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Why ebooks are bad for you
johnk:
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)
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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.
I don't like DRM either. As I said above, I still buy printed books because I don't like DRM, but I do want books. But I don't have a solution. And I can't see one, apart from putting the clock back 200 years and "sponsoring" writers directly. And to be honest I can't see that working. I hope I'm wrong.
Stoic Joker:
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)
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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)
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I think that is an unfair generalization that reflects quite badly on the angst of youth. My son, and many of his friends, spent a good deal of their income on music. They also pirated some of the rest. All in all however I'd say they bought considerably more of their music collection then I did at their age back-in-the-day. Because back then I knew, and then was the guy with a dual cassette deck.
The thieving children boogieman is nothing more that RIAA propaganda trying to candlelight people into surrendering more of their rights in the name of "Protecting the Author's IP Rights. ...Which of course they haven't ever given two shits about.
Apple is making a boatload of cash with the iStore ... Do you really think it all only and just from people over 30?? That's not really a good demographic for getting fads started now is it? No the kids today have got money, and now that drugs are out of fashion, they spend most of it on media based entertainment.
steeladept:
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.
-johnk (June 14, 2011, 05:38 PM)
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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.
Book authors face a serious problem making money from ebooks. No DRM, no income.
-johnk (June 14, 2011, 05:38 PM)
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Again false. See above.
I'm sure the good folk here will happily sponsor their favourite authors by sending them a few dollars a month direct. -johnk (June 14, 2011, 05:38 PM)
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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.
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.
-johnk (June 14, 2011, 05:38 PM)
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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.
In your example, the paper industry died not because there wasn't news or that people didn't want the news, what they wanted was the news in an easier fashion to consume. It had very little to do with the internet if truth be told (though that hastened it a lot!). The industry was dying long before due to television getting in on the action. The internet did a one-up on TV by making it available anytime the user wanted it. Industry players that had the foresight and wherewithal to move with the changing market instead of fighting against it are still thriving and, indeed growing, today. Just as an example, take the Wall Street Journal. Like other papers, their print division has taken a beating and the subscription rate is only a fraction of what it used to be. But they moved to the Wall Street Journal Online in conjunction with the paper, and are growing steadily. You can argue that it is because they are a niche reporting group, but I argue that makes them MORE susceptible to loss due to the changing tide instead of less susceptible due to the significantly smaller user base.
The "simple" way to make money is to create content people want and sell it at a price they are willing to pay. Are people going to steal it and/or copy it or otherwise devalue the full amount due? Sure - they always have and always will. But do authors stop writing? Nope. Looking for proof? Do you see people still writing games? Are they selling them, or giving them away for free? They are authors who have created content and are able to sell it - most often without some form of DRM. They often employ copy protection (NOT ALWAYS), but this is a far cry from the intrusiveness of DRM. The key is that people (read corporations and producers) MUST change with the times. Many times people don't want to or are unable. Sorry - that is the price of competition. Are companies going to go bankrupt because of it? Well not with the current political environment around most of the world (at least not large companies. Small companies are on their own - unfortunately); but they should. That is what competition is all about. Is it necessarily painful? Maybe, but you can argue necessity - it will definitely be painful and many innocent people will get hurt. Again it is the nature of a changing world.
DRM is an old methodology view of dealing with new circumstances. It works, sometimes, for a while; but people don't like beholden to other people. It will change. Solutions will come and go until someone can find a solution equitable to all involved - and that doesn't mean the consumer will change.
johnk:
Many have offered solutions, just none that have been accepted by the proponents of DRM.
-steeladept (June 14, 2011, 07:34 PM)
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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)?
Carol Haynes:
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)
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Take one example - the publisher SitePoint.They seem to do pretty well selling print and electronic books in simpel PDF format (as well as electronic courses etc). Some of their content is really rather expensive.
Can you torrent the files: yes, can you give a copy to your friend: yes
Should you: no
No bother the company is still selling out of print runs on new books and the big retailers are still stocking and selling their books.
The eBooks are simply labelled with the name of the owner of the book on each page (which would be pretty trivial to remove) but nevertheless the model seems to work for them.
copy protection falls under the banner of DRM
-johnk (June 14, 2011, 08:17 PM)
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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.
I don't buy DRMed books any more (or music) simply because I have bought books and music in the past (including eBooks from Amazon) that I can no longer read because I have bought a new computer and they have lost the right to activate my content because they no longer sell it or no longer have a contract with the publisher to sell it. Did I get a refund: NO.
DRM is legalised robbery and intimidation aimed at the consumer. The artist still gets ripped off even with DRM and that has always been so even before digital content (ask Queen who made NO money from their first 3 albums or the Osmonds who pretty much went bankrupt in the 80s - both because of corporate greed and exploitation).
I don't know about other parts of the world but in the UK I hate it when I put a DVD I purchased in to play and get 5 minutes of garbage about how piracy funds terrorism, and then another 10 minutes of adverts for chocolate and trailers for other DVDs. As far as I can see the only terrorism is the intellectual terrorism of the RIAA who impose this garbage on legitimate customers when pirates simply strip the crap and watch the film!
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