At first glance, the proposition seems simple enough. You work hard to write and produce your ebook and, quite reasonably, you expect to be rewarded for your efforts. Common sense dictates that you should take precautions to protect your work. And nowhere does this seem more essential than on the Internet, where just about anything can be transported around the globe, unfettered, essentially at the speed of electrons.
The most common solution for protecting your ebook is a technology called Digital Rights Management, or DRM. Simply put, DRM lets authors and publishers, like you, control the way in which digital content, such as ebooks, can be used by others (typically, customers).
The most obvious use of DRM is to prevent ebooks from being read on devices—including ereaders, tablets, phones, or computers—that are not registered to display the book. But DRM can also be used to restrict the number and type of devices that a person can use to read an ebook, how many times a person can lend an ebook to others, and even how much of an ebook a person can highlight. DRM is also the technical reason why people are unable to sell “used” copies of ebooks.
All of the ebookstores, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Apple, employ some type of DRM for the ebooks that they distribute. But since DRM is, by its nature, restrictive, it’s also a controversial topic. And, as some argue, it is not necessarily the best or only solution.
The question facing indie-authors and publishers is this: should you, or should you not, add DRM to your ebooks. Let’s explore the issues.
What’s the Point of Digital Rights Management?
Let’s begin by asking the question of why DRM exists in the first place. Certainly, the issue of unauthorized copying has been around for as long as books have been with us. But incredibly powerful technologies, such as ultrafast portable computers and near-ubiquitous communications, have made it easier than ever (and perhaps more tempting) to illegally copy someone else’s work.
Advocates of DRM see this largely as a technical problem. And what better way to solve a technical problem than by applying additional technology? Opponents of DRM, on the other hand, see unauthorized copying as more of a social and business issue. Price your ebooks appropriately, they say, and theft will be reduced to little more than a nuisance.
With the lines clearly drawn, let’s examine the most salient issues surrounding DRM from the perspective of indie epublishers, weighing each issue to see if DRM makes sense or not.
Protecting Your (Intellectual) Property
You wouldn’t leave your front door unlocked, DRM proponents argue, and applying digital locks to your intellectual property is no different. Authors and publishers deserve full compensation for their creations and, by this logic, locks are a legitimate way to protect what rightfully belongs to us.
This argument appeals to many authors because, with the broad reach of the Internet, the theft of even a single copy is enough to potentially cause significant damage. Unlike analog media, such as print books, creating thousands or even millions of perfect duplicates of your ebook is a trivial operation.
But does DRM provide an effective lock?
As it turns out, not really. Ultimately, every DRM scheme gets circumvented, often within days or weeks of being released. In practical terms, this means that anyone who wants to break the DRM protection on your ebooks will be able to do so, often in a matter of minutes using widely available programs on the Internet.
Having said that, DRM is effective at curtailing the most basic types of unauthorized copying, halting casual (or perhaps unintentional) theft, such as sharing a single copy of a book with your friends and family.
As a lock, DRM has a pretty poor record. It is effective only against what we might call casual copying. DRM is not at all effective against more determined efforts.
Honoring Customer Choice
By design, digital rights management limits how people can read the ebooks they purchase. For example, your readers are forced to use Kindle devices or apps to read ebooks from Amazon that are protected by DRM. The same goes for Barnes & Noble, Apple, and all the other major ebookstores.
In many cases, your customers very likely won’t even notice that their ebooks are DRM protected. However, your readers will absolutely curse its existence as soon as they try to move an ebook to a new ereader platform. For instance, if any of your readers choose to switch to a Barnes & Noble NOOK after purchasing several of your books on Amazon.com, your books would unfortunately be left behind.
Consider too the scenario of an ebookstore ceasing operation, something that’s always a possibility in these tumultuous times. Access to your entire library of purchased ebooks could be curtailed.
Traditionally, people have taken advantage of the well-established legal principle known as fair use to make backups of their digital content (such as music) and enjoy it on the device of their choice. DRM protections applied to ebooks put severe limits on legal fair use.
Some have also argued that DRM stifles innovation by preventing entrepreneurs from developing more advanced ereaders and applications for popular ebook formats. For these and other reasons, DRM is increasingly viewed as an anti-competitive technology. This stigma does does not inspire warm support from consumers.
