Jorgen sent us a link to a story at PCWorld that reports iPad will adopt a DRM lock on the ePub format eBooks it will sell at its iBook store. That’s part of the stupid deal they inked with some large and greedy publishers (Penguin, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and Hachette) that wanted to raise the price of their eBook titles. This despite Apple iTune’s troubled history with over-priced and locked music.
Well, if this is true, they’ve just created the demand for low-priced, pirated and unlocked eBooks. Can anyone say “Napster?”
Please follow and like us:
2 comments
1 ping
Lets look at this DRM from the perspective of a small publisher of college textbooks. Lets say usual class size orders for the type of textbook he sells is about 30. Because it would save him money and would allow him to price his textbooks lower to save students money, he decides to publish in ebook form. What should he do about DRM? He could sell the book in print form, at a higher price, and sell 30 copies because the book is required reading. The book in print form sells for $30.00. Or he could sell the ebook form for $15.00. Only thing is there might be students in the class that take the attitude that greedy publishers don’t deserve any profit so they make a copy and tell all the other students in the class to just get the book from them and “stick it to the man”.
Tell me what would you do? Would you wrap the book in DRM or not?
I am a publisher of college/university text books. The iPad offers an exciting possibility to make our books much more than the printed editions. However there is the issue of DRM. In a recent meeting the youngest member of our staff (just recently out of college herself) pointed out that as soon as we convert our publications to digital files someone will find a way to circumvent the copy protection and make it their mission to provide the book free to anyone.
Suddenly the idea of an etextbook does not seem like such a good idea. Why should I bother? As a matter of fact I do not think I will.
[…] was brought to my attention by a couple of small  publishers of textbooks responding to my post “Apple iPad Will Use DRM… Ahoy eBook Pirates! Come and get ‘em!” (Okay, maybe the title’s a bit […]