4 ms·

I have recently observed that buying and using ebooks is like being put into a time machine and being forced to re-live the early days of digital music download

by JunkDNA 16y ago

I have recently observed that buying and using ebooks is like being put into a time machine and being forced to re-live the early days of digital music downloads. Do we seriously have to re-learn all those lessons in every single industry that starts to shift to digital content?

DanielBMarkham 16y ago
I think the answer is yes -- because people who grew up with one business model find it very, very hard to give it up, logic be damned. I'm at the point now where I have a lot of money invested in my kindle e-books. E-books that Amazon says that they really own and won't let me share with folks (until now) Wonder how much abuse the average user is going to take before they decide that a book is a book. You buy a book, you read a book, then you give or loan it to somebody else. No amount of DRM and legal contracts in the world is going to change that. It's the common sense and natural way of doing things by billions of people versus the state, custom-made laws, and digital jails. Same game, different channel. So yes, we're still going to go down that road.
- CWuestefeld 16y ago
  Daniel, while I agree with what you said, I must in the interest of fairness say that I still see a flaw in the argument. people who grew up with one business model find it very, very hard to give it up, logic be damned ... Wonder how much abuse the average user is going to take before they decide that a book is a book You're assuming (as am I) that e-books are the same as dead trees, and it's the publishers holding their heads in the sand. But why must that be the answer? Why can't it be that we're wrong, that this is a brave new world that we need to adjust to?
  - DanielBMarkham 16y ago
    Here's what I think, for what it's worth. There's an entire democratic process to change what people expect out of their relationship to government. It involves political parties, speeches, elections, debates, making compromises with the opposing party, and finally resolution. What we find over and over again is that when folks try to just use the courts and the legal system to implement change, it always results in a lot of friction. There are still people mad in the States about Roe v. Wade, and that was many decades ago. So the way things change makes a difference. Perhaps the lawyers can browbeat the society into changing. I kind of doubt it -- especially for something this big. Theoretically yes, anything is possible. We could easily live in a world where publishers charge many times for the same material based on all sorts of random factors like format, time of use, etc. But in reality I just don't see a change of the magnitude taking place without all of the political paraphernalia associated with such changes, no matter how many people they stick in jail or sue. It's a shame, because just like in the net neutrality issue, the companies could have avoided this by using common sense in their licensing and distribution policies, instead of fixating on the letter of the law (which nobody cared about anyway until mp3s came along) The minute my grandma can't treat an ebook like she did her old paperbacks the publishers have lost the game. It might be another hundred years (so it wouldn't matter to the publishers and probably be considered by them a "win"), but the laws will eventually catch up to where the people are. I imagine this will play out like pot legalization -- long and difficult, with a generation of politicians having to pass from the scene before the posturing stops and common sense takes hold.
  - patio11 16y ago
    Humility is a good idea. Look what happened to gaming: in a world where gamers voted with their wallets against I-pay-you-money-you-give-me-ownership-of-game (they were fine with only the second part), publishers shifted investment from PC games to either consoles with fairly effective DRM or games-as-a-service where a) ownership of the game is a quaint notion only remembered by greybeards and b) spending on games goes through the roof due to "free to play" (a truly Orwellian coinage, that one).
anonymoushn 16y ago
I have found pirating and using ebooks to be perfectly reasonable as there are no hurdles to jump over and there is no possibility that your books will disappear from your Kindle without your permission. In fact, as far as Amazon is concerned, I've never put anything on my Kindle. My main problem is that many books I want to read cannot be found in this form for as much as a year after they are published.
- VB6_Forever 16y ago
  I'm no advocate of piracy but having twice been effectively ripped off by DRM I can see where you're coming from
  - TheAmazingIdiot 16y ago
    And for as long as cracking a DRM scheme to gain your rightful property is illegal, I will advocate piracy. I buy movies on DVD when I like the show. I also buy books. And occasionally, I also buy music. The rub: I buy from Half Price Books and other used merchants. For some reason (PROFIT), I cant do this with ebooks and other e-media. When I'm treated as an enemy, acted upon as an enemy and evil pirate, and charged an arm and a leg for media then proselytised to 'not pirate'... Yeah, Ill pirate.
- w1ntermute 16y ago
  Anyone know why it takes so long? Shouldn't it be possible to crack the DRM on Kindle (or other) ebooks and pirate them? I thought the reason it was so hard to pirate books in the past was because they had to be scanned (and preferably OCRed).
  - CWuestefeld 16y ago
    Kindle was cracked at least a year ago. I haven't actually used it, but from what I read it's not a crypto flaw allowing the data to be extracted, but more analogous to the "analog hole". The existence of on-screen readers allows software to be written that walks through the book a page at a time, and rips the content in that way.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
InclinedPlane 16y ago
Yes. You do not realize how arrogant and powerful the corporations that have been in control of these industries are. Historically they have had their way and raked in enormous profits for so little effort to such a degree that the idea that they have to bend to the will of customers or to technological innovation is completely foreign to them.

