Jenny Levine: eBooks

The Death of Digital Rights Management?

“ 'It’s very difficult to sell [digital-rights] technology to companies that are no longer trying to sell content,' observes Schreiber. In a way, it’s a classic chicken-and-egg question: is the digital rights management industry hampered by a failing market, or are e-books floundering for want of better digital-rights technology?" [at Technology Review, via Tomalak's Realm]

How about both are hindered by usability problems and a focus that is decidedly not on the consumer?

"Analysts say the content protection companies left standing, including Alchemedia and SealedMedia, have technologies that may break the usability barrier, finally enabling the serious online sales providers envision. “There are some extremely bright people working in this space who will be able to figure out what the consumer is willing to put up with,” says Letts. Alchemedia’s “Mirage” system, for example, does away with the requirement for special viewer software by making sure the decrypted form of a protected file appears only on-screen, never in random-access memory, where a computer looks for any data it’s trying to print or copy. That way, publishers can put content out in a format compatible with a regular Web browser, and “the fear about the save and copy buttons is neutralized. We don’t have to block those doors because the data in [memory] is still encrypted,” says Schreiber."

"SealedMedia’s system, on the other hand, does require a special two-megabyte browser plug-in, but it stores decryption keys on a central Internet-accessible server, meaning that if you have the right password, you can access content from whatever machine you happen to be using. SealedMedia’s viewer can also handle audio and video content. 'SealedMedia is providing us for the first time with a robust, convenient way to deliver multimedia e-books,' says ipicturebooks’ Preiss."

Here again, I hope they're thinking of more than just B2C sales (business-to-consumer) and that these technologies will work with items circulated by libraries. See why we need to be in on the debate and the development cycle?

Audible Books on MP3

"This almost has to be a e-Book killer for the masses. Don't get me wrong, e-content will still have it's place. I just see the mainstream grabbing hold of *this* digital techology much quicker and in greater numbers than e-books as imagined to date." [LibeTech Weblog]

Eric comments on my Audible post from yesterday, and he seems as enthusiastic about them as I am. I agree with him that MP3 audiobooks are a killer app and that they will be adopted by the mainstream faster than eBook devices will. I've always believed that most Americans will experience new technologies in their cars first, and that this will ease widespread adoption into other areas.

OnStar is a perfect example of this. It's GPS sold as a safety feature, and it introduces the concept of location-based services in a non-threatening, non-techie way. I think we'll see the same thing with satellite radio and MP3s. You can already buy both types of players for your car, but they haven't taken off yet because they don't come pre-installed the way OnStar does. Once they do, however, there will be no going back, and once someone has had the thrill and ease-of-use of listening to MP3 audiobooks in the car, they'll realize they can do this anywhere and the technologies will become ubiquitous and pervasive.

Which is one reason why I really want to see Audible succeed. They're the major player in the game right now, which means we don't have to muck about with a dozen different standards and formats. They also understand the user's desire to own what they purchase, and they're trying to work closely with libraries.

So Eric, "me too!"

Today I got an email from Matt at Audible. It went out to some kind of a list, but it included two documents, an overview of the company and its services in general, and an overview of its services for libraries. When Matt spoke at our Tech Summit in September, only the Kalamazoo and Highland Community College libraries were actively circulating Audible titles. NOLA was just getting started, but now there are four more libraries on board the program. Here's their list, which is labeled as "partial":

King County, Washington
NOLA (Northern Ohio system)
Kalamazoo, MI
Broome County, NY
Carroll County, MD
Highland County, IL Community Coll.
Rochester, NY (Henrietta Branch)

In my previous post about Audible, I was thinking of the Kalamazoo Public Library, not King County. KPL has a page devoted to their MP3 audiobook program, and it includes first and second quarter reports (both in PDF format). Their program has also been wildly successful.

Also of interest in Audible's general overview document is continued progress towards something called "AudibleWireless," which provides "customized spoken audio content based on the customer's individual selections, delivered to a wireless device or accessed with an ordinary handset."

So the next time you see an ad for a cell phone or PDA that plays MP3s and you ask yourself why on earth anyone would want that, now you know. It's another type of "heavenly jukebox" digital content coming to you wherever you are via your wireless device. I wonder if Audible can partner with satellite radio companies in order to stream content of your choosing to your car or home stereo. Hey, Matt....

Is J.K. Rowling propping up the book biz? Suppose her latest were offered online "For the movable-type book, the killer app was the Bible. For television, the killer app was Milton Berle's "Texaco Star Theater," without which TV might still be duking it out with ham radio for market penetration. For e- books, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" would be the Killer App of All Time. Of course, this whole disaster scenario for the book biz could never really happen." [at SF Gate, via Slashdot]

An interesting scenario that would indeed put eBooks on the map. Of course, then you have the problem of which format to put it in - Adobe Acrobat, Gemstar, Palm Press, Microsoft Reader? Without one unified standard, this just isn't going to happen. Hey, Audible - get the audio rights and secure your future!

And BTW, the King County Library System is also offering their patrons access to Books24x7 ebooks online. They are the baton twirlers at the head of the shifted parade.

Eric's been holding out on me. I thought his Libtech blog was on the Radio servers, but he's actually elsewhere and I've been missing his posts. Today he posted a link to an Eastside Journal opinion about the King County Library System's MP3 audiobook program. I'm a big proponent of both MP3 audiobooks and the company they are partnering with, Audible.com.

