Why DRM Frustrates Legitimate Users

I have never been a fan of DRM (Digital Rights Management). This is the system that is supposed to stop people from illegally sharing files across the Internet. I don’t know of any DRM that has completely stopped file sharing. It is trivial to do a search on the Internet for the file you want and download it. DRM hasn’t accomplished its goals.

It has, however, managed to frustrate and punish legitimate users. Here is my story of a book I acquired legitimately but yet find almost impossible to enjoy. To the point I have stopped reading it.

A Trip to Amazon

I love Amazon. I am a prime member. I buy what I can at the site when it is cheaper, which it isn’t always. I also love my Kindle. I love their customer service. But this isn’t about Amazon, it is about a book I wanted to buy there.

The book is The $100 Startup. I have heard several podcasters talk about the book and I have read quite a few reviews. I took a trip to Amazon to get the book for my Kindle. A few things stood out as soon as I got there. First the hardcover version of the book is only $13! That’s a great price for all that paper and ink. Independent bookstores are selling the book for less than $11 through the Amazon marketplace. That’s an even better deal!

But I don’t want paper, I want a Kindle version. I know plenty of people say that the ebook version is not as good as paper. I used to be one of those. However, I now see the digital version as being superior. I can highlight passages and take notes on my Kindle. I can then view all my notes and highlights online and use that information anywhere whether my Kindle is with me or not. Try that with paper. One other thing about digital is that I am paying for the content and not the paper.

Checking out the Kindle version of the book I saw the price was $11.99. That’s more than what I could buy a paper and ink version of the book for. I then noticed that Random House was the publisher. They have a history of setting prices at Amazon for their ebooks. Though they are not part of the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against Apple and five publishers for collusion, the result is the same in that they set the price of their books and not Amazon.

I am spoiled by Amazon’s price of $9.99 for Kindle books and I don’t like paying more than that. Rarely do I even pay that much for a book since I can often find good sales on books I want. And I certainly don’t like paying just $1.15 less than the hardback version of the book (or less if I buy it from a third party).

A Trip to the Library

I looked up the book at our local library hoping to score a copy for free. I did not find a physical copy there, but they offer it through their digital library system which is handled by Overdrive. “Great!”, I thought. That would be even better. I can take notes on my Kindle and have the book in a format I prefer.

When I got home I logged into the digital library system and found the book. Disappointingly it was only available in EPUB format and not the Kindle format. I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal to get the book as an EPUB and then convert it to .mobi (the format for the Kindle).  However, after waiting in line for a couple of weeks to get the notification that it was my turn to borrow the book (yes, you still have to wait in line for other people to “finish” reading the book and “return” it to the library) I eagerly downloaded the book to my computer.

Opening the Book

DRM - No One AdmittedThe file wouldn’t open in anything I had as a reader. The file was DRMed with the Adobe Digital Editions system (ADE). This means you have to have some type of approved reader that will allow you to authenticate with an ADE account. There is no such reader available for Linux that I could find. So no way to read the book on my computer or convert it (without breaking the DRM and facing prison time for a DMCA violation).

Here is the problem with DRM. I legally obtained the book. I have done nothing inappropriate to acquire the book. Yet, because of DRM I am not allowed to read the book on the hardware I have. From my understanding, if I had a Barnes and Noble Nook eReader which has ADE on it, I still would not be able to transfer the file through my computer because I am running Linux. The file I got from the library was not the book itself that could be placed on the Nook. It was an authentication file that has to be approved by Adobe which then lets me download the book to place on the reader. All of which would have been impossible as a Linux user.

Using My Phone

I downloaded the Overdrive Media Console (the Overdrive ebook reader) for my Android phone. Thankfully I could download the book using Overdrive’s software. I even started reading the book.

The reading experience on Overdrive’s Media Console was worse than a paper book for me. I have not found any way to make notes or highlights within the text of the book. Right at halfway through the book the author gives a 39 step checklist. The perfect kind of thing you would want to highlight and save for future reference. I can’t do it. I don’t even have the option of sticking my phone on the copy machine and grabbing the list since there are so few words that appear on a page with such a small screen. The list takes up 20 screens worth of text. I don’t want to make 20 pages worth of copies to get this seemingly valuable list.

On top of that, almost every time I open the book using Overdrive’s software it opens to the page previous to the one I was reading when I stopped. I say “almost every time” because 3 times so far I have been returned to the start of a chapter and had to click through several pages before getting back to where I left off.

The app is slow too. It takes 20 seconds to open the book. Then each time I change chapters it takes 20 seconds to load in the next chapter. That is just opening the book once the software is running. My Kindle takes just under 2 seconds to go from an off state to reading a book.

My solution? I am giving up on The $100 Startup. Chris, I am sure your book is a fine one. I have heard you interviewed by several podcast hosts that I respect; however, to legally read your book within my requirements of price and convenience I just can’t do it. I spent 2 weeks waiting for the book from the library. I have had the book for 11 days and am frustrated by the reading experience (which has little to do with the quality of the book). I’m done with it.

