Goodreads Authors/Readers discussion

As a self-publishing author I am currently stuck in a bit of an ethical dilemma surrounding eBooks and Digital Rights Management (DRM).

I am not so much concerned about Kindle versions and ePub versions of my dime novels to be spread, but what I am really concerned about are PDF files. The reason is simple, unlike mobi or ePub files, it is very simple to cut and paste text from a PDF, put it in a text file and post it around the internet.

I am offering free browser versions of my dime novels on the series website in order to discourage people posting stolen digital files around the internet, because why do it, when you can just as well link directly to the series website where anyone can get the for free, and completely legal? My hope is that in such a scenario I can at least monetize on the web traffic through advertising.

So, when it comes to PDF files it is very easy to copy out the contents and begin posting the contents around the web in any given format. I was looking into the DRM possibilities that PDF offers but they seem to be ridiculously weak and antiquated.

Password protection of a file does absolutely nothing for DRM. People who post files on the web can just as well include the passwords, making it nothing but an actual penalty for the paying customers.

Disallowing cut and posting and printing is also not working all that well because there are ways to get around it very easily, particularly on the Mac where you simply have to print the file into another PDF file without these settings to circumvent the settings.

Some outlets create watermarks, stamping every page with the customer's name for example, but I'm not sure how well that works in practice and how easily it is broken.

I am really, really hesitant to simply hand out PDF files to the public but I do not want to penalize my paying customers either, so I was wondering what everyone's thoughts and maybe experiences are with DRM.

I dislike DRM mainly because of the inconvenience it tends to put on legitimate customers. And no matter how sophisticated DRM becomes, there will always be someone who sees it as a challenge to break it, and make that knowledge freely available.

My experience with it, in the form of copy protection back in the day when software was distributed on floppy disks, led me to think it was more trouble than it was worth (some legitimate users' disk drives refused to read the protected disks).

As you rightly point out, PDF DRM is no barrier to anyone who wants to grab something out of one. But then there is the argument that illegally distributed copies of your work should be welcomed because of the greater exposure it brings and the resulting sales of paper copies it generates. However, if your main channels of distribution are in electronic format, that particular argument does not hold true.

You could prominently personalise each PDF with the name of the person to whom it belongs (a bit like you used to have in books when you were a child where it said "This book belongs to ......") with a note explaining they are free to GIVE the file to anyone (in the same way you can give a paper book to someone) but NOT to make copies for anyone. You would, of course, be relying on your customers' honesty and integrity, but that would, at the very least, make you a very decent fellow!

Maybe it's a case of "suck it and see"?

I come the video game world on the subject of DRM. First, you have to accept that no matter what DRM scheme you go with, it can and will be broken if the demand is there. All DRM, every single scheme, is hackable by someone will the will and the talent. Entire communities form online for the sole purpose of breaking DRM. The greater the demand, the quicker the hack. So whatever efforts you are putting into your DRM are efforts that will be in vain at least some percentage of the time - maybe it's 50%, maybe 20%, maybe even 5%.

Then you have to factor in the annoyance of your reader. As an author, you want people reading your book, and talking about your book with their reading friends. If you write series fiction like myself, you want them reading one book so that they will read a second or a third or a fourth book in the series. Do you want the first words out of your reader's mouth to be "Well, the book was great, but what a pain in the ass I had to go through to read it." Any DRM that puts any sort of burden of effort on the reader to bypass is useless because again, the DRM WILL be broken, and your customer will be annoyed. An annoyed customer is not a repeat customer.

Thirdly, DRM is imperfect. In the case of video games, there are often configurations of hardware that cause some legitimately bought games to fail to function. The customer can't even play the game unless he hacks the DRM. While this might not be as prevalent with book DRM, it's still a possibility.

The music industry learned the hard way that restrictive DRM either 1) hurts sales or 2) creates negative customer perceptions. Google the phrase Sony Rootkit for a more detailed explanation. Effective DRM is often intrusive, and that adds to the annoyance factor.

