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Kindle Total Cost of Ownership: Calculating the DRM Tax

,----[ Quote ]
| There is one other problem with DRM protected 
| books. When the reading device reaches its end 
| of life, you have to assume all the content you 
| purchased will be lost. If, for instance, I 
| went with a Kindle, all of the content I 
| purchase can be used only on devices supported 
| by Amazon.
| 
| When, several years later, it comes time to 
| replace that Kindle I may get a new Kindle -- 
| but I can't assume that. Maybe somebody else 
| will have a better device at that time. Or, 
| maybe Amazon went bankrupt or evil or stupid 
| and I need to switch to another vendor. There 
| are any number of reasons I might like to 
| switch my e-reader. If I do, I have to assume I 
| won't be able to use any of the content I 
| purchased for the Kindle.
| 
| Thanks to DRM, when my e-reader reaches its end 
| of life, I will have to pay to acquire 
| replacement books for the material that's 
| locked out of the new e-reader. I call the 
| amount of that purchase the "DRM tax" -- an 
| added cost imposed by DRM restrictions. 
`----

http://www.unicom.com/blog/entry/622


Recent:

Hackers break Amazon's Kindle DRM

,----[ Quote ]
| The hack began as an open challenge in this 
| (translated) forum for participants to come up 
| with a way to make ebooks published in Amazon's 
| proprietary format display on competing 
| readers. Eight days later, a user going by the 
| handle Labba had a working program that did 
| just that.
`----

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/23/amazon_kindle_hacked/
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Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@schestowitz.com> espoused:
>
> Kindle Total Cost of Ownership: Calculating the DRM Tax
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
>| There is one other problem with DRM protected 
>| books. When the reading device reaches its end 
>| of life, you have to assume all the content you 
>| purchased will be lost. If, for instance, I 
>| went with a Kindle, all of the content I 
>| purchase can be used only on devices supported 
>| by Amazon.
>| 
>| When, several years later, it comes time to 
>| replace that Kindle I may get a new Kindle -- 
>| but I can't assume that. Maybe somebody else 
>| will have a better device at that time. Or, 
>| maybe Amazon went bankrupt or evil or stupid 
>| and I need to switch to another vendor. There 
>| are any number of reasons I might like to 
>| switch my e-reader. If I do, I have to assume I 
>| won't be able to use any of the content I 
>| purchased for the Kindle.
>| 
>| Thanks to DRM, when my e-reader reaches its end 
>| of life, I will have to pay to acquire 
>| replacement books for the material that's 
>| locked out of the new e-reader. I call the 
>| amount of that purchase the "DRM tax" -- an 
>| added cost imposed by DRM restrictions. 
> `----
>
> http://www.unicom.com/blog/entry/622
>

This should perhaps be re-titled something like:

.... "How Amazon re-engineered book publishing to look like Music and
     Media publishing" ...

Basically, the effort here is the same as the software, film, TV and
music industries, i.e. to keep selling the same materials to the same
people over and over.

Wandering through Zehrs two days ago, I was amazed to see how many films
and TV series can be "re-acquired" on blu-ray...

I've no doubt that book publishers would love to have a model like that
the of the electronically based media folk.  Authors would not be
required at all any more, they could just go the full "Mills and Boon"
route, with session-authors, and even have Simon Cowell host "Britain's
got authors" in order to find the latest pretty face for whom SonyEMI
publishing can supply a staff ghost-author.

So much opportunity here:  "The story of the spice girls", "The story of
Girls Aloud", "The story of Destiny's Child" etc.

-- 
| mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk                           |
| Cola faq:  http://www.faqs.org/faqs/linux/advocacy/faq-and-primer/   |
| Cola trolls:  http://colatrolls.blogspot.com/                        |
| Open platforms prevent vendor lock-in.  Own your Own services!       |

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____/ Mark Kent on Thursday 31 Dec 2009 21:39 : \____

> 
> 
> Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@schestowitz.com> espoused:
>>
>> Kindle Total Cost of Ownership: Calculating the DRM Tax
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>>| There is one other problem with DRM protected
>>| books. When the reading device reaches its end
>>| of life, you have to assume all the content you
>>| purchased will be lost. If, for instance, I
>>| went with a Kindle, all of the content I
>>| purchase can be used only on devices supported
>>| by Amazon.
>>| 
>>| When, several years later, it comes time to
>>| replace that Kindle I may get a new Kindle --
>>| but I can't assume that. Maybe somebody else
>>| will have a better device at that time. Or,
>>| maybe Amazon went bankrupt or evil or stupid
>>| and I need to switch to another vendor. There
>>| are any number of reasons I might like to
>>| switch my e-reader. If I do, I have to assume I
>>| won't be able to use any of the content I
>>| purchased for the Kindle.
>>| 
>>| Thanks to DRM, when my e-reader reaches its end
>>| of life, I will have to pay to acquire
>>| replacement books for the material that's
>>| locked out of the new e-reader. I call the
>>| amount of that purchase the "DRM tax" -- an
>>| added cost imposed by DRM restrictions.
>> `----
>>
>> http://www.unicom.com/blog/entry/622
>>
> 
> This should perhaps be re-titled something like:
> 
> ... "How Amazon re-engineered book publishing to look like Music and
>      Media publishing" ...
> 
> Basically, the effort here is the same as the software, film, TV and
> music industries, i.e. to keep selling the same materials to the same
> people over and over.
> 
> Wandering through Zehrs two days ago, I was amazed to see how many films
> and TV series can be "re-acquired" on blu-ray...
> 
> I've no doubt that book publishers would love to have a model like that
> the of the electronically based media folk.  Authors would not be
> required at all any more, they could just go the full "Mills and Boon"
> route, with session-authors, and even have Simon Cowell host "Britain's
> got authors" in order to find the latest pretty face for whom SonyEMI
> publishing can supply a staff ghost-author.
> 
> So much opportunity here:  "The story of the spice girls", "The story of
> Girls Aloud", "The story of Destiny's Child" etc.

Here -- more so than in DVDs -- it is virtually impossible to pass around the copy you have.
It's one copy per time span, per person, per device.

Suddenly paperbooks become attractive.

After last week's terrorist plot the rules of the TSA and airlines were made worse.
Reading on flights[ with /any/ electronic device is now forbidden.

- -- 
		~~ Best of wishes


The purpose of a windowing system is to put some amusing
fluff around your one almighty emacs window. -- Mark on gnu.emacs.help
http://Schestowitz.com  |    RHAT Linux     |     PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
 15:05:01 up 45 days, 12:28,  2 users,  load average: 1.29, 1.06, 0.77
      http://iuron.com - Open Source knowledge engine project
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