Some thought about the long-term future of eBooks
Nothing whatsoever to do with music this time (and it's been a very LONG time, I know!), but the current growth in eBooks got me thinking, resulting in the following partly-baked thoughts:
If eBooks are thought of as a simple consumer product, they will fail. Books are not simply products that are purchased from a retail outlet, read, and then either discarded or stored away. Far more than that, they form the foundation of a rich subculture which supports charities, democratises literacy, and more.
Additionally, and uniquely amongst media artefacts, they (along with other print media) are their own self-contained interface; unlike CDs, DVDs, video tapes, audio cassettes, and vinyl discs, they require no equipment other than the reader's eyes and brain, in order to be decoded and absorbed.
Books, magazines, newsletters, all come in a huge variety of formats, but the fact that no equipment or interface is required to read them means this heterogeneity is not a problem. eBooks are sold in a variety of proprietary formats, each of which requires a special piece of hardware or software in order to be read by the reader. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with having a variety of readers - Kindle, Sony Readers, iPads and the rest - but if eBooks are to have a future beyond mere novelty, these readers must eventually possess a multi-format capability, enabling them to read eBooks in all known proprietary and Open formats. Human readers can then select the reading platform with which they are most comfortable, safe in the knowledge that they can read eBooks in any format, purchased from any source. And while we're on the subject, this "all formats" capability should also include full backward compatibility with all previous eBook formats, on a continuing, non-expiring basis. There should be no obsolescence of formats, as far as readers are concerned. After all, I can (with care and cotton gloves) read a Medieval manuscript quite easily, despite the hundreds of years since it was printed; so why should I be unable to read an eBook published a mere 20 years ago, just because its format is no longer in use? (This is not idle fretting: try finding an MS Word plugin to enable you to read a document produced using word processor software from 20 years ago - there are plenty of formats from that era which Word cannot open successfully).
OK, so I've mentioned the issues surrounding the ability to read all eBook formats. Now what about this subculture I mentioned in the opening paragraph?
E-bookstore software such as Adobe's Content Server 4 allows for borrowing of eBooks, with an encoded expiration date, so the "lending library" cultural model appears capable of being covered in the eBook realm. However, all of current eBook transactions take place at the corporate level - whether the corporate entity in question is a bookstore or a lending library, and even if the transactions are free. The key element that's missing is putting the DRM or Copy Protection into the hands of private individuals. What we really need is transferrable DRM. Imagine the following scenario: I want to lend you the eBook I just read. If I just email it to you, you'll fall foul of the DRM. However, if my reader of choice has a (hypothetical) "transfer" function, it puts a digital wrapper around the eBook before emailing it to you, which your reader's "receive" function decodes, acquiring the eBook along with the DRM required to read it. Meanwhile, although I still have a copy of the eBook on my device, its DRM is now marked as expired, so I cannot read it. In effect I've given you the book. Transferrable DRM. Now that's a rather clumsy process, but it illustrates the principle of what I think of as "transferrable DRM". To give you an eBook, the process would be as described. To lend you an eBook, you'd simply reverse the process after reading, sending it back to me. To donate a book to a charity shop, you'd send the eBook to their computer, and they in turn would send it to someone wishing to buy it from them. And so on. Making ownership of an eBook a simple transferrable token would open up the world of eBooks, enabling them to develop the same rich culture which surrounds the world of printed books.
The publishers wouldn't welcome any of this, of course. They prefer a model in which everyone who reads an eBook reads a copy which they have purchased themselves, at full retail price. But publishers, representing the Business aspect of books, are merely a component of the cultural world of books. Their role in relation to eBooks should be similar, otherwise eBooks will never be a cultural phenomenon, merely a line of retail business, selling to those with large disposable incomes and sidelining the disadvantaged.
If eBooks are thought of as a simple consumer product, they will fail. Books are not simply products that are purchased from a retail outlet, read, and then either discarded or stored away. Far more than that, they form the foundation of a rich subculture which supports charities, democratises literacy, and more.
Additionally, and uniquely amongst media artefacts, they (along with other print media) are their own self-contained interface; unlike CDs, DVDs, video tapes, audio cassettes, and vinyl discs, they require no equipment other than the reader's eyes and brain, in order to be decoded and absorbed.
Books, magazines, newsletters, all come in a huge variety of formats, but the fact that no equipment or interface is required to read them means this heterogeneity is not a problem. eBooks are sold in a variety of proprietary formats, each of which requires a special piece of hardware or software in order to be read by the reader. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with having a variety of readers - Kindle, Sony Readers, iPads and the rest - but if eBooks are to have a future beyond mere novelty, these readers must eventually possess a multi-format capability, enabling them to read eBooks in all known proprietary and Open formats. Human readers can then select the reading platform with which they are most comfortable, safe in the knowledge that they can read eBooks in any format, purchased from any source. And while we're on the subject, this "all formats" capability should also include full backward compatibility with all previous eBook formats, on a continuing, non-expiring basis. There should be no obsolescence of formats, as far as readers are concerned. After all, I can (with care and cotton gloves) read a Medieval manuscript quite easily, despite the hundreds of years since it was printed; so why should I be unable to read an eBook published a mere 20 years ago, just because its format is no longer in use? (This is not idle fretting: try finding an MS Word plugin to enable you to read a document produced using word processor software from 20 years ago - there are plenty of formats from that era which Word cannot open successfully).
OK, so I've mentioned the issues surrounding the ability to read all eBook formats. Now what about this subculture I mentioned in the opening paragraph?
E-bookstore software such as Adobe's Content Server 4 allows for borrowing of eBooks, with an encoded expiration date, so the "lending library" cultural model appears capable of being covered in the eBook realm. However, all of current eBook transactions take place at the corporate level - whether the corporate entity in question is a bookstore or a lending library, and even if the transactions are free. The key element that's missing is putting the DRM or Copy Protection into the hands of private individuals. What we really need is transferrable DRM. Imagine the following scenario: I want to lend you the eBook I just read. If I just email it to you, you'll fall foul of the DRM. However, if my reader of choice has a (hypothetical) "transfer" function, it puts a digital wrapper around the eBook before emailing it to you, which your reader's "receive" function decodes, acquiring the eBook along with the DRM required to read it. Meanwhile, although I still have a copy of the eBook on my device, its DRM is now marked as expired, so I cannot read it. In effect I've given you the book. Transferrable DRM. Now that's a rather clumsy process, but it illustrates the principle of what I think of as "transferrable DRM". To give you an eBook, the process would be as described. To lend you an eBook, you'd simply reverse the process after reading, sending it back to me. To donate a book to a charity shop, you'd send the eBook to their computer, and they in turn would send it to someone wishing to buy it from them. And so on. Making ownership of an eBook a simple transferrable token would open up the world of eBooks, enabling them to develop the same rich culture which surrounds the world of printed books.
The publishers wouldn't welcome any of this, of course. They prefer a model in which everyone who reads an eBook reads a copy which they have purchased themselves, at full retail price. But publishers, representing the Business aspect of books, are merely a component of the cultural world of books. Their role in relation to eBooks should be similar, otherwise eBooks will never be a cultural phenomenon, merely a line of retail business, selling to those with large disposable incomes and sidelining the disadvantaged.
posted by PaulV at 29.9.10
1 comments
