[FM Discuss] TOC part II

[adam hyde]

Ok...i have a bit of time, finally, while offline on a train to write
part 2 of the TOC review, so, in the last episode of the review, Bob
had finished leaving some inspired phrases behind, and the next
presentation was from the rock star of sci fi...the person who put the
boy in Boing...Cory Doctorow...he hit the stage running. fast paced
punchy presentation. So fast that even those with English as a first
language had trouble understanding him, but it was entertaining and
right on the money. The presentation was about Digital Rights
Management (DRM). The interesting thing here, is that despite text
being the first media revolutionised by the net, the text industry is
the last of the Copyright Industries to be challenged by it. However
there is plenty now happening within this field including Googles book
search, ebooks, the amazon kindle (ebook reader), and book scanners
(see James Vasiles DIY version - http://bkrpr.org/doku.php) etc.

Layered on top of all this is the spectre of DRM. DRM is a category of
technologies that are supposed to prevent people from infringing
copyright. Apple uses DRM to control the content they distribute
through the iTunes store (think of DRM as something like a deadly virus
with which they infect the content you own, and think of Steve Jobs as
the evil mad scientist ready to push the button and make all your
content die a frustrating death) and Amazon requires all content sold
for the Kindle to have DRM (Jeff = Steve for books). What is
interesting is the tactic in which it DRM is sold. The platform vendors
are telling publishers 'you need DRM else people steal from you and you
lose money' but actually DRM is there to ensure platform vendors can
lock in content providers and their readers.

Also what is quite obvious is that the Book Industry has always had to
deal with free content - both in the form of Libraries, and with works
that have expired copyright. Plenty of money, for example, is still made
by publishers for selling works by Dickens, Shakespeare, or the
apostles. So why use DRM?

Anyways, Cory Doctorow weighed into the middle of this argument with
some great lines. He talked about how the Copyright Industries dont look
good. Its been a bad decade for them, suing kids and stuff...and with
those lone riders Metallic getting all cumudglingly. ugh. However what
the copyright industry has done is successfully build a moral case for
theft. Downloading is theft - this they have established. However by
doing this they are supporting ridiculous paradoxes. Why deliver a movie
over cable tv so people can watch it for free 'legally', and then
criminalise people for downloading it over a different cable and
watching it 'illegally'. Because of the fluid nature of digital media
the criminalisation of people within certain contexts increasingly seems
to the 'ordinary person' to be arbitrary and morally unjust. In the eyes
of the public the moral case behind the legal case often seems to be
constructed to support the interests of industry, and seems about as
justifiable and policable as the theft of air.

However, while the music and movie industries have argued themselves
into this corner, the publishing industry has not yet been made out to
be the bad guy. Hence Cory Doctorow argues that publishers should not
follow the self destructive path of the music and film industries.
Publishers can say NO to DRM. Books don't have DRM, so if you use DRM on
electronic versions of the content you look nasty - so don't do it. The
publishing industry has a big opportunity to look like the good guys,
and people support good guys.

His concluding point was saliently expressed by : "everytime someone
puts a lock on something you own, and they don't give you the key, they
aren't doing it for your benefit". Nice line. Its an argument made to
show the industry that they have something to lose by supporting DRM and
to a large degree I think his point got home.

It was punchy, short and sweet. I think Cory impressed a lot of
publishers and caused some of them to think about not using DRM. Too bad
Amazon won't let them have a choice.

So, after this I had a wander around the exhibits - commercial
fanfare...people trying to work out how much you are worth and then how
much you are worth to them (needless to say I wasn't hassled much), bad
coffee. However there were 3 very interesting exhibits and all in the
hidden room at the back of the main expo hall. I walked into this room
because the guy on the Safari desk said 'have you checked out the book
ATM in that little room?' - by 'ATM' he meant 'automatic teller
machine' ('cash machine', 'hole in the wall', money machine' etc), by
'book ATM' he meant the 'automatic book machine'.

