduction costs they incurred by printing, binding, and shipping books. But now that most of that has gone away (save for the relative low overhead of maintaining licensing and distribution servers) they justify their percentage by...I'm sorry - exactly how do they justify their share?-40hz (June 13, 2011, 07:24 PM)
No-one likes DRM, but at least it means authors get a few bucks for their work.-johnk (June 13, 2011, 05:59 PM)
Unfortunately, that's pretty much all they get.
The lion's share of the money still goes to the publishers - who used to justify their percentage because of the mechanical reproduction costs they incurred by printing, binding, and shipping books. But now that most of that has gone away (save for the relative low overhead of maintaining licensing and distribution servers) they justify their percentage by...I'm sorry - exactly how do they justify their share?
Oh...I see...they don't feel the need to justify it.
Ok. Now I got it. :-\-40hz (June 13, 2011, 07:24 PM)
On a related note, technology is forcing the music industry to reinvent itself -- or embrace annihilation:-zridling (June 14, 2011, 05:38 AM)
It will search devices for tracks purchased from the iTunes store, and automatically give customers the rights to download the music to any Apple device. That puts Apple’s service ahead of recent offerings by Amazon and Google, which require users to upload music to the cloud.-http://www.economist.com/node/18805473?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/ar/digitallyremastered
Apple also announced a service, not available even in America until later this year, which will scan computers for all music tracks and offer cloud-based access to them for $24.99 a year. Apple will take a cut of sales and give the rest to the record companies. Whereas the iCloud is simply better than the competition, this is a breakthrough. In effect, it will allow music companies to levy an annual fee for the use of their music, whether ripped from CDs or downloaded illegally.
If a user can put 20,000 tracks from an iTunes collection into the cloud and stream to any device, the company takes all of those Android devices out there and turns them into music players. Sure, we could always play music from those devices, via the SD card in the phone, but exponentially intensifying that with a cloud-sync offering raises the stakes - and kind of makes me wonder why I need an iPod.-http://www.zdnet.com/blog/google/google-to-hollywood-well-do-music-with-or-without-you/2942
The lion's share of the money still goes to the publishers-40hz (June 13, 2011, 07:24 PM)
who used to justify their percentage because of the mechanical reproduction costs they incurred by printing, binding, and shipping books.-40hz (June 13, 2011, 07:24 PM)
+1
Or maybe it's because the publishers and their stakeholders have invested significant resources into securing distribution channels that empower authors to reach end-users through efficient marketization which facilitates monetization of intellectual properties and brings increased value to works and content that otherwise would require individual artists to maintain ecommerce infrastructure and complex systems which would detract them from their artistic pursuits and feed them better, which could lead to food-coma, thus reducing their productivity in global markets and reducing their facetime with prospective buyers looking to enrich their lives through content consumption for which publishers can charge a premium to ensure the viability of authors, artists and content producers that can thankfully take full advantage of publisher channels and relationships that extend their reach beyond what they could hope to achieve by setting up a PayPal account, spending $25 a month on a web site, and doing the marketing that they would have to do anyways because they will only ever become a part of the long tail in the publisher's value-chain.-Renegade (June 13, 2011, 10:34 PM)
Oh yeah, Apple is definitely way ahead of Google.-Deozaan (June 14, 2011, 04:23 PM)
The lion's share of the money still goes to the publishers-40hz (June 13, 2011, 07:24 PM)
Not true -- the biggest share goes to the retailer.-johnk (June 14, 2011, 05:38 PM)
who used to justify their percentage because of the mechanical reproduction costs they incurred by printing, binding, and shipping books.-40hz (June 13, 2011, 07:24 PM)
Not true -- it's always been a small part of publishing costs (10-15 per cent)-johnk (June 14, 2011, 05:38 PM)
The lion's share of the money still goes to the publishers-40hz (June 13, 2011, 07:24 PM)
Not true -- the biggest share goes to the retailer.-johnk (June 14, 2011, 05:38 PM)
Any time these forums discuss the marketing of books/music/tech there is a general tendency to kick the big companies involved who want to make money. Add to that a general loathing of DRM without offering any idea as to how content creators are supposed to make any money. I have no illusions about big bad corporate life (I've done my time there) but putting two fingers up to the money-making machine without offering any alternative doesn't advance the argument.-johnk (June 14, 2011, 05:38 PM)
EDIT: Erm, I guess this is off topic for this thread. Oops!Related in that I'm not buying any one company's devices -- Apple or Amazon at present -- just to read or access books on their service. You've got a handful of mega-corporations that are working night and day to wall off the internet; that is, you must buy their devices and buy in to their EULAs, their online services, their proprietary formats, their pricing schemes (pay PER-view?), and so on. Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, and Google are working this angle hard. As Deozaan referenced, most these companies would be more than happy to maximize every dime by charging you for the rest of your life to listen, view, read anything and everything through their networks.-Deozaan (June 14, 2011, 04:23 PM)