by JunkDNA 16y ago

DanielBMarkham 16y ago

I think the answer is yes -- because people who grew up with one business model find it very, very hard to give it up, logic be damned. I'm at the point now where I have a lot of money invested in my kindle e-books. E-books that Amazon says that they really own and won't let me share with folks (until now) Wonder how much abuse the average user is going to take before they decide that a book is a book. You buy a book, you read a book, then you give or loan it to somebody else. No amount of DRM and legal contracts in the world is going to change that. It's the common sense and natural way of doing things by billions of people versus the state, custom-made laws, and digital jails. Same game, different channel. So yes, we're still going to go down that road.

CWuestefeld 16y ago
Daniel, while I agree with what you said, I must in the interest of fairness say that I still see a flaw in the argument. people who grew up with one business model find it very, very hard to give it up, logic be damned ... Wonder how much abuse the average user is going to take before they decide that a book is a book You're assuming (as am I) that e-books are the same as dead trees, and it's the publishers holding their heads in the sand. But why must that be the answer? Why can't it be that we're wrong, that this is a brave new world that we need to adjust to?
- DanielBMarkham 16y ago
  Here's what I think, for what it's worth. There's an entire democratic process to change what people expect out of their relationship to government. It involves political parties, speeches, elections, debates, making compromises with the opposing party, and finally resolution. What we find over and over again is that when folks try to just use the courts and the legal system to implement change, it always results in a lot of friction. There are still people mad in the States about Roe v. Wade, and that was many decades ago. So the way things change makes a difference. Perhaps the lawyers can browbeat the society into changing. I kind of doubt it -- especially for something this big. Theoretically yes, anything is possible. We could easily live in a world where publishers charge many times for the same material based on all sorts of random factors like format, time of use, etc. But in reality I just don't see a change of the magnitude taking place without all of the political paraphernalia associated with such changes, no matter how many people they stick in jail or sue. It's a shame, because just like in the net neutrality issue, the companies could have avoided this by using common sense in their licensing and distribution policies, instead of fixating on the letter of the law (which nobody cared about anyway until mp3s came along) The minute my grandma can't treat an ebook like she did her old paperbacks the publishers have lost the game. It might be another hundred years (so it wouldn't matter to the publishers and probably be considered by them a "win"), but the laws will eventually catch up to where the people are. I imagine this will play out like pot legalization -- long and difficult, with a generation of politicians having to pass from the scene before the posturing stops and common sense takes hold.
- patio11 16y ago
  Humility is a good idea. Look what happened to gaming: in a world where gamers voted with their wallets against I-pay-you-money-you-give-me-ownership-of-game (they were fine with only the second part), publishers shifted investment from PC games to either consoles with fairly effective DRM or games-as-a-service where a) ownership of the game is a quaint notion only remembered by greybeards and b) spending on games goes through the roof due to "free to play" (a truly Orwellian coinage, that one).

anonymoushn 16y ago

I have found pirating and using ebooks to be perfectly reasonable as there are no hurdles to jump over and there is no possibility that your books will disappear from your Kindle without your permission. In fact, as far as Amazon is concerned, I've never put anything on my Kindle. My main problem is that many books I want to read cannot be found in this form for as much as a year after they are published.

VB6_Forever 16y ago
I'm no advocate of piracy but having twice been effectively ripped off by DRM I can see where you're coming from
- TheAmazingIdiot 16y ago
  And for as long as cracking a DRM scheme to gain your rightful property is illegal, I will advocate piracy. I buy movies on DVD when I like the show. I also buy books. And occasionally, I also buy music. The rub: I buy from Half Price Books and other used merchants. For some reason (PROFIT), I cant do this with ebooks and other e-media. When I'm treated as an enemy, acted upon as an enemy and evil pirate, and charged an arm and a leg for media then proselytised to 'not pirate'... Yeah, Ill pirate.
w1ntermute 16y ago
Anyone know why it takes so long? Shouldn't it be possible to crack the DRM on Kindle (or other) ebooks and pirate them? I thought the reason it was so hard to pirate books in the past was because they had to be scanned (and preferably OCRed).
- CWuestefeld 16y ago
  Kindle was cracked at least a year ago. I haven't actually used it, but from what I read it's not a crypto flaw allowing the data to be extracted, but more analogous to the "analog hole". The existence of on-screen readers allows software to be written that walks through the book a page at a time, and rips the content in that way.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

InclinedPlane 16y ago

Yes. You do not realize how arrogant and powerful the corporations that have been in control of these industries are. Historically they have had their way and raked in enormous profits for so little effort to such a degree that the idea that they have to bend to the will of customers or to technological innovation is completely foreign to them.