So I went to see the 'book atm'...and there it was...The Espresso Book
Machine v2.0...its the size of a giant 1970s photocopier except it makes
books...its the modern ages printing press. Amazing. The EBM makes 1
copy at a time. Essentially you load in your PDF, the machine prints the
pages using a standard printer, feeds it into its compiling mechanics,
presses the pages together, prints the cover (using a standard color
printer), wraps the cover around the content, applies glue and binds the
cover to the pages, cuts the book to size and spits out your
book...crasy! Retail expected to be about 14000 ($US) or so. There are
only 12 in existence (all earlier models)...but it looks amazing. The
point also being that by using this you localise a large part of the
publishing industry. No need to ship paper across the world to print a
book then ship the book back across the world to the purchaser. Just use
local paper (if possible) print the book and give it to the customer.
Neat. 

The print quality was soso, but who cares? It relied on the quality of
the printers you used and apparently these can be changed up for better
models of your own choice if you can afford it. It was incredible to see
this machine in action and think about its possibilities. Imagine
walking to the corner and getting a book of the FLOSS Manuals remix you
just made in your browser...

Interestingly...what was next to the EBM was an expensive book scanner.
James Vasile had told me about his DIY version, and there seems to be
some other experiments in this area :
http://www.geocities.jp/takascience/lego/fabs_en.html

However, this machine was about 79,000 or so. Kirtas
(http://www.kirtas.com/) was the manufacturer and they had a scanner on
demo mode scanning a Gutenberg Bible (maybe a bit overly poetic).
Google of course has its 'top secret' scanner...it seems this tech is
out there and has been there for a while. I don't know the inside story
but I understand sales of books are falling and one question is - is
this because of the digitalisation (often this means scanning) of
books? Further to this - can 'pirating' effect book sales. And further
to this - since digital versions of books do appear on torrent networks
etc, is the moral case for stealing (downloading books) being
constructed by the publishing industry as we speak?

Interestingly the presentations I saw during the conference that dealt
with the distribution of free electronic versions of books 'found' that
digital copies without DRM had no negative effect on book sales, and may
have possibly had a positive effect on sales. One argument is that
people love to read books - its a material thing. Books are tactile
media. 

Yeah, well, so were records. 

However, unlike records, books are actually functionally superior to
digital content. Books require no batteries, have high contrast, they
can be read in the bath (VERY important), they are portable, you dont
feel like you will be mugged for one, pictures can be of very high
resolution and fantastic color etc etc. Computers and screens, on the
other hand could be considered as a regression in reading technology. For
example, scrolls disappeared and were replaced, to the great relief of
readers (few though they were), with print on both sides of the paper
which were assembled into - a book. No more scrolling! However, we
scroll again. 

I love books, and would choose to read them over a screen anyday. Even
over (to paraphrase Ben Vershbow) the avatar of books  - 'e-ink'.
However, its just quite possible that an increasing number of people
find that accessing information (and we all know the power of networked
content) trumps a superior reading technology.

So does digitisation of books (in particular, book scanning) threaten
the book industry? I would say so. Not as quickly as CD ripping
threatened the music industry, but in time it will become more of a
threat. But as I mentioned above, it was surprising that this is not
what I heard from some of the presenters. So curiously, while I could
immediately understand the importance of the Espresso Book Machine,
while watching the book scanner do its job I could not place the
immediate importance of book scanning as easily. I have the feeling its
a slower revolution (almost literally as book scanning takes time), but
a revolution none the less. 

So, to complete this little collection of interesting gadgets was an
e-reader that is pending release but looks quite interesting. The
reader was about as thick as a book cover, it had no buttons, and the
batteries lasted forever. If you have never seen e-ink in action its
quite a remarkable thing. When you look at it, the 'page' looks like
white paper with a slightly yellow or green tinge, and the text looks
like slightly faded ink. Its pretty amazing stuff. It looks like paper
and ink - there is a wierd sense of displacement when you realise that
the demo photocopied page in the frame on the counter, is actually the
e-reader in action. I liked this reader, and was inspired to wonder if
e-book readers might almost be ready for the world. Eventually my
gadget fetishism was killed by my feeling of impending global economic
disaster. I can't but wonder if e-reader sales would go very far at the
moment even if the tech did finally get it right. 

So, next up...I attended "A better web based book".

I haven't yet got to Dog People, so the next panel and our canine
friends are going to have to appear in the next exciting episode of -
"TOC - a review"...


adam




 
















-- 
Adam Hyde
Founder FLOSS Manuals
German mobile : + 49 15 2230 54563
Email : adam at flossmanuals.net

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