One of my favorite authors, Kurt Vonnegut, once claimed the following in a speech: "I consider anyone who borrows a book instead of buying it, or lends one, a twerp."
If you're following the evolution of the e-book industry, you might guess that publishers and others "in charge" of the content share the perspective of Vonnegut, as they're making it quite difficult for people to share their digital books with pals.
Before diving deeper into that issue, it's worth noting that Vonnegut goes on to say this:
When I was a student at Shortridge High School a million years ago, a twerp was defined as a guy who puts a set of false teeth up his rear end and bit the buttons off the back seats of taxicabs. But, I hasten to say, should some impressionable young person here tonight, at loose ends and from a dysfunctional family, resolve to take a shot at being a real twerp tomorrow, that there are no longer buttons on the back seats of taxicabs. Times change!
Times do change. And, as much as I respect the word of Kurt as my own gospel, in these times, when you prevent people from sharing the content they buy, that doesn't have a positive outcome.
Regardless of Vonnegut's thoughts on book-lending and twerps, the fact remains that people have been lending each other books forever, and the original inability to do so with e-books was presumed to be one of the hurdles that would stand in the way of adoption.
Now there appears to be some give and take (Amazon and Barnes and Noble now both allow for lending through their e-reader devices), but the "take" part of this could lead to more negative repercussions for the publishing industry.
As one example, The Wall Street Journal last week reported on new sites that are popping up like Lendle.me and BookLending.com, which are essentially social networking sites for book-sharing. The capacity and desire to share is there, but publishers are making this difficult. According to the report, "Most major book publishers haven't made their e-books lendable, and the books can be lent only once and for only 14 days."
Speaking of book borrowing, there's a whole institution for this kind of thing... it's called a library. But, when it comes to e-books, publishers are even making sharing there painful. The New York Timesreports that HarperCollins is enforcing new restrictions, whereby an e-book can only be lent out 26 times before it expires. This would give e-books an estimated shelf-life of one year before libraries would have to purchase them again.
Further, there are publishers like Simon & Schuster and Macmillan who don't yet make e-books available to libraries at all.
The fear that people will share digital books and not buy them as much, or that publishers will lose money on digital content, is a somewhat reasonable one. But it's also proven to be counterproductive for other industries -- like the music industry -- where digital has taken over. That's an industry that has been rocked by piracy, and there's no reason to believe this will be different for book publishing.
A new report suggests that the only way to combat privacy is to adjust pricing. I would add that publishers need to be realistic about the age-old practice of book sharing, about the workings of a digital society, and about the fact that by making it difficult for people to buy and enjoy content, they only make it more likely that they'll find other unlawful and unprofitable ways to access it.
That might make those people "twerps," but as we've already learned, they're twerps with a very real ability to damage business.
> When is the time for library consolidation with fewer, bigger branches? I'm > just suggesting that these won't be uncommon questions as cities and > counties develop their 2012, 2013, and 2014 budgets.
Interesting thoughts Brian. Now in most libraries, they have a few computers around to access digital journals and archives. May I dare to say that governments should stop spending on physical libraries. Instead only in high-tech IT centers in low-income neighborhoods where archiving, searching, browsing and printing of books (as well as other content) is available. These would help digitally deprived.
If the way humans have stored, passed and consumed knowledge has changed, govt spending on public knowledge should reflect this.
It is an odd situation. The book buyer owns the book and has no restriction. An individual or a library can buy a book that will be lent out to hundreds, even thousands. That single purchase can lead to many uses. But e-book publishers feel that is not a good thing. Perhaps the fear is that only one e-book needs to be purchased to be spread to everyone because there are no logistical barriers as there are with tangible books.
This is the same story where the Turner CEO accused people who skipped commercials on their programming (using a DVR or PVR) were nothing more than Theives and that you are essentially stealing their programming.
http://www.2600.com/news/view/article/1113
Personally, I don't really enjoy lending out my books..for one, you most likely won't get the book back...especially if it's one you wanted to keep in the first place...and second, people don't usually treat your book as nicely as they would their own!
