Apple, Book Publishers, Sued for Price Fixing

[LaserGuy]

Both of us don't need the book at once. Once I read the book, I probably won't read it again. Or, if I do, it might be five years later. Sure, I like having books on the shelf too, but that doesn't mean that if somebody asks I won't give them my copies of Lord of the Rings for a couple weeks or something. The problems that you are describing are issues that frankly never come up in the real world, or can't be overcome without a half-second's thought. Anyway, I still arguably have a (partial) copy of the book, since once I've read it, it is now stored in my memory, and can be accessed whenever I want without the physical copy being present.

"Never"? Seriously? Beyond the exaggeration, that's still completely unreasonable; people are going to talk about the book they're currently reading.

And they can still loan out the book after they've finished reading it. I don't think anybody you talk to about it is going to be so desperate to start reading it as well that they can't wait a bit for you to finish it. Hence why I say this is not a problem in the real world. I mean yes, if you're a total jerk, or your friends are total jerks, then you might not loan books to each other or be reasonable. But then, if you're that type of person anyway, you probably couldn't be bothered to send somebody an e-book either. Or, more likely, if you refuse to loan them the book, they're not going to run out and buy it--ebook or not--they're probably just going to forget about it because there's a thousand other books out there that they've been meaning to read but just haven't gotten around to yet either.

It's not like DRM actually solves any of the problems that you're talking about anyway. I can just send you the DRMed copy of the book and you can strip the DRM once you get it. Or I can strip the DRM myself, if I'm feeling nice. It's another hurdle to the process, but it's a pretty small one.

[maybeagnostic]

No, I'm arguing that a DRM-free ebook being shared is not the same as a physical book being shared.

Except no one really cares if I lend a book I have to one or two of my friends, they care that I might put it up on some file sharing service where everyone can easily get it. DRM is weak protection against that. Only releasing physical copies is somewhat better but someone is still going to scan the book and put it up online and if no one cares enough to do that then the book is likely not very popular anyway.

Amazon has built a system that has nearly invisible DRM (seriously, I didn't know the books were DRM'ed until over a year after I got my kindle- I just assumed that, like their mp3s, they are DRM-free) and the number of people 'pirating' books hasn't skyrocketed. Publishing houses have several reasons to dislike the development of ebooks but rights infringement is not near the top of that list. Personally, I think the top reasons are 1. their lack of understanding and complete control of the new market and 2. the fact that they are no longer an unavoidable hurdle on every author's way to being published.

[LaserGuy]

No, I'm arguing that a DRM-free ebook being shared is not the same as a physical book being shared.

Except no one really cares if I lend a book I have to one or two of my friends, they care that I might put it up on some file sharing service where everyone can easily get it. DRM is weak protection against that. Only releasing physical copies is somewhat better but someone is still going to scan the book and put it up online and if no one cares enough to do that then the book is likely not very popular anyway.

Amazon has built a system that has nearly invisible DRM (seriously, I didn't know the books were DRM'ed until over a year after I got my kindle- I just assumed that, like their mp3s, they are DRM-free) and the number of people 'pirating' books hasn't skyrocketed. Publishing houses have several reasons to dislike the development of ebooks but rights infringement is not near the top of that list. Personally, I think the top reasons are 1. their lack of understanding and complete control of the new market and 2. the fact that they are no longer an unavoidable hurdle on every author's way to being published.

And 3. People aren't willing to pay the $40 hardcover price for an ebook.

[Ghostbear]

And they can still loan out the book after they've finished reading it. I don't think anybody you talk to about it is going to be so desperate to start reading it as well that they can't wait a bit for you to finish it. Hence why I say this is not a problem in the real world. I mean yes, if you're a total jerk, or your friends are total jerks, then you might not loan books to each other or be reasonable. But then, if you're that type of person anyway, you probably couldn't be bothered to send somebody an e-book either. Or, more likely, if you refuse to loan them the book, they're not going to run out and buy it--ebook or not--they're probably just going to forget about it because there's a thousand other books out there that they've been meaning to read but just haven't gotten around to yet either.

