Digital Books
Via Slashdot, I came across this article which notes that Google is in the process of setting up a service to sell books in digital format to customers. Google is late to the game in regards to offering “e-books,” the established competition being Amazon and its Kindle device and others such as Sony’s e-bookstore. Google hasn’t announced any pricing structure, although it stated that it will be taking 55% of the profits, and customers will be able to access the books offline but only after accessing it online one time.
I have to admit that I don’t particularly see the attraction of e-books overall. Portability is not particularly a factor with regard to paper books, except for multi-volume sets or extremely thick books like medical reference books. Also, looking at the screens of computers, cell phones, or other similar electronic devices is simply inferior for reading for long periods of time when compared to reading a physical book. Advances in e-reader technologies will narrow the gap, but I can’t see myself reading primarily digital books any time soon in the future.
The other obvious problem is that digital books will come with all kinds of digital “rights management, which I have discussed in other posts. Activation, one-time only downloads of purchased books, and other annoyances will be part of the experience, no doubt.
Years ago, I bought sheet music online, and somehow or another, I lost the songs. When I went back to the web site and signed in to re-download the songs, the web site informed me that I had already downloaded them (or accessed them, I don’t remember the exact wording) and thus could not download the content for which I had paid. That’s one big reason why I hate DRM so much; it punishes honest people. I was lucky that it was only sheet music and not some actual important item.
Businesses exist for one reason primarily: to make a profit. Keep that in mind. Artificial limitations on digital products, such as limits on how many times you can “activate” a product, download an item, access a product or service, or any other restrictive measure are all ways that businesses will try to make you pay for the same things over and over again. No thanks, not for me.
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A big part of this issue is the question of “orphan works”. This term refers to out of print books whose copyright holder is unknown. Google is trying to establish a monopoly over this material buying selling it and holding profits unless owners are later found. There is a lot of out of print material that is out there that is impossible to make money off of unless Google gets this system up and running. The authors guild, the justice department,various foreign governments, and other interested parties have voiced protest.
I agree with you, Mike, about paying for a service online, utilizing something on the site once, and then being told “Thats’s it. Didn’t you read the fine print?” I also don’t get the attraction of reading online. I’m a tactile person; I like to feel the pages of the books, etc. Have you seen or tried the Kindle? I also agree with you about the portability of books. So, I can upload a gazillion books on Kindle. I can’t read them all at the same time!
You have an interesting blog.