In fact, our SLS Tech Summit last September featured Audible, with presentations by both a rep from the company (thanks for coming that day, Matt!) and Eric Welch from Highland Community College Library (Eric is also circulating Audible titles on MP3 players). I'm still hoping to jump start a group discount for SLS libraries, but the KCLS program is a great model, as well as proof that this works.

As the Up for Library Innovation editorial notes, "Thumbs up for the King County Library System, which is continuing its record of being on the cutting edge of information services. The latest is acquiring 200 MP3 players that allow patrons to listen to audio books. The 3-ounce devices are much smaller than ordinary cassette tape or compact disc players. They can hold the equivalent of 20 cassettes and the material is merely downloaded onto the device. If you want to use one -- you can check one out for 28 days -- be prepared to stand in line behind 753 people who already have their names on the waiting list. The good news? The library will double the number of MP3 players by year's end."

If you want to see the presentations from last fall, find them on the SLS InfoTech site.

If you want to find out more about the wildly successful KCLS program, visit their eAudio site. They used to have their quarterly reports available online, but I can't find them now. I'll look it up tomorrow at work and see if I can track them down.

If you want to know if your library should pursue this, then just take my word for it and do it. You don't have to be a big library system to offer a new, quality service to your patrons. Trust me - they'll thank you for it.

Fujitsu Clears Up the Small Print. "Fujitsu's research and development center has developed software to display small letters legibly on compact devices such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants, the company announced last week." [in PC World, via Tomalak's Realm]

Yay, ICC! My training today is at a PC that has Internet access, so I'll be able to post messages during breaks. I'm trying to be good and not read my news aggregator during actual class time. ;-) Sorry I can't provide more commentary right now, but I'll post links and add thoughts later.

E-Mail That Lures Book Readers [in Wired News] A nice write-up of the Chapter-a-Day service that is now offered through 479 public library systems in North America and reaches some 90,000 people. Suzanne Beecher, the woman that started and still runs it, says she's working with 90 percent of all major publishers these days. Congratulations to Dixie at the La Grange Park Public Library who brought CAD to Illinois back in the day!

Further down on the page... who knew Ken Lay, Mr. Enron himself, is on the Board of Directors at Questia? No wonder they're a step away from closing their doors.

Next: Listen to Books on Phone. AT&T Wireless, Audible in delivery tests [via allNetDevices Wireless News]

I'm already an Audible premium subscriber, so I really like this idea. I want this company to succeed because I think they "get it" AND they work with libraries. This is actual content I would switch cellular carriers for, too. I hope they're going to figure out how to let libraries lend audio content over the phone, too, not just bigco publishers.

Psalm's New E-Book Reader. Prayers, hymns and psalms are but a click away. Also: The demand for print on demand ... e-book publishing rights redux ... and more, in M.J. Rose's notebook. [Wired News]

"While an e-book of the Bible can be bought and read on any e-reading device, the Godspeed offers a holy host of Christian-specific applications. Based on the Hiebook from Korea e-book, the Godspeed -- which is loaded with standard PDA applications -- will retail for approximately $250. "

What Would Jesus Read? (WWJR) I can't imagine this will take off any better than other niche attempts.

Palm has released a List of Best-selling eBooks for 2001 The top fiction title is Dreamcatcher by Stephen King, and the top nonfiction title is The Procrastinator's Handbook. Palm says it sold almost 180,000 ebooks last year, although sales figures for each of the titles on this list would have been a more interesting figure to me. Still, they say this number is a 40% increase over the previous year's figures.

A lot of people tell me that ebooks on PDAs will never take off, and at first I was inclined to agree. These days I'm not so sure, though. You can download an ebook onto a Cybiko or a Gameboy, and who knows what kinds of magnification or voice technologies await us in the future. They won't replace the printed word, but I'm not willing to discount them out of hand, either.

Consortium of 12 Universities Begins Project to Deliver Academic E-Books [in The Chronicle of Higher Education] "Last month, leaders of the 12 universities committed from $50,000 to $100,000 to develop a prototype for the joint e-publishing venture, says Tom Peters, director of the consortium's center for library initiatives. The institutions have worked together for decades as part of a group called the Committee on Institutional Cooperation.

The hope is that university presses in the consortium might one day offer all of their books in electronic form in a version that could be linked to a joint online library catalog that the group already operates. It could quickly become be a sizable collection: The university presses publish about 1,000 new books each year."

Flexible display [e-ink] gains momentum "Researchers at Cambridge, MA-based E Ink have completed the first working prototype of an electronic ink display attached to a flexible, silicon-based thin-film transistor backplane, the sheet of electronics that controls display pixels. The prototype is a functional display that you can twist, bend or throw against the wall without disturbing a single electron.... Researchers at E Ink don't know exactly when their prototype will go into full production, but they estimate that by sometime in 2005 they'll be building fully-flexible displays for commercial use. For now, the company is working with Philips Electronics to produce displays using electronic ink against rigid, glass backplanes, to be built into mobile, handheld devices starting next year." [via ia]

You know why ebook devices are failing right now? Usability. Plain and simple. If they'd get their acts together and share a single open standard that makes their devices interoperable and then make a device you'd actually want to use, folks might be more open to using them, espcially for nonfiction purposes. But you know what, I believe that electronic ink (the concept, not necessarily the company) is going to beat them to the punch. It's got more benefits right out of the starting gate, and it has more built-in usability than a device dedicated purely to reading ebooks. Here's hoping that this industry learns from the mistakes of the companies that make ebook devices so they don't kill their chances before anyone even cares.