...for me Google Music is much way ahead of iCloud because I don't use iTunes and I don't own an iDevice.And that's why I've purchased a few books from the Google eBookstore (http://books.google.com/bkshp). For now, it allows me to read books on the widest number of devices, though they won't let me save my puchased .ePUB books to my own HD.-Deozaan (June 14, 2011, 04:23 PM)
Gas prices, unemployment, inflation, and the simple fact there really hasn't been a real flood of truly great bands in the last decade have a hell of a lot more to do with declining sales that piracy ever did or will.-Stoic Joker (June 14, 2011, 06:17 PM)
Gas prices, unemployment, inflation, and the simple fact there really hasn't been a real flood of truly great bands in the last decade have a hell of a lot more to do with declining sales that piracy ever did or will.-Stoic Joker (June 14, 2011, 06:17 PM)
I can't agree. Do you know anyone under 30 who pays for recorded music? I don't. But they listen to music all the time. They love music. They just won't pay for it. They don't think it's in any way wrong not to buy it. They think "old people" are odd because they pay for music. But at least musicians can earn a living from live performance. That's the deal now. The money is spent at the gigs and festivals. No one pays for the recorded stuff. Except us old people.-johnk (June 14, 2011, 06:45 PM)
Any time these forums discuss the marketing of books/music/tech there is a general tendency to kick the big companies involved who want to make money. Add to that a general loathing of DRM without offering any idea as to how content creators are supposed to make any money.Okay, I have issue with several things you say and at the end I will provide my solution which I think is obvious but overlooked. Taking a page from your book - Not true. Many have offered solutions, just none that have been accepted by the proponents of DRM.-johnk (June 14, 2011, 05:38 PM)
Book authors face a serious problem making money from ebooks. No DRM, no income.Again false. See above.-johnk (June 14, 2011, 05:38 PM)
I'm sure the good folk here will happily sponsor their favourite authors by sending them a few dollars a month direct.Further proof damning your previous argument. While DC'ers are great people in general (I am sure some are like me and merely average), this is not the only group of good people willing to pay for their consumption.-johnk (June 14, 2011, 05:38 PM)
I used to be a local newspaper journalist and editor. The industry's income has vanished. Few people will pay for online news. The paper I worked for employed 35 journalists in its heyday. It now employs a handful. The story is repeated in countless papers across the UK. More importantly, the news they used to provide has vanished. Detailed analysis of local government spending, for example, or the performance of local schools and hospitals. And no-one has stepped in to do the same thing. Sure, all this information is out there, somewhere, if you know how to dig, and how to make Freedom of Information requests to government/official bodies, and how to analyse the data. But the average punter doesn't have the time or the inclination. Many local government officials and politicians are delighted to see local newspapers vanishing. And at its essence it's the same debate as books. If no-one will pay for the information, the writers and skills will simply disappear. And our lives will be the poorer for it.This gets at the crux of your argument and misses the biggest point of the issue. Just because the data is there and can be gotten more efficiently by analysts doesn't mean anyone is willing to pay for that content. As they say, content is king, and if you don't create content the people want you won't make money. It isn't that this service isn't valuable to someone, it is that people (masses) are not willing to pay the price for content they can get themselves or are not willing to pay that high a price for information that is only marginally valuable to them.-johnk (June 14, 2011, 05:38 PM)
Many have offered solutions, just none that have been accepted by the proponents of DRM.-steeladept (June 14, 2011, 07:34 PM)
I still don't see an alternative for ebook authors. How do you generate a reliable income stream for ebook authors without some form of DRM-johnk (June 14, 2011, 08:17 PM)
copy protection falls under the banner of DRM-johnk (June 14, 2011, 08:17 PM)
Many have offered solutions, just none that have been accepted by the proponents of DRM.-steeladept (June 14, 2011, 07:34 PM)
What are these solutions? I've never defended DRM, but I still don't see an alternative for ebook authors. How do you generate a reliable income stream for ebook authors without some form of DRM (and copy protection falls under the banner of DRM)?-johnk (June 14, 2011, 08:17 PM)
Take one example - the publisher SitePoint.-Carol Haynes (June 14, 2011, 08:44 PM)
Any time these forums discuss the marketing of books/music/tech there is a general tendency to kick the big companies involved who want to make money. Add to that a general loathing of DRM without offering any idea as to how content creators are supposed to make any money. I have no illusions about big bad corporate life (I've done my time there) but putting two fingers up to the money-making machine without offering any alternative doesn't advance the argument.-johnk (June 14, 2011, 05:38 PM)
In my time I've purchased 4 copies of U2's The Joshua Tree on cassette...because they kept breaking. I finally pirated the last copy, so now I have one that I know I can keep. Does that make me a bad person? (Do you think I care...? :) )-Stoic Joker (June 14, 2011, 06:17 PM)
There's a good reason to give them the thumb:
They add zero value.