While many of your customers probably won’t notice DRM on their ebooks, you stand to alienate your most enthusiastic fans, many of whom will hate it.
Owning, Lending, or Selling Ebooks
When you purchase a print book, there is absolutely no question about who owns the book. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you own the words or the right to make copies of the book, but the original is yours to do with as you choose.
This is not the case when you purchase an ebook from one of the large ebookstores or publishers. Mainstream digital publishers have, by and large, adopted more of a software model for ebooks. As a customer, you now license an ebook instead of own it.
So what, you ask?
Generally, we seem to have accepted licensing as an acceptable model for computer programs, but books are somehow different. Books are more social, and we have developed long-standing customs and traditions about sharing and exchanging information through books. It seems a shame to weaken this aspect of community simply because of new technology.
So where do we stand?
Lending ebooks is possible, but only to a very limited degree and only if the publisher allows it. More importantly, however, selling your used ebooks is problematic (although Apple and Amazon have both filed patents to permit this, as discussed in this issue’s News Briefs). As you might have guessed, DRM is the means by which these restrictions are enforced.
Why do publishers do this? Part of the reason is because we, as an industry, haven’t figured out what happens to the “used” ebooks on the original owner’s device. But another reason is because some publishers (and even some authors) feel that any type of secondhand market is, in some way, unethical because it fails to compensate creators every time a secondary sale takes place. DRM is, for the most part, an effective tool for hindering this common and important social activity.
DRM also makes it difficult to give your ebooks away. Even the question of inheritance remains largely unresolved. Ownership is up for interpretation as well. For example, under what circumstances might a publisher or ebookstore have the right to revoke your license and deprive you from accessing a book on your electronic bookshelf? DRM shifts the balance of control in important and, in many cases, unexpected and unresolved ways.
The social cost of employing DRM is unclear, though the underlying issues do require some form of resolution. From the point of view of ownership, however, DRM does appear to be eroding many of the precepts of individual rights.
Investment and Value
Even though the days of triple-digit yearly growth might be behind us (for now), the market for ebooks continues to grow at a healthy rate. This means that inspired readers are potentially willing to make a significant investment in purchasing your books.
One way that publishers and ebookstores try to make customers feel comfortable about their investment is by using industry standards such as EPUB, employed by Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Sony, and others. You could even argue that Amazon’s MOBI format has become a de facto industry standard just by the company’s market dominance.
DRM, unfortunately, makes industry-standard formats largely irrelevant. Not only could this result in consumers losing convenient access to their library of ebooks, as discussed earlier, but perhaps more seriously, it could conceivably lock future researchers and historians out of some of our most important records and documents. We all know that devices and technologies become obsolete. The concern is that DRM-protected books might also become obsolete as the technologies are superseded by new approaches in the future.
DRM reduces many of the potential benefits of open or industry standards, possibly jeopardizing the long-term value of DRM-protected books.
What About Piracy?
Where does this leave us on the issue of ebook piracy? Intuitively, it seems obvious that failing to protect your work can only lead to theft. Why would anyone choose to pay for something that they could easily get for free?
Not so long ago, the music industry faced a similar dilemma. When Apple’s iTunes first came on the scene, all music files used DRM. But then something interesting happened. After people reacted to the restrictions and Apple quietly removed the DRM, music sales increased. In fact, legitimate music markets continue to flourish—even with YouTube and a suite of competing music streaming services, such as Pandora and Spotify.
Does this lesson apply to ebooks? Is it possible that piracy only really becomes a serious issue when there is a broad perception that a product is either artificially or intentionally overpriced, or laden with troublesome restrictions? If so, might piracy then simply be just a temporary market force being exerted in a new environment?
Piracy as a Force for Good? You’re Kidding, Right?
No one is suggesting that stealing is moral or right. But understanding that piracy, at least in some form, will likely never disappear, is it possible to exercise some sort of economic jujitsu to possibly take advantage of it?
Consider the situation regarding print books for a moment. Widespread copying and distribution is typically not a problem for most books, though it does happen in certain circumstances. However, many people do get free access to books from public libraries, by borrowing from friends, or as pass-alongs and hand-me-downs.
