6 ms·

When it comes to DRM, Amazon is a bottom feeding Hell Beast

82 points by shandsaker 14y ago

fieryscribe 14y ago
Amazon didn't insist on having DRM, although it worked out to their advantage. The publishers did: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120210/01364817725/how-publishers-repeated-same-mistake-as-record-labels-drm-obsession-gave-amazon-dominant-position.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120210/01364817725/how-pu...
- pja 14y ago
  Yeah, as Charlie Stross pointed out on his blog some time ago, the publishers effectively demanded that Amazon have a monopoly on the eBook reading public & only now are they (slowly) realising that this might not have been a great idea. Bezos must have been laughing all the way home from those meetings...
  - cstross 14y ago
    It's worth noting that some of the publishers have woken up and taken corrective action. Holtzbrinck, a giant German family owned publishing conglomerate you probably haven't heard of, actually owns Macmillan, who you might have heard of, who own Tor, who you probably have heard of if you're part of the regular HN demographic. A few months ago they came to the same conclusion, and have dropped mandatory DRM on genre fiction titles. I believe they're also open to arguments both for and against DRM on other publishing categories, rather than maintaining the doctrinaire "DRM on everything" policy of some of the other Big Six. The long term effect of this policy is ... well, it remains to be seen. Because publishers traditionally sold to wholesalers who sold to bookstores, they don't routinely sell direct to the public. A move by any of the big publishers to set up a direct-sales channel for ebooks, rivaling Amazon or Barnes and Noble, would probably be seen as hostile or monopolistic by the bookseller trade, and might even generate anti-trust lawsuits! But I'd be unsurprised to see one of the Big Six (now Five) follow the example of smaller direct-sales publishers sooner rather than later -- like http://www.webscription.net/ http://www.webscription.net/ for example.
    - pja 14y ago
      It would certainly be seen as hostile by Amazon!
      - jerf 14y ago
        But this does seem like the sort of role that the Internet tends to disintermediate. If I can get ebooks straight from the publisher in standardized formats that aren't DRM-encumbered, thus allowing me to use any reader I choose, what value is Amazon bringing me that Google is not already bringing me? Nonzero, I think, but not enough to sustain their business on. Heck, even the publisher stands in risk of being disintermediated here, let alone Amazon functioning as essentially a fourth party in the relationship. Whereas I find they bring me a lot of value as an intermediary of physical goods. Sometimes I try to order something straight from, say, a food vendor, but always end up choking on the fact the food vendor wants to charge me $15 shipping on my $30 order, because the food vendor's idea of shipping is the local Fedex drop point and Amazon's idea of shipping appears to involve some sort of teleportation technology.
        cstross 14y ago
        Heck, even the publisher stands in risk of being disintermediated here Only if you don't know what a publisher does. See also: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/02/cmap-2-how-books-are-made.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/02/cmap-2-h...
        jerf 14y ago
        That's why I said only "at risk of" and not that it was certain. But, as is the way of the internet, it's not hard to imagine in ten years that the many things you say go into the publisher's set of responsibilities could themselves be dispersed to more than one entity. Publishers previously had an effectively-physical moat around that set of tasks, because they had control over the book and essentially force you to consume all the services from them to get to the physical book. Now they're going to have to ensure they are bringing value throughout the process. Which in your domain, they probably will. But this is one way of viewing the ever-growing academic revolt against Elsevier. They do a couple of their duties OK, but the whole bundle they are providing is increasingly less compelling vs. what they are trying to charge.
- shuzchen 14y ago
  And if you look at the Amazon music store, which was DRM free from the get-go (and probably paved the way for Apple to negotiate with its own content providers for DRM free music), it's hard to think of Amazon as being on the side of DRM. Currently, of the two DRM-laden e-mediums Amazon sells (books and videos), both have DRM because the publishers insist on it.
nicholassmith 14y ago
Apple was in a position where they could make demands on publishers, so they demanded to strip off DRM and away they went. It was nice gesture, although you're still using iTunes media files but still, they exerted their power for The Greater Good (we can argue about why Apple would do that, but it was good for us all). If anyone can exert pressure on book publishers to ditch DRM, it's Amazon, but why would they? Aside from The Greater Good they've got themselves a nice little vendor lock in, and unlike Apple who was making money hand over fist with the iPod and using the iTunes store to help get consumers to start building digital libraries, Amazon isn't making staggering amounts of money on the Kindle and they really need people to stick on the platform. Seems like a few publishers have seen sense regarding DRM (Tor and Angry Robot are the first two who spring to mind), so maybe they'll eventually wise up and start dropping the DRM requirement.
