On Sharing or Why DRM is fundamentally opposed to the book experience
It is the aim of UX practitioners to dissect ideas and business decisions and determine the core value of a product through a certain number of features of functions. As such, there are a certain number of questions that UX practitioners ask themselves about products which lead, often, to different ways of thinking and new points of view in tackling a problem.
Stepping along from that starting point, I posit the following: eBook DRM is not only undesirable for digital products, it denies users a fundamental function of a book: sharing.
Ok. Yes, so we’ve heard this before. Clearly a reader cannot (easily) share an eBook that is “protected” by DRM. And publishers like to “protect” their content so that they can make dat money rather than have their content just given away and shared around. (Cf. Piracy myth) But, there is another side to the argument, beyond sharing, that is essential to understanding this issue: the ways in which people interact with books is an expression of their identity. In denying them the opportunity to show off their collection and share recommendations with others, publishers are denying a central role of the literary arts.
A dear friend of mine from Paris was recently staying at my home during the first week of her month-long visit to New York City. Claire is a university professor specializing in American history, in particular that of women’s suffrage and the Wilson era. She is also a literary scholar and someone who has had an enormous influence on my literary tastes. Naturally, one of the things she did when she came over, after some catch up time and a little wine, was peruse my bookshelf. And, ask me for a recommendation to read while she was here.
I handed her two books. One was the latest Murakami, because she had mentioned that she was part of the way through, but couldn’t lug the book with her from France, so I offered her my copy to read while she was here. The other book was the short, but intense Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson. (You should know that I am an enormous fan of Anne Carson, and Red is perhaps one of the greatest pieces of literature ever conceived.)
Clearly, the first offering was somewhat practical. The second less so. In fact, it was this exact situation that got me thinking about this. Why did I offer Claire this somewhat esoteric book by a lesser known Canadian poet? Herein lies the interesting stuff.
Sharing a recommendation is not about “getting away with free books,” it’s about identity. In the years since I’ve seen Claire, we’ve both changed. We’ve gotten older, more mature, our lives are very different from when we saw each other regularly on another continent. By offering her an opportunity to read a book that I, personally, find to be exceptional, I am not only sharing a part of my (literary) identity, but I am responding to a tacit understanding of hers. In other words, sharing is a means of offering a piece of oneself and demonstrating how you view the person to whom you offer your recommendation.
The point here is that sharing is not about free stuff. It’s about identity and relationships and understanding and subconscious decisions and view points about other people. It’s about assessing what others would like and displaying what you like.
The same goes for sharing in another sense, because not all sharing is just handing over books to friends. We all know the idea that, upon meeting a new acquaintance, and entering their house for the first time, we like to peruse their bookshelf. Here, the idea is essentially the same. Our bookshelves are our literary identities. They speak volumes (perhaps pun intended) about us and paint for the outside world a complex portrait of our tastes, desires, and dreams. There are myraid reasons why you have every single book on your bookshelf, and the story behind this is telling about your character.
A year ago I rented an apartment in San Francisco for a week via Airbnb. Upon arrival at the place, I almost immediately went to the bookshelf to get a sense of the person in whose home we were staying. Based on her bookshelf and the few emails we have exchanged, I had a good sense. While I never met her in person, I felt like we could be friends, and that I understood her as a person. We’ve all experienced this to some extent, and these are not superficial feelings. These feels are part of what it is to be human, to relate to others through a multi-faceted approach.
In fact, the same applies to other items in your living space as well.
Ultimately, the point is this: sharing books with friends, or even displaying books to others, is an essential aspect for individuals to share themselves with the world. There is an important social function in allowing people this intimate glimpse into something so personal. And yet, publishers have continued to deny this aspect within the digital book experience.
In erecting barricades between users of digital products, we are segregating our users into individual spaces and not allowing them to experience the true literary world, which is a social one. (And no, I am not talking about integrating Twitter into eBooks.) On a deeper level, there are many social conversations happening of which we are barely conscious but fulfill an essential role of collection and display.
And from a UX standpoint, we have completely overlooked this essential feature of our products.
As a UX designer, one would complete research on how people use things, how they accomplish tasks, and how they interact with products. Then, we set out to translate a certain UX point of view into a product, making sure that product answers the essential questions of usage and need. The point of view manifests itself in each product, creating a differentiated experience, but fundamentally the functions should always respond to the users’ needs.
Sharing is not a nice to have. It is a user need. It is a requirement. It is a fundamental, profound, and essential piece of a book’s raison d’être. We don’t read to be cut off from the world, we read to experience it. And, as we do so, we bring others into the fold and share with them one of our experiences, and our feelings, and our thoughts about the world.
So, forget piracy. It has already been shown that DRM-free business models work. It is time to shift the conversation. This is not about making an inappropriate business model work. This issue is about making products which serve a role for our customers. Art and ideas and books and thoughts belong to us all and are meant to be passed along from one person to the next to the next.
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Great post, Brett. I have to admit I continue to be baffled by publishers’ attitude regarding DRM. Since there seems to be good data showing that DRM isn’t closely linked to piracy or inevitably leads to less sales (some lost, some gained), why is there such a nearly universal commitment to DRM? There must be some reason. Putting aside the explanation that it’s stubbornness, fear, or stupidity that’s guiding publishers, what are the available explanations?:
1. The data regarding the effect on sales actually isn’t good; that there is an un-articulated and perhaps justified argument from the revenue side of the argument.
2. Since there is no controlled experiment one can do to study the effects of DRM and DRM-free published content, the default is to do nothing, at least not yet.
3. Perhaps it’s a legacy contractual issue regarding the responsibility of the publisher to protect copyright on behalf of the rights holder (the author).