Few authors decry this type of sharing and the resulting publicity. In fact, most authors dream of this kind of promotion, with the keen understanding that short-term losses will likely be more than compensated by gains in the long run.
Of course, no one wants to see their work stolen. Having said that, piracy reflects interest. And interest is what every new author craves. Oscar Wilde expressed the sentiment obliquely when he said, “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.” Perhaps the only thing worse than being pirated is not being pirated.
J.K. Rowling Just Says No
When J.K. Rowling launched Pottermore, the web site and store to sell the Harry Potter series of ebooks, Rowling caused quite a stir by refusing to include DRM with any of the EPUB format books sold directly from the site. Fans are confident knowing that they will be able to enjoy the books on the platform of their choice, now and into the future.
However, Charles Redmayne, CEO of Pottermore, hinted at another reason for shunning DRM when he noted that the company wanted to “own” the relationship with its customers. In other words, going DRM-free allows Pottermore to be closer to its fans by limiting any artificial walls that might be imposed by retailers.
Tor, the largest science fiction publisher in the world, also made news when it announced that it is making its entire catalog of ebooks DRM free. “Our authors and readers have been asking for this for a long time,” explained president and publisher Tom Doherty in a company press release. “They’re a technically sophisticated bunch, and DRM is a constant annoyance to them. It prevents them from using legitimately-purchased e-books in perfectly legal ways, like moving them from one kind of ereader to another.”
Author John Scalzi agreed, noting, ”DRM hasn’t stopped my books from being out there on the dark side of the Internet. Meanwhile, the people who do spend money to support me and my writing have been penalized for playing by the rules.”
What to Do as an Author or Publisher
Currently, DRM is still employed by the vast majority of authors and publishers, indie and otherwise, and authors remain nervous, at best, about the idea of offering their books without some form of digital safeguards.
When author service Lulu, for instance, decided to stop offering Adobe Digital Editions DRM as an option for ebooks created and sold on Lulu, a firestorm ensued on the company’s community forum (though Lulu books sold through Amazon, Apple, and Barnes & Noble continue to use their respective DRM solutions). Of the authors that chose to comment, the majority worried about their books appearing on torrent (download) sites and most complained (very loudly) about not being given the option to continue using DRM.
Clearly, authors are justifiably concerned about theft of property and livelihood.
But is DRM the best solution?
Judging by the experiences of the music industry, perhaps not. Apple now offers DRM-free music through the iTunes Store and has registered sales in excess of 25 billion songs as of February of this year. Music piracy undoubtedly continues, but, regardless of piracy, a great many people now choose instead to purchase their music. The lesson here: make it simple to purchase and enjoy your books, respect your customers, price your books fairly, and enough people will pay to support a vibrant market.
Adding DRM to your ebooks will likely prevent some level of piracy. However, you’re even more likely to annoy your most loyal readers by restricting their sense of ownership and by generally making their reading life inconvenient, especially if they ever choose to change ereader brands.
Interestingly, large publishers might end up being at the vanguard of the movement away from DRM as they come to realize that relying on DRM is only making large online retailers, most notably Amazon, ever more powerful. Macmillan USA, the parent of Tor, is one to watch in particular. Based on Tor’s experiences, Macmillan could choose to adopt a broader approach.
In the meantime, indie authors and publishers can choose to try to break down the walls themselves. Making it easier for customers to buy and enjoy your ebooks, as well as lowering the barriers for small, independent retailers might, in the long run, be advantageous for everyone involved.
Digital Watermarks
Digital Rights Management is not the only game in town. Some publishers are considering the idea of using digital watermarks instead of DRM (or sometimes in conjunction with DRM). Digital watermarks are benign codes interspersed or sometimes hidden throughout an ebook. This watermark uniquely identifies the person who purchased the ebook, either directly (using the person’s name) or indirectly (using a special sequence of characters). For all intents and purposes, digital watermarks are invisible to readers and do not interfere with the enjoyment of the book.
Pottermore famously employs digital watermarks as a form of “social DRM,” meaning that the technology doesn’t prevent people from copying or sharing ebooks, but does discourage unauthorized sharing by making it socially undesirable (since the purchaser can easily be traced). But, like every technology, reports are that even Pottermore’s digital watermarking technology has been broken. So it goes.