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RSSWhile the music and movie industries have long been concerned that Web piracy cuts into their profits, file-sharing hasn't appeared to present as significant a problem for book publishers. After all, the general public hasn't yet taken to e-book readers the way it has to iPods or digital music.
But that reality has done little to assuage the fears of the book publishing world. Witness the lawsuit against Google for its library project, in which publishers are complaining about Google's move to digitize books in public libraries.
In the latest example, reported this morning in The New York Times, Penguin Audio has pulled out of an eMusic initiative to sell audiobooks because eMusic, unlike Apple's iTunes, sells digital content without the restrictions that limit consumers' ability to make copies.
While anxiety about Web piracy isn't totally irrational, it seems misplaced here. Consider, people who purchase books, or audiobooks, have long had the option to take them out of libraries instead. In fact, many libraries now offer digital downloads of audiobooks.
Yet pirated audiobooks have never emerged as a big problem. In fact, a monitoring firm used by Random House Audio hasn't yet found any unauthorized copies of the company's audiobooks on file-sharing sites, according to the Times.
What's more, sales were robust at 500 audiobooks a day, even though eMusic doesn't plan to advertise the offering until December, the Times reports.
The music industry appears to be figuring out that consumers want to download tracks free of digital rights management restrictions, if for no other reason than to freely make copies for their own use. Book publishers, who don't appear to face the same threat from file-sharing, also need to realize that consumers will be more likely to purchase their product, not less, when it comes in a format they want.
RSS FEEDS
Yes book piracy is an overrated problem. Music piracy is an overrated problem.
The bottom line is that I don't do it. I get all of the free music I want listening to radio be it online or in my car. I still buy a CD when I like it and there is no sharing site or hustler at the flee market that's going to sell me on buying a burned addition.
I love Boston Legal and I watch it on TV all the time. I still buy the new season on DVD when it comes out, because I want to own my own copy. I could re-watch episodes all day long on DVR if I wanted. I'm "the consumer" and I identify with products that I'm loyal to regardless of who is willing to share it or burn it for me.
I have 999 channels on my cable box (take away a few dead channels). We don't buy music to listen to it, we buy music to own it and that's never going away. The few burnt compliation CD's people have given me are long gone, they don't have any value to me. I doubt any of the hundreds of girls I made love song compilations for in the 80's and 90's are holding on to them and trying to sell them on eBay (yet). Mind you I made those from songs on the radio not copying CD's to iTunes.
I'm the only person in my house over 16 that doesn't own an iPod despite having paid for four of them so far. The forth by the way is for my little girl Alicia who turns 6 on Friday. As far as I know 99% of the music on them comes from the CD's we've bought since I hardly ever see any charges for Apple on my credit card statement.
If Alicia spends the next 15 years in a music pirating stage when she comes out of the other end you'll find another consumer.
My point: People who can afford to pay for the music, want to. Why? Because it makes them cooler than those who can't afford to.
Combine that with the fact the "e-reading" experience is not quite at the level of reading a physical book is (think connectvity, the heft of a lap top, the size and clarity of even the best small screen, the practical considerations associated with some of your favorite spots...) and you've probably taken a big chunk out of the rest of the digital book market. Wtih music, the fact that it is is digital (versus on CD, for example) actually makes it better in many cases: it's easier to throw a Nano in your pocket than it is a CD Walkman. Not so (yet, at least) with books.
The e-book experience will improve, of course, and that will certainly raise the motivation of some to "share". But at the end of the day, one still has to take the time to read. In our contemporary, sound-bite-want-it-right-now culture, that will be always be a barrier that operates distinctly in favor of book publishers when it comes to protecting their wares.
Disinterested users, like me, do care about DRM - it's annoying. I'm also one of those dinosaurs that still actually buys CDs - specifically because I can rip them and put them on my car player and on my home network. I'd love to buy songs online - but I'm not going to until there is a convenient way to make them portable and sharable within the context of my own home, vehicles, and computers that I use in the house and at work. I download podcasts all the time and listen to them in the car - because they don't have DRM and because they're convenient and portable.
From what I've read, the incidence of audio books being illegally shared is far lower than movies and music. Is there an actual dollar amount that publishers can apply to show the financial dangers they face and does that number outweigh the benefits that having widespread legal distribution (even if the security isn't in place) offers?
Christopher Levy http://thedrmblog.com