Circumventing DRM

I will admit that I did a little digging into the process of breaking the DRM on the book. It seems trivial. I have never done it on an EPUB, but I have converted a few Kindle titles that I own that I wanted to read on another device. For the Kindle books I have done it takes importing the book into Calibre with some special plugins and clicking a button.

For The $100 Startup it only took a few seconds on Google to find an Kindle formatted copy on the Internet for free. I could illegally obtain the book for my Kindle with much less hassle than the legally obtained DRM version of the book. Plus I would have a much better reading experience. However, I won’t do that. I am happy to pay the author for the content at a fair price (as determined by me). What I don’t want to do is pay a publishing company essentially the same price for the content that they are charging for the content, paper, ink, pretty cover and something I can put on my bookshelf.

Again, I don’t mind paying the author for the content. The truth is though, with the pitiful amount he will be paid by the publishing company for each copy sold, he could probably self publish the Kindle version, sell it for $3 and make 250% more per copy than he does currently. This sounds like it would be more in keeping with the spirit of a $100 startup than using a traditional publisher that has no interest in the author–only in their pocketbooks.

What’s your thoughts on DRM?

Review: Accessible EPUB 3 by Matt Garrish

Cover for Accessible EPUB 3As someone who is interested in the creation and formatting of ebooks I eagerly picked up Accessible EPUB 3 from O’Reilly’s blogger review program. I know little about the EPUB format as most of my study of ebook creation has been for the Kindle. Reading about EPUB would have given me more tools for complete ebook formatting.

I read the title, Accessible EPUB 3, to mean that the author would show me in an easy to understand (accessible) way to create and format books for the EPUB platform. Even reading the short description at the O’Reilly website did not change my thoughts on what the book was about. But I was completely wrong on who their target audience was. This is not a book for people who are new to EPUB and wanting to learn about it. In fact, the EPUB spec is not even explained in the book. This book is written under the assumption that the reader is already familiar with and understands EPUB.

The book is actually about how to make ebooks that are accessible to people with different abilities. There are sections specifically on how to make books with pictures more accessible to visually impaired readers as well as making audio content more accessible to those with hearing disabilities. This is what is meant by the word accessible.

After getting a better understanding of what the book was about, I enjoyed the book from a thought experiment point of view. There were specific examples on how to implement the concepts the author was proposing. However, as someone who doesn’t even understand EPUB programming, this information was merely theoretical and thought provoking. There are even points in the book where the author, Matt Garrish, admits that there may be a better way to be even more accessible in the future. His point is that he wants readers to think about people with various abilities who will be reading books. What is it they need and how can you go about programming your ebook to fit their needs?

Accessible EPUB 3  is an excerpt from a larger work expected to be published later this year (2012) called EPUB 3 Best Practices.

Accessible EPUB 3 is available for free at both O’Reilly and Amazon.

[Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book through O’Reilly Media.]

I Broke My Kindle, But Amazon is Amazing

When I turned on my Kindle before going to bed last night my heart sank when I saw the screen wouldn’t redraw properly and that my screen was probably broken. Yesterday my Kindle was involved in an unfortunate accident. I take full blame for what happened. I called Amazon’s customer service today to see what they might be able to do for me even though the broken Kindle was my fault. The problem was certainly not a manufacturing error but an error on my part.

First Customer Service Rep

Kindle 3The rep on the phone took the information about my device and what happened. I told her that the Kindle was in a box that got hit by a large object. The Kindle was the only thing in the box that was damaged (thankfully my computer survived) and there was no physical evidence that the device was harmed in any way other than the screen would not redraw.

The kind rep (who spoke fairly good English) said that Amazon would allow me to buy a replacement device for $65 (which is 1/2 the price of a new Kindle Keyboard with the same features). To me that was more than fair since I am the one who broke the Kindle. It was not a manufacturing flaw in any way. However, I don’t have $65 at the moment and told her that. She said it would be flagged in my account if I wanted to buy a replacement at any point in the future I could get the reduced price.

Amazon was more than fair and the story should have ended there.

Second Customer Service Rep

However, I searched my account and found out that my device was out of warranty by 5 days. Certainly that should not make a difference. They had no obligation to do anything for me, yet they offered me a 50% discount on a new unit. But…seeing that it was only 5 days out of warranty, I wondered if it would make any difference if I pointed out to them that the warranty just expired (knowing full well that even under warranty my mistake should not be covered).

I jumped back onto the Amazon site and, instead of calling this time, I used the live chat feature. I quickly explained my scenario to the rep. Upfront I told him that I thought Amazon was more than fair to offer a new Kindle for 1/2 price and that the problem was one that I caused. At no point did I try to hide the fact from them that I was at fault. Then I asked him if it would make any difference if my Kindle was still under warranty. Without answering my question he asked me to do a couple of tests on the device to determine if it was really broken (if he could see it he wouldn’t question its brokenness). I patronized him.