- DanBC 14y ago
  > Amazon isn't making staggering amounts of money on the Kindle Amazon sells more ebooks than print books (hard and soft back combined). I guess there's a lot of shovel-ware 99p dross in there, but still, it'd odd to say that Amazon is not making much money on Kindle. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19148146 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19148146)
  - itp 14y ago
    I believe the point was that Amazon isn't making staggering amounts of money on the Kindle hardware itself (vs. Apple, where there was definitely money being made on the iPod hardware alone).
    - nicholassmith 14y ago
      Yeah, should have been more clear on Kindle as hardware vs Kindle as ebook.
  - AJ007 14y ago
    Based on the last quarter's filing Amazon isn't making any money at all, they are losing money.
Pfhreak 14y ago
Is it possible to have the DRM discussion without becoming hyperbolic? I mean, I'm not thrilled about DRM, but "Bottom feeding hell beast" is probably a little over the top. Furthermore, it seems weird that his primary stated use case (copying a section of a book and sharing with his friends) is totally supported on the kindle. There are all sorts of social features built into the device. Yes, we get it, DRM is a non-starter for most technical people, but we need to have a constructive dialog around the issue.
- jerf 14y ago
  I would observe the hyperbole is usually coming from the consumer side, where it is histrionic. The consumer always has the option to simply not consume, one I use quite frequently when the DRM deal is not in my favor. This is an author, realizing he's being enticed into the car trunk with pretty candy, and that he got taken awfully far in before he noticed. I think a bit of hyperbole is a bit more justified, so as to warn the others.
- stefs 14y ago
  the problem isn't just the inconvenience for customers. the bigger threat for authors is that amazon isn't just a quasi-monopoly, but also a monopsony (meaning publishers have to publish through amazon; it's a monopoly for suppliers instead of customers). as an author or publisher you can't get away from amazon anymore because you would invaliate your whole library. if you want to switch, your customers can't read your books anymore, because they're bound by the kindles DRM. so for us the question is if we can or cannot read a book - for the author it's an entirely different question; it's about being dependent on amazon without alternatives. so of course he's got to be a lot more to lose. ah, and why not use strong language - he's an author, he knows what he does :) i don't completely get it though, because the kindle is able to handle unprotected mobi files, plain text and html. i had several of those (creative commons or public domain) on mine and it worked flawlessly. do the mobi devs charge a licensing fee or why are those formats not accepted as a free format? ok - plain text really isn't an alternative for most, but html or mobi?
- turtlebits 14y ago
  Definitely over the top. Revoking licensing aside, the Amazon ecosystem is pretty open- apps for every almost every OS, no requirement for online access to read books, copy and paste (up to a limit), multiple licenses per customer.
SquareWheel 14y ago
One place Amazon appears to be noticing the benefit to reduced or eliminating DRM is in game sales. On Reddit in the /r/gamedeals subreddit, we often discuss if a game has DRM before concluding if it's a good purchase or not. The Amazon rep Tony often hangs around there to answer questions or posts deals himself, and he sees that DRM-free games do sell more. He now says if a game is DRM free or not when posting deals. I understand they have also had a few experiments into working with publishers to sell games without DRM to measure the effect. So, just an anecdote from a small part of Amazon, but that information may propagate to the books section eventually. We can only hope, because nothing puts me off purchasing media like digital rights management.
funkwyrm 14y ago
It seems everything the author is concerned about would be solved it there were a centrally/open-source managed, non-profit, DRM out there. The DRM which would be analogous to SSH. So one thing I've never understood: Is this really not technically possible or is the problem that the people who have the knowhow to create that are ideologically opposed?
- wmf 14y ago
  There is open DRM (e.g. OMA) but companies that are using DRM as an excuse for lock-in will never adopt it.
damian2000 14y ago
Seen a few posts of this nature from John Birmingham. So how does he explain all his books being available on Amazon then, for download to Kindle? He even has his own Author's page: http://www.amazon.com/John-Birmingham/e/B001IOBFQA/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1352768892&sr=1-2-ent http://www.amazon.com/John-Birmingham/e/B001IOBFQA/ref=sr_tc... His latest book, "Angels of Vengeance", published in April 2012, is available for Kindle, paperback, hardcover and audiobook.