4. There might be some concern regarding the demonstration of ownership. With trade mark, and maybe also with copyright, part of the legitimacy of ownership is that one takes action to prevent others from violating your rights as copyright holder (or protector of copyright on behalf of the rights holder). Conceivably, there may be some fear that if books that were (or could be) protected from copyright infringement were not protected, it would weaken the ownership rights.
5. Other ideas anyone?
“Since there is no controlled experiment one can do to study the effects of DRM and DRM-free published content, the default is to do nothing, at least not yet.”
Maybe not a controlled experiment, but Baen has been DRM-free since forever and Eric Flint has data (on his own works, anyway) that show an increase in dead-tree version sales after putting out ebooks DRM *and* cost-free.
Regarding (1) and (2): DRM is not free. It costs money to develop, in both hardware and software, and it generally costs money to deploy it (I don’t know of anyone who’s developing DRM out of the goodness of their heart). Therefore, from a business perspective, I would think they’d be able to show that the cost of deploying DRM is less than the increase in sales thanks to preventing piracy. That would be the smart thing to do. It wouldn’t surprise me if someone (such as a saleperson from a DRM company) just threw out some made up numbers and nobody ever bothered to check them, though. Unfortunately, that would be consistent with my experiences with corporate decision-makers.
Regarding (4): Only trademarks require pro-active enforcement on the part of the owner. Copyrights and patents do not, at least not in order for the owner to retain their legal rights. I’m assuming we’re talking about US law, here. I can’t speak for other places.
In another recent post, I offered the possible explanation that it has to do, at least in part, with a desire on the part of the retailers to further lock users into their devices.
Granted, this is not a direct motivator for publishers, but the reality is that most do whatever it is the retailers ask them to do. One cannot deny the strong arming that has occurred over the course of the past few years. And the blatant manipulation, in some cases, as retailers acted as “partner” to content providers, while really just strengthening their own positions.
I think there is something to be said for DRM as a core element of maintaining the status quo within the digital sphere. As much as we talk about “disruption,” the majority of decision makers do not want anything to change. Hence, our oddly reconstructed print ecosystem transfered onto digital products. A mode of existence that makes no sense. DRM included.
Thanks, Brett. Yes, I can see that bowing to their retail “partners” is an incentive for publishers to keep DRM. But digging a little deeper, the reason why they have to bow to them is that they’ve not sustained or developed alternatives. If they had a robust d2c alternative, then it would be up to their retailers to decide if DRM was good for their customers (a la Pottermore). I’m sure MacMillian got serious gas from Amazon when it decided to go DRM-free via a retail store front with selected imprints, but no buy buttons have been removed or algorithms altered to de-emphasize Mac’s offerings (at least not that I’ve heard of).
I’m still stuck on this question of why publishers (largely) can’t or won’t construct an experiment that will either prove or disprove the notion that DRM-free creates a net loss of sales. Seems do-able.
It does seem odd that some intense corporate studies have not been done on the overall effects of DRM and overall revenue to a company. It would seem at a knee jerk reaction to me to have at least three facets to the equation:
1) DRM protected media cannot be shared, as this article puts forth. That means that fewer people will be exposed to the product, and that may lead to lower sales in general.
2) DRM does not force people to buy a product. Rather, it attempts to disallow access to people who have not bought the product. This seems at first to be the same thing, but truthfully is not.
3) DRM schemas cost money to implement and maintain. Depending on the strength of the previous two factors, this may in fact lead to a net loss of revenue for the publishing company, and thereby the authors of the media thusly being protected.
Change is a response generally proportional to the stimulus. Small stimuli can create noticible change across very long periods,sometimes for the better, sometimes elsewise, often passing the same point several times. Crisis can create significant change very quickly. Absent a crisis from the publisher’s viewpoint, …
I’d like the ability to “share” a kindle eBook to another person’s kindle (with my comments). It would be time limited, or they’d get the first 2 chapters or something. And they’d have a category of books on their kindle that were “shared by friend xx”. They’d get a discount if they then bought it. I might get a brownie points if they bought off a share too. Even when the share expired, they’d be able to still look at the history of what I’d shared with them (with my comments). I could offer a list (my “shelf”) that they could choose to look at without the clock actually ticking until they took the book off my shelf and began the share. This would create a sort of social network of friends – a well loved book could “go viral” even. I know this exists outside of the eBook infrastructure, but it could be more integrated. Say I’m reading and I think “wow, Bill would really like this” so I make a note there and then and it automagically adds it to my shares for Bill.
(But maybe I choose when these actually get sent to Bill ?).
Either way, a bit of creativity could make most of the point of the sharing experience happen without the DRM crazy mob having to get upset.
My biggest gripe is that libraries are unable to afford more than one or two copies of an ebook for an entire system (not just an individual library). There may be hundreds of holds on a single book and it could be months before you get to read it. Imagine walking into the main branch of a public library and seeing that there are a total of 11 nonfiction books available in the entire library. Well, when I put a filter requesting “only those titles currently available for checkout” this is what happened to me: a total of 11 nonfiction e-biographies were available in my entire county, which serves 810,000 people!
All of the previous comments have validity, but I think the main problem is with the current implementation of DRM.
If I buy a physical book, I can lend that copy to as many people as I want. But only one at a time. The publishers need to improve DRM to allow purchasers to do the same with electronic material.
I think DRM is doing more harm than good to publishers of books and music. When I had Napster, in it’s original, free, form, I purchased more music in six months than I did the previous year. If I really like something, I like to support the authors. Now I don’t buy as much because my exposure to new books and music is limited by DRM.
Could we also be dealing with changing models regarding economic competitiveness? We have surrendered much of