Earlier this week, I decided to purchase an ebook — an electronic-only copy of a book I wanted to skim for sale for a mere $6 USD at Amazon(.com). Amazon.ca would ship it to me in 4 weeks, while Amazon.com would charge me somethign ridiculous for shipping. Since as far as I could tell, other Canadian retailers weren’t stocking the book, I decided to go with the ebook purchase from Amazon. A first, for me.
I should have known, I suppose, that I would be unable to print the ebook in it’s encrypted PDF form. In fact, I can only open it on Adobe Reader 6 or greater on Windows (let me pause to say, thank you VMWare, for making this possible). For me this is a huge pain. But even more so since I can’t print the document.
This is where ebooks have missed the boat.
Let’s consider an analogy with the real world: a real, hard-copy book. One can read it anywhere, lend it to friends, photocopy it, and do all sorts of things that aren’t considered illegal. Assuming the customer doesn’t start photocopying the book and selling it to friends, it’s not likely to hurt the author’s intellectual property (IP) or the publisher’s revenue. So why all the fuss?
Technology of course makes pirating easier, whether it be software, music, or books. Any IP is viable for easy pirating on the grant expanse of the Internet.
But just because purchasing an ebook costs the consumer less, it may actually provide more profit to the publisher, removing the need for the actual publishing process, distribution, shipping, etc. Consumers, however, still expect that they have the same rights with something electronic as they do something physical. But thanks to DRM, these rights are not afforded.
It comes down to a fight between consumers wanting to do what they want with something that they have rightfully (and legitamately) purchased, versus the publishers who are greedily trying to protect their revenue sources at any cost. But maybe this is why in 2006, it is the first time that a big techno-geek like me has purchased an ebook. I can’t even name anyone else that’s ever purchased one. It leads me to believe that all of this is a clear sign of the failures of publishers to create a viable (electronic) product.
Maybe I’m crazy, but the way I see it, an electronic item should be quite analogous to a hard-copy of the exact same item. Whether the item is a song or a book or whatever. Purchased mp3s online are so crippled that people have problems moving them to portable music devices that aren’t fully equipped to decode the layers of DRM, or are entirely unable to burn CDs for their own listening pleasure on their CD players. But when someone purchases an album — on a compact disc — none of these issues exist. (Let’s ignore the fact that one can purchase songs individually online, whereas one must purchase an entire CD in a regular retail situation for the purposes of this context.) So where’s the analogy? Aren’t they in fact the same thing essentially? Shouldn’t purchasing electronic copies of items be in fact more convenient? No shipping hassles or charges, no waiting for the item to arrive, etc. A few clicks and the item is on your computer.
I purchased expecting (albeit incredibly naively) to be able to skim what I wanted to skim on my computer. The text that I expected to read more thoroughly, I would print, I reasoned, which would save paper and be much more convenient than waiting 4 weeks or paying $5+ USD in shipping charges.
Lesson learned: analog purchases are often less convenient, more expensive, but well worth the effort. Until publishers smarten up, this will be the very last ebook I purchase. And I doubt I’m the only customer with this conclusion.