82 points by shandsaker 14y ago

Amazon didn't insist on having DRM, although it worked out to their advantage. The publishers did: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120210/01364817725/how-publishers-repeated-same-mistake-as-record-labels-drm-obsession-gave-amazon-dominant-position.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120210/01364817725/how-pu...

pja 14y ago
Yeah, as Charlie Stross pointed out on his blog some time ago, the publishers effectively demanded that Amazon have a monopoly on the eBook reading public & only now are they (slowly) realising that this might not have been a great idea. Bezos must have been laughing all the way home from those meetings...
- cstross 14y ago
  It's worth noting that some of the publishers have woken up and taken corrective action. Holtzbrinck, a giant German family owned publishing conglomerate you probably haven't heard of, actually owns Macmillan, who you might have heard of, who own Tor, who you probably have heard of if you're part of the regular HN demographic. A few months ago they came to the same conclusion, and have dropped mandatory DRM on genre fiction titles. I believe they're also open to arguments both for and against DRM on other publishing categories, rather than maintaining the doctrinaire "DRM on everything" policy of some of the other Big Six. The long term effect of this policy is ... well, it remains to be seen. Because publishers traditionally sold to wholesalers who sold to bookstores, they don't routinely sell direct to the public. A move by any of the big publishers to set up a direct-sales channel for ebooks, rivaling Amazon or Barnes and Noble, would probably be seen as hostile or monopolistic by the bookseller trade, and might even generate anti-trust lawsuits! But I'd be unsurprised to see one of the Big Six (now Five) follow the example of smaller direct-sales publishers sooner rather than later -- like http://www.webscription.net/ http://www.webscription.net/ for example.
  - pja 14y ago
    It would certainly be seen as hostile by Amazon!
    - jerf 14y ago
      But this does seem like the sort of role that the Internet tends to disintermediate. If I can get ebooks straight from the publisher in standardized formats that aren't DRM-encumbered, thus allowing me to use any reader I choose, what value is Amazon bringing me that Google is not already bringing me? Nonzero, I think, but not enough to sustain their business on. Heck, even the publisher stands in risk of being disintermediated here, let alone Amazon functioning as essentially a fourth party in the relationship. Whereas I find they bring me a lot of value as an intermediary of physical goods. Sometimes I try to order something straight from, say, a food vendor, but always end up choking on the fact the food vendor wants to charge me $15 shipping on my $30 order, because the food vendor's idea of shipping is the local Fedex drop point and Amazon's idea of shipping appears to involve some sort of teleportation technology.
      - cstross 14y ago
        Heck, even the publisher stands in risk of being disintermediated here Only if you don't know what a publisher does. See also: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/02/cmap-2-how-books-are-made.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/02/cmap-2-h...
        jerf 14y ago
        That's why I said only "at risk of" and not that it was certain. But, as is the way of the internet, it's not hard to imagine in ten years that the many things you say go into the publisher's set of responsibilities could themselves be dispersed to more than one entity. Publishers previously had an effectively-physical moat around that set of tasks, because they had control over the book and essentially force you to consume all the services from them to get to the physical book. Now they're going to have to ensure they are bringing value throughout the process. Which in your domain, they probably will. But this is one way of viewing the ever-growing academic revolt against Elsevier. They do a couple of their duties OK, but the whole bundle they are providing is increasingly less compelling vs. what they are trying to charge.
shuzchen 14y ago
And if you look at the Amazon music store, which was DRM free from the get-go (and probably paved the way for Apple to negotiate with its own content providers for DRM free music), it's hard to think of Amazon as being on the side of DRM. Currently, of the two DRM-laden e-mediums Amazon sells (books and videos), both have DRM because the publishers insist on it.

nicholassmith 14y ago

Apple was in a position where they could make demands on publishers, so they demanded to strip off DRM and away they went. It was nice gesture, although you're still using iTunes media files but still, they exerted their power for The Greater Good (we can argue about why Apple would do that, but it was good for us all). If anyone can exert pressure on book publishers to ditch DRM, it's Amazon, but why would they? Aside from The Greater Good they've got themselves a nice little vendor lock in, and unlike Apple who was making money hand over fist with the iPod and using the iTunes store to help get consumers to start building digital libraries, Amazon isn't making staggering amounts of money on the Kindle and they really need people to stick on the platform. Seems like a few publishers have seen sense regarding DRM (Tor and Angry Robot are the first two who spring to mind), so maybe they'll eventually wise up and start dropping the DRM requirement.