I then said that I knew Amazon had no obligation to replace the device and that 50% reduction for a new Kindle was more than generous. But I also knew that Amazon was a kind and thoughtful company. Would they consider replacing the unit for me.

My Pleasant Surprise

Without hesitation the rep said he would send me a new one. He just needed a few bits of information to proceed. I excitedly provided the info he needed and he told me that a unit would be delivered by Monday. I got an email from Amazon later in the day today (Thursday) telling me that my new Kindle had shipped and that it would be delivered at my house tomorrow (Friday before the proposed Monday delivery).

Amazon is amazing!

Will they do this for you? I don’t know, but if you have a broken Kindle it certainly doesn’t hurt to ask. I think the biggest thing in my favor was that I didn’t demand anything from them and I didn’t try to pretend that the screen just broke on its own.

Review: Take Control of Your Paperless Office by Joe Kissell

If you are looking to go paperless in your home or corporate office the book Take Control of Your Paperless Office by Joe Kissell can provide you an outline of what you need to consider in the process. It gives specific recommendations for equipment and workflow. However, if you are not fully ensconced in the Mac environment, some of the recommendations will not be that helpful. Even though the cover gives no indication of this, the book is heavily weighted towards Mac users. This does not mean that Windows and Linux users won’t benefit from the book, but they will need to find their own set of software tools since the other platforms are covered very lightly.

Book coverSeveral pages in the book are dedicated to educating the reader on why they should consider going paperless. Scanning and archiving every piece of paper that comes through your hands (and then throwing it away or shredding it) may not sound very appealing, but Mr. Kissell gives some compelling reasons why it will help you in the long run when you are trying to find specific information. Even though you won’t have the original items of many documents, you also will have fewer storage and retrieval problems. By the way, not every item needs to be shredded or tossed. The author helps you know what you should keep and what is safe to throw away.

While the software and workflow recommendations are platform specific, hardware choices are a little easier. The book explains different types of scanners and why you might choose one over another. Within the different types the author gives you a list of recommended scanners. Each one has features that can help you accomplish your scanning needs. Regardless of which specific scanner you choose there are many settings that will be the same on all of them. He tells you why you should choose the settings he recommends.

Because of the hardware choices and settings recommendations this book is helpful for anyone wanting to decrease their dependence on paper. But, it would have been better had the author provided more information for the other operating systems.

For many of us, we would feel overwhelmed at even getting started. After he tells you how to set up your software, hardware and workflow, the author gives some tips for catching up on the 20 year’s worth of paper you already have piled in your office.

The majority of the book deals with scanning documents then filing them locally and off-site. However, there are many other ways to go paperless. The book deals with sending and receiving faxes via email, signing documents digitally and how to cut down on your need to print as much.

This is certainly not a book for casual reading. I would only recommend this if you are serious about cutting down your dependence on paper. If you are only interested in learning how to effectively scan a few documents, this book probably goes into much more detail than what you need.

I read version 1.1 of the book on my Kindle. Like many reference books, the Kindle is probably not the best device to read on. If you find yourself needing to jump back 8 pages to get a snippet of information then it is pretty frustrating. Was it really 8 pages? Or was it 6? Or 10? The nice thing about the ebook is that you don’t have to read it on just one platform. The publishers let you download various formats once you buy the book.

[Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book through O’Reilly Media.]

Review: DIY Bookbinding by Brian Sawyer

Cover for DIY BookbindingAs someone who loves to know how things are made, I was excited about the opportunity to read DIY Bookbinding by Brian Sawyer from O’Reilly Media. I wasn’t sure it would be information I would actually use, but the knowledge of how books are built is intriguing. However, after reading this short little tutorial, I am eager to try my hand at building a book!

This 32 page ebook is full of pictures and written explanations on how to rebind a magazine. The information can be adapted to many projects, but the example of magazine rebinding is probably something many people would like to do. It is a non-technical process. I guess I was a little surprised by that, but I shouldn’t have been. People have been binding books for years. The bigger surprise is that this book claims you can get all the supplies at a local hobby store. While there are products made specifically for book binding, I can easily imagine many substitutes for the actual products if your store doesn’t stock them.

After reading the book, the only thing I wished I knew more about is the types of paper or cloth that can be used to cover the binder’s boards. While the author gave some generalities of what to look for, I think more examples would have been helpful.

A couple of pictures in the book were not quite in focus. It is hard to take good close-up pictures with a cheap camera. But the author works directly for O’Reilly. It seems that they would have had photographers and good cameras to capture sharper images.

Those two critiques aside, this is a book I would highly recommend to anyone who is thinking of rebinding a book or magazine. While there certainly could be more said about the process than 32 pages can provide, this book gives you all the essentials. Armed with the information in this book I can confidently jump into a book binding project and expect good results.

DIY Bookbinding by Brian Sawyer. Ebook. O’Reilly Media, July 2011.

[Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book.]