None. Nadda.
I said that above as a tongue in cheek sort of silliness, but it's basically bang on true.-Renegade (June 14, 2011, 10:18 PM)
copy protection falls under the banner of DRM-johnk (June 14, 2011, 08:17 PM)
No it doesn't - I can give away my CDs, DVDs and BluRay disks or lend the to a friend or sell them on eBay and the other person can use them as normal. DRM doesn't allow you to do anything with YOUR property outside the rules imposed by the corporation.-Carol Haynes (June 14, 2011, 08:44 PM)
So some forms of copy protection are DRM, as I see it. For example having to use a serial number to activate a software programme is obviously not DRM, whereas an executable that is linked at purchase to a "machine ID" is DRM (and I would call that copy protection). Have I got that right?-johnk (June 15, 2011, 07:35 AM)
What are these solutions? I've never defended DRM, but I still don't see an alternative for ebook authors. How do you generate a reliable income stream for ebook authors without some form of DRM (and copy protection falls under the banner of DRM)?-johnk (June 14, 2011, 08:17 PM)
The one overlooked contribution publishing houses used to provide was editorial input on an author's work. Was a time when they even went so far as to sign less polished writers. They'd sign them on, and then help them develop their writing skills if they showed talent but lacked the necessary craftsmanship.
They don't really do that any more.
And the unfortunate result is the spate of poorly written books we're seeing released by publishers who should (and do) know better.-40hz (June 15, 2011, 07:53 AM)
And Akashic been doing what they can to control distribution of the document by asking people to take down any posted PDFs. This may not be much. "As the publisher of this book, our responsibilty is to tackle instances of piracy when we become aware of them," Ahmad said, "That's just doing a service to our authors, ourselves, book sellers, distributors, to everyone involved in the successful making and promotion of a book."
Now... I can go the f**k to sleep... :D :P-Renegade (June 15, 2011, 04:26 PM)
Networks do not work. They do not let you seek reasonably. Any kind of media content over a network is a complete failure. Seeking should take the time it takes to click, and not the time it takes to buffer 300 MB over a 20 Mbps connection that really only delivers a max of 10 Mbps, but practically only ever achieves 700 kbps, but can realistically be expected to get 100 kbps if all goes well.-Renegade (June 19, 2011, 12:12 AM)
It's a shame, because the film looks good, and I'd certainly be up for buying a copy if I could do it reasonably. I guess that's too much to ask.-Renegade (June 19, 2011, 12:12 AM)
Networks do not work. They do not let you seek reasonably. Any kind of media content over a network is a complete failure. Seeking should take the time it takes to click, and not the time it takes to buffer 300 MB over a 20 Mbps connection that really only delivers a max of 10 Mbps, but practically only ever achieves 700 kbps, but can realistically be expected to get 100 kbps if all goes well.-Renegade (June 19, 2011, 12:12 AM)
Actually not quite true - I subscribe to the DIgital Concert Hall (basically all of the concerts from the Berlin Philharmonic) and that works great. You watch either using you browser on your computer or I watch it on my Sony Bravia TV. The streaming content works really well on this site so some people can get it right.-Carol Haynes (June 19, 2011, 07:03 AM)
For example I like to borrow,lend and sell books. There is absolutely no reason why devices like Kindle can't have a lend and sell feature-Carol Haynes (June 19, 2011, 07:03 AM)
Well, for what it's worth, I recently bought a cheap Sony Blu-ray player which has the usual "widgets" for online services that most AV devices seem to have these days.Networks do not work. They do not let you seek reasonably. Any kind of media content over a network is a complete failure. Seeking should take the time it takes to click, and not the time it takes to buffer 300 MB over a 20 Mbps connection that really only delivers a max of 10 Mbps, but practically only ever achieves 700 kbps, but can realistically be expected to get 100 kbps if all goes well.-Renegade (June 19, 2011, 12:12 AM)
Actually not quite true - I subscribe to the Digital Concert Hall (basically all of the concerts from the Berlin Philharmonic) and that works great. You watch either using you browser on your computer or I watch it on my Sony Bravia TV. The streaming content works really well on this site so some people can get it right.-Carol Haynes (June 19, 2011, 07:03 AM)
It's true and not true.