In the end, you have to take "piracy" of intellectual property very carefully, IMO. On the plus side, people are reading your books. On the minus side, they aren't paying for them. But my thought has always been, if they aren't paying to read it, they likely weren't going to buy it in the first place. Even more telling is the size of the pirate market for eBooks. Self-published authors likely don't have a lot to worry about - most of the pirates are going to want the books that have more demand, the new Stephen King or Dan Brown book. I think I might actually feel a bit honored when my book appears on the torrents - at least then I'll know somebody's reading it.

You can't treat "pirates" as criminals, though, because ultimately, those people who read your book for free might actually become paying customers in the end. Self-pubbed authors can't turn down any readers, even if they are shivering timbers.

Thanks for your thoughts guys, you pretty much confirm my own sentiments on the subject and I guess for the time being I will release them on PDF in the hopes that if they start to get distributed across the web, at least it will help me generate interest and buzz in the series and get the stories read by more people.

I wrote about DRM on 5Rivers' blog: http://5riversnews.blogspot.com/2009/...

Another DRM annoyance, especially with ebooks, is that there are a lot of problems with formatting the ebook and for some html savvy readers (like me) without the DRM it would be so easy to go in and change it to make the reading experience better.

I like Jo's idea about giving them permission to share the ebook...it's more like owning and print book. You're friend tells you "hey this is really good book, you should borrow it" and then they don't have to feel guilty about lending it.

Lorina,

While I generally agree with the consensus of your piece, I think there is a major flaw in your logic when you say you can't control how many people read a hardcopy book. You can. Exactly one at a time, and that's the major difference. Printed books may change hands but the number of times it's being lent and borrowed is small and typically limited to the people you know personally. A small circle. In addition always one person can read the book at a time only.

In the digital domain that no longer holds true. A digital file can be easily distributed to your entire Facebook friends list, a pirate newsgroup or website, reaching millions of people that you never met in a single heartbeat. On top of it, all these millions of people could potentially read the book at the same time. That is a huge difference compared to one of your friends borrowing and reading a book you bought.

Having said that, I think you are correct, however, that that is just the way it is in this world we live in and the sooner we accept it the sooner we will stop worrying about DRM or come up with alternatives that simply make unlimited copying no longer attractive. As I pointed out in my first post, one such approach that I am using is that I offer free browser versions of my stories, simply to discourage piracy and instead attracting people to my website. Whether it works or not remains to be seen but as far as DRMs go, I guess it's about as good as any.

You may find of interest an article in Publisher's Weekly:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/artic...

Well, that Napack guy from Macmillan has clearly missed a train somewhere. As if the book industry could achieve what the movie and music industry couldn't achieve together, taking down pirates with legal action and by shutting down download and torrent sites. That is just a lot of bologna and shows that he doesn't understand the way the world works these days. In fact many of these guys seem to be completely out of touch with the reality of things. While it is corrected that we're being pirated, the way to fight it is clearly not with brute force as history has shown again and again - but I guess those guys don't read. ;-)

I happen to agree with you, Guido. Just threw that out there for discussion. I find of interest that print is being pirated as well.

One associate of mine has become rather paranoid regarding a book he's putting out shortly (international business book), in that he's learned students in Thailand regularly photocopy texts they require because it's so inexpensive, rather than dishing out the ridiculous cost of texts. Silly man thinks he can prevent that somehow in the print version.

I'm afraid many of us laughed at the notion. Not particularly gracious of us, but there you have it.

I think it is easy to fall into that trap of feeling exceedingly protective of one's writing. After all, we all put our blood, sweat and tears into every book we write. I have such moments as I am sure everyone else does, but at the end of the day we all have to acknowledge, I believe that we simply cannot control what happens to our writing once it is out there.

At least I will always have the consolation that I am not alone and that everyone hos to make do with this problem.