In reply to Nick Travers.

Nick-

I semi-agree, but only in a theoretical sense. My biggest problem with DRM is that it is (at least in the USA) illegal to remove it–for anyone at all. If I, the copyright holder, download an ebook I wrote with DRM applied, and I remove that DRM? I just broke the law.

I simply won’t allow retailers and legislators to make my readers into criminals for doing something as simple as choosing to read a book in another format. What if an Oyster user prefers to read on a Nook, and converts a title to EPUB? There may or may not be ethical problems at some point if that user then discontinues the Oyster subscription and continues to access the material. Oyster may or may not have a legal grievance. But the DRM removal itself is okay with me, in the absence of evidence of an intent to defraud anyone.

I’m not willing to presume copyright infringement on the basis that a tool might be used to violate my copyright. Further, I’m not sure I’m willing to have current copyright law applied to the actions of a reader (rather than a person who’s taken to publishing my stuff for profit, say) in any situation. Since the law does not allow me the ability to make that decision piecemeal, I’ll make it on a wholesale basis: no DRM on my titles. I’ll happily send DRM-free versions to anyone who purchased a DRM-encumbered version in the past, and I’ll offer an apology to go with it.

David, I support what you are saying about DRM in respect of purchased books – I’m checking now to make sure my Amazon books are all DRM free.

However, I’m not so sure about the Oyster and libraries issue. If I borrow a physical book from a physical library, I do not expect to own or keep that book. Likewise, if I ‘rent’ a film from a subscription online source I don’t expect to keep the film. Anyone who pays for the Oyster service is agreeing to their terms of service which does not include the keeping of the books they read, so I can’t see how DRM is an issue. In fact, surely this is the only situation in which DRM is acceptable.

Nick.

In reply to Bill Smith.

Well…as I said in the post, Oyster could avoid most of the issue from my perspective by letting people download the books they, and Oyster, have paid for–after they’ve been read. Oyster could also use some sort of logic to “validate” that a book has been read–they must have that already anyway, don’t you think? If Oyster doesn’t trust that it’s valid, why should I trust Oyster’s algorithm either? If I don’t trust it, why would I believe Oyster would know when to pay me? So they’d better solve the problem or they’re going out of business anyway.

Other than that? Yes, people will rip off subscription services, and will sign up just to do so. I don’t know that those same people would ever pay more anyway, though. They’re out for freebies. Maybe they’ll do that and become a fan and start paying an author. Maybe they won’t. What’s lost, anyway? Profit that would never be had? As a writer, my take is this: that person wouldn’t have read my stuff otherwise but now might. I just gained something.

And it’s not hard to defeat this particular notion anyway, without DRM, via reasonable Terms of Service. I’d have no objection if Oyster just killed accounts that started to do that–read more than a couple of 300-page novels in a day, and you’re on a list. Read five of ’em every day for a week, in full, and your account goes bye-bye. Or some such scheme. This is easy stuff for computers.

“Piracy” of whatever stripe will always be with us. If Oyster’s business model depends on stamping it out, they’ll fail. It can’t be done, and attempts to do so will just irritate their normal customers.

I’ll say it again: in the long run we creative types get paid as the result of the goodwill of our readers. Nothing else matters. I won’t let Oyster, or anyone else, irritate/endanger my readers via any form of DRM.

I think the Oyster DRM issue is an unfortunate side effect of it being a subscription service and there is no way around it.

Without DRM, there is nothing stopping someone from signing up for one-month and downloading EVERYTHING on Smashwords (and other participating vendors) and then quitting.

Personally, a subscription service is not at all appealing to me. I want to OWN my books…so I buy from Smashwords and other non-DRM vendors, like Baen, Weightless, Black Library, Book View Cafe, Angry Robot, Solaris, Dragon Mount, Paizo, DriveThru, Thrillbent and many others.

I NEVER buy anything with DRM. Even though DRM-stripping is theoretically easy (I haven’t bothered to learn how), I don’t want to reward companies for crippling their products with DRM.

I also don’t buy ebooks from Amazon because of their requirement for a proprietary app or, failing that, use browser-based reader, which can, at any time, be arbitrarily restricted/blocked if Amazon changes their browser requirements.

I insist on being able to just buy and download my books.

Besides, there are so many GREAT non-DRMd books and vendors out there, I have an incredible selection from the publishers and authors who understand the importance of non-DRM, so it is not much of a sacrifice to stick to only non-DRM vendors.

In reply to David.

Gotcha. I am curious to find out what the terms for the authors are. I believe Smashwords will be informing authors on this soon. Can you write a blog post detailing such terms once they are announced?

Thanks.

David, Thank you for this post. I read it with great care and clicked on keywords to get the whole picture. I am now a much more informed reader and will be very careful about how I get my fix. Thank you for clarifying that your work on Amazon is DRM free. I am getting ready to check out my hard drive / Calibre options and see what I can find. After that it’s Marvin time 🙂

In reply to Rahul.

I don’t know that I’d call that “information” exactly–Oyster’s not telling us how it’ll work yet. So I’m trying to avoid making unnecessary assumptions. Mark Coker did specifically say in his post that “Smashwords authors will earn their royalty whenever an Oyster subscriber reads more than a sample of their book.” But what’s the royalty? I have no clue. Is it based on retail price? Word count? Phase of the moon? Personally I’d like it to be based on retail price, and I’d also like to set an Oyster-specific retail price (because “freebies” get a little bit weird in this context).

But you’re right–I screwed up. My phrasing’s awkward & misleading. I’ll go fix it.

I’m sure all this stuff will become clear eventually. And I may even care, depending on how the DRM bit works out over time… {8’>

Hi David, Thanks for sharing the article. You say that, “and authors/publishers get paid only for the actual pages read–not necessarily an entire book”. Where are you getting this information from?

Cheers.

In reply to David.

Ok I am understanding this much better now. I really like the sounds of Calibre combined with the cloud and will definitely give it a try. Thank you again for helping me and giving me great stories to read !!
Hey, just got a visual…of TGTGAE and drops of data raining down on people’s heads when the cloud becomes too full….Caveat Lector for sure !!!!!

In reply to Shelley.

Hey Shelley 🙂

Sorry to hear about your B&N/Nook problem. I hope they fix that for you.

My stuff from Amazon is DRM-free, or should be. So you ought to be able to make a copy from wherever your Kindle app is storing documents (might take a bit of looking to find ’em). If you want to read it in another format or on another device, or just keep a backup copy somewhere, the easiest way is probably to download a free program called “Calibre” (http://calibre-ebook.com/). It organizes ebooks into a library for you, which is nice. Personally I like to keep backups in the cloud, too, and I use the same software to sync my Calibre library between computers.

Anyway, if you convert the version you have to EPUB you ought to be able to read Shiver on your Nook too. Or you could just go to Smashwords and download a copy in whatever format you like.

Not all ebooks distributed by Amazon are DRM-free, unfortunately. It’s up to each publisher to make that decision.