But that asside, I have no problems with lending books to family members...spouses, parents and the like...and that is why I purchased my family a bunch of Nooks. When the Nook came out, it was the only one that offered sharing between ebooks...not that I've ever used that function, it was nice knowing that my hands weren't tied when it came to the value of the books I was purchasing. And there's the rub, right? The perceived value of the digital book is presumed to be greater when you have more possibilities towards how you would use it! Currently, ebooks are hampered by the fear of the publisher and as such, the public's perception of the value of ebooks is less than the value of hard copy books. Couple to that, ebooks can sometimes be more expensive than hard copy books...this reduces the value of ebooks even more!
Book lending is a huge part of book buying and the culture of reading. And the same argument goes for books that goes for music file-sharing: exposure to new content will often make a consumer more likely to make a purchase. If a friend lets me borrow a book by an author, and I love it, not only am I going to buy that book, but I'm going to buy more books by that author. Restricting people from sharing e-books is just putting a damper on a practice that has always been a part of reading and has always contributed to increased interest in literature.
I agree with you completely, MBC. The idea of putting an expiration date on an e-book feels very forced and artificial -- and like a very poor and petty solution to an economic problem on the publisher's end. One plus to having an e-book is that it doesn't wear out like a print book would. Consumers and libraries should be really irked by any publisher who intentionally makes an e-book stop working after a certain amount of time.
Enjoyed the post Nicole - thank you. What intrigues me is that publishers seem to have forgotten that a BIG part of book reading is also book lending - I read a great book and a friend notices it in my place and says "I hear that's good - I'd like to read it too" Me: "I'm just about finished, I'll give it to you when I'm done."
The transaction is often that simple, that short. I would imagine the cost of a physical book delivery greatly exceeds its electronic counterpart too (hardware aside) - which also makes question their focus.
And yes, it does seem the HC "solution" is not one at all. Another case of bad perpetuated forward?
A new report suggests that the only way to combat [piracy] is to adjust pricing.
Another, related, way to "combat" piracy is to bring the business model more in line with the way people intuitively understand the product to be.
E-books do not wear out over time. No amount of spin will convince anyone that they do. Similarly, posessing an electronic document does not mean that a copy of it can't be made without degrading the quality or usability of the first one.
Any model that doesn't account for these basic truths will always seem draconian and more than a bit ridiculous. Which will, in turn, motivate people to circumvent it.
All of this mirrors the problems we have with Napster...when you make the cost of entry per unit media too high, people will go to great lengths to find quasi-legal ways of getting that media for free. An earlier example would be bootleg recordings of rock concerts.
I remember that books used to be relatively cheap. I would consume Vonnegut's works by the pound..or ounce, at 95 cents a book. I loved going into Barnes and Nobel with my dad and selecting from the row of multicolored Vonnegut novels. The images on the cover made it like getting to buy one of many chocolates at Sees Candies.
Then, suddenly even paperbacks inflated in price. Three dollars. Five dollars. Twenty bucks! In the same way that album manufacturers turned what was an impulse decision (I'll take these three and see which one I like) into a major purchase (what book will I select for reading this month), buying even a paperback becomes a Big Deal.
Amazon needs to "go Netflix" and offer a $20 a month subscription service with Amazon Prime where I can go in and read all I want for one low, low price. At that point copying and stealing become so stupid and costly due to lawsuits that almost everyone would sign up. Libraries, God Bless Them, would still offer eBooks, but in general the websites for most are so cumbersome and the rules so restrictive that $20 for avoiding government run lending would be welcomed. And $20 a month is probabably more than the average person would spend on reading anyway but low enough to intrigue the general public thus expanding the reading marketplace.
That HarperCollins example is bothersome. I had read that the company's defense regarding the e-books issue is that the policy is similar to the one they have in place for print books. But if it's a bad policy to begin with, that's not a great defense!
For publishers that are permitting any sort of lending of ebooks, the opposing positions seem exemplified by these two.
Baen has for years had a free library, and it's not hard to find additional titles not 'officially' available without buying the latest book. They've enjoyed great sales of the dead-tree versions by giving away their electronic ones; they have also, I am sure, lost a few sales. I think not many--those who have the money, and might buy a paper copy of a book, probably won't change their mind because they got an electronic version. I'm not sure about Baen's policy for libraries but I expect it is wide open.
HarperCollins has instituted a policy of restricting library lending in an effort to increase profit. It's a bit like designing a product to wear out so that the consumer will have to buy another one. I think it's a bad idea, and it is certainly getting a lot of bad publicity in the trade media. I don't think this is the sort of thing where any publicity is good publicity, either.
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