Time delays matter: getting access to a book now is very different from getting access to a book in a week, three months, or just the general time of not-now. That's one of the convenience factors digital media relies on, even! I'd have a lot of qualms loaning a physical book to most people I know -- people are shit at returning them from experiences, and if I get it back, it's in materially worse condition. If I "loan" a book to someone, I consider the book gone and treat it as a mini-gift. I wouldn't have any issue making a copy of an ebook for someone, because it would cost me nothing.

It's not like DRM actually solves any of the problems that you're talking about anyway.

Where did I say that DRM solves any problems? All I said is that loaning a physical book is different from sharing a non-DRM'd ebook. Adding DRM just adds one more step (removing the DRM) to the sharing process for the ebook. The difference I'm highlighting is between the physical and digital copies.

Except no one really cares if I lend a book I have to one or two of my friends, they care that I might put it up on a some file sharing service where everyone can easily get it. DRM is weak protection against that. Only releasing physical copies is somewhat better but someone is still going to scan the book and put it up online and if no one cares enough to do that then the book is likely not very popular anyway.

Missing my point: I'm not defending DRM at all (hence the part where I said DRM gives "no noteworthy benefits to anyone, with many negatives abound"). I'm saying that if you loan a physical book to someone, it's not the same as emailing a copy of the ebook to them, because in one scenario you now no longer have your book, and in the other, you still have your book. That's it. This isn't going into putting up torrents or uploading to filehosting sites or using a newsreader or any of that. The act of sharing in those two cases isn't identical. The original argument I responded to was that trivial piracy for a digital copy is like loaning out a book, when it really isn't. I could "loan" out a dozen or a hundred ebooks trivially, with no loss to myself, while I could not do that with physical books (at that point, just grabbing all of them and putting them in a box is probably enough to remove the trivial from the scenario).

[maybeagnostic]

So we all agree DRM is not the solution (to some rather nebulous problem) and I am left confused why you brought up file sharing in the first place.

P.S. Rereading earlier posts helped with my confusion. You didn't actually bring it up and we are just drifting off topic.

[Arariel]

Can you not do this? It really lowers the level of discourse for no reason.

Or, if you insist on it, can you please make sure to use similar terms for Amazon or any other companies that may get mentioned?

Well, they're my least favourite tech company (only slightly more than Oracle and Microsoft), so it's become a bit of an impulse for me now. However, in the interest of fairness, I will now adopt "the Swindle" as my term for the Kindle as per Richard Stallman and his Defective By Design stuff.



Also, remember, Amazon can remotely delete your ebooks off your Swindle (remember Nineteen Eighty-Four?). I think there'd be people willing to pay for non-DRM stuff just to avoid that.

Also, I'm not sure authors are as pro-DRM as you think. For example, according to Cory Doctorow, Neil Gaiman doesn't seem to mind piracy that much:

I recently saw Neil Gaiman give a talk at which someone asked him how he felt about piracy of his books. He said, "Hands up in the audience if you discovered your favorite writer for free -- because someone loaned you a copy, or because someone gave it to you? Now, hands up if you found your favorite writer by walking into a store and plunking down cash."

[LaserGuy]

I thought I'd pass along this interesting argument that suggests that part of the book publisher's problem is, in fact, their use of DRM. Essentially, by requiring ebooks to carry DRM, they are forcing their customers to use Kindle/Amazon (or Apple/iPad, etc.). If they had instead used a non-proprietary format that was readable on any e-reader, and could be purchased from any store, then the Amazon's dominance in the e-book market would, in fact, be pretty limited, and if they didn't like Amazon's pricing model, they could pretty easily just cut Amazon out entirely. With a large number of people now locked in the Amazon DRM system, it is much more difficult for the publishers to extricate themselves without alienating a huge number of their customers.