DanBC 14y ago
> Amazon isn't making staggering amounts of money on the Kindle Amazon sells more ebooks than print books (hard and soft back combined). I guess there's a lot of shovel-ware 99p dross in there, but still, it'd odd to say that Amazon is not making much money on Kindle. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19148146 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19148146)
- itp 14y ago
  I believe the point was that Amazon isn't making staggering amounts of money on the Kindle hardware itself (vs. Apple, where there was definitely money being made on the iPod hardware alone).
  - nicholassmith 14y ago
    Yeah, should have been more clear on Kindle as hardware vs Kindle as ebook.
- AJ007 14y ago
  Based on the last quarter's filing Amazon isn't making any money at all, they are losing money.

Pfhreak 14y ago

Is it possible to have the DRM discussion without becoming hyperbolic? I mean, I'm not thrilled about DRM, but "Bottom feeding hell beast" is probably a little over the top. Furthermore, it seems weird that his primary stated use case (copying a section of a book and sharing with his friends) is totally supported on the kindle. There are all sorts of social features built into the device. Yes, we get it, DRM is a non-starter for most technical people, but we need to have a constructive dialog around the issue.

jerf 14y ago
I would observe the hyperbole is usually coming from the consumer side, where it is histrionic. The consumer always has the option to simply not consume, one I use quite frequently when the DRM deal is not in my favor. This is an author, realizing he's being enticed into the car trunk with pretty candy, and that he got taken awfully far in before he noticed. I think a bit of hyperbole is a bit more justified, so as to warn the others.
stefs 14y ago
the problem isn't just the inconvenience for customers. the bigger threat for authors is that amazon isn't just a quasi-monopoly, but also a monopsony (meaning publishers have to publish through amazon; it's a monopoly for suppliers instead of customers). as an author or publisher you can't get away from amazon anymore because you would invaliate your whole library. if you want to switch, your customers can't read your books anymore, because they're bound by the kindles DRM. so for us the question is if we can or cannot read a book - for the author it's an entirely different question; it's about being dependent on amazon without alternatives. so of course he's got to be a lot more to lose. ah, and why not use strong language - he's an author, he knows what he does :) i don't completely get it though, because the kindle is able to handle unprotected mobi files, plain text and html. i had several of those (creative commons or public domain) on mine and it worked flawlessly. do the mobi devs charge a licensing fee or why are those formats not accepted as a free format? ok - plain text really isn't an alternative for most, but html or mobi?
turtlebits 14y ago
Definitely over the top. Revoking licensing aside, the Amazon ecosystem is pretty open- apps for every almost every OS, no requirement for online access to read books, copy and paste (up to a limit), multiple licenses per customer.

SquareWheel 14y ago

One place Amazon appears to be noticing the benefit to reduced or eliminating DRM is in game sales. On Reddit in the /r/gamedeals subreddit, we often discuss if a game has DRM before concluding if it's a good purchase or not. The Amazon rep Tony often hangs around there to answer questions or posts deals himself, and he sees that DRM-free games do sell more. He now says if a game is DRM free or not when posting deals. I understand they have also had a few experiments into working with publishers to sell games without DRM to measure the effect. So, just an anecdote from a small part of Amazon, but that information may propagate to the books section eventually. We can only hope, because nothing puts me off purchasing media like digital rights management.

funkwyrm 14y ago

It seems everything the author is concerned about would be solved it there were a centrally/open-source managed, non-profit, DRM out there. The DRM which would be analogous to SSH. So one thing I've never understood: Is this really not technically possible or is the problem that the people who have the knowhow to create that are ideologically opposed?

wmf 14y ago
There is open DRM (e.g. OMA) but companies that are using DRM as an excuse for lock-in will never adopt it.

damian2000 14y ago

Seen a few posts of this nature from John Birmingham. So how does he explain all his books being available on Amazon then, for download to Kindle? He even has his own Author's page: http://www.amazon.com/John-Birmingham/e/B001IOBFQA/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1352768892&sr=1-2-ent http://www.amazon.com/John-Birmingham/e/B001IOBFQA/ref=sr_tc... His latest book, "Angels of Vengeance", published in April 2012, is available for Kindle, paperback, hardcover and audiobook.