No site in the world can fix the problem. Even Microsoft with an Akamai CDN can't fix it.-Renegade (June 19, 2011, 08:10 AM)
Actually not quite true - I subscribe to the DIgital Concert Hall (basically all of the concerts from the Berlin Philharmonic) and that works great.-Carol Haynes (June 19, 2011, 07:03 AM)
Tech note: when my current ADSL connection was first installed, speeds were higher (up to 12Mb/s) but unreliable. Generally speaking, ADSL2 networks will do everything they can to maximise your speed, but if you have a noisy line that can work against you. So I got my ISP to "lock" my speed at a much lower level, and my connection has been rock solid ever since (not a single problem in two years). I can download at 7Mb/s all day long. Worth bearing in mind if you have a dodgy ADSL connection.-johnk (June 19, 2011, 10:22 AM)
If there is an SEMP you could argue that data might survive better in the cloud-Carol Haynes (July 22, 2011, 06:01 PM)
then would not routers update good data with corrupted data as an "update" across the cloud?Most likely the routers would have died/crashed from the SEMP :-\-CodeTRUCKER (July 22, 2011, 06:05 PM)
then would not routers update good data with corrupted data as an "update" across the cloud?Most likely the routers would have died/crashed from the SEMP :-\-CodeTRUCKER (July 22, 2011, 06:05 PM)-Ath (July 23, 2011, 06:13 AM)
I just finished my 20th eBook of 2011, and started on #21: Marion Zimmer Bradley's "The Door Through Space" (got it free from Project Gutenberg).-kyrathaba (August 03, 2011, 02:54 PM)
It's just more convenient, no matter the philosophical or future possible disadvantages of DRM.
There truly is nothing comparable to holding a real book in your hands. It feels like the essence of the book is lost when it is read on a kindle. I appreciate the benefits, but I think there is some sort of enjoyment factor which isn't quite there when it isn't the real thing... :(-CodeBoy (August 05, 2011, 03:04 AM)
I guess I'm a heretic, because I've always been a reader, and I don't miss anything about physical books.-wraith808 (August 05, 2011, 07:24 AM)
There truly is nothing comparable to holding a real book in your hands. It feels like the essence of the book is lost when it is read on a kindle. I appreciate the benefits, but I think there is some sort of enjoyment factor which isn't quite there when it isn't the real thing... :(-CodeBoy (August 05, 2011, 03:04 AM)
I guess I'm a heretic, because I've always been a reader, and I don't miss anything about physical books.-wraith808 (August 05, 2011, 07:24 AM)
Yeah? ...Try swatting a fly with your iPad and get back to me on that.
:D-Stoic Joker (August 05, 2011, 12:04 PM)
I guess I'm a heretic, because I've always been a reader, and I don't miss anything about physical books.-wraith808 (August 05, 2011, 07:24 AM)
Yeah? ...Try swatting a fly with your iPad and get back to me on that.
:D-Stoic Joker (August 05, 2011, 12:04 PM)
I never swatted flies with my physical books-wraith808 (August 05, 2011, 01:05 PM)
First you never tried, and now you can't.-Stoic Joker (August 05, 2011, 01:14 PM)
First you never tried, and now you can't.-Stoic Joker (August 05, 2011, 01:14 PM)
I could, and it would probably be more effective... once. And I'm sure if you had an iPad, it would be your flyswatter. :P-wraith808 (August 05, 2011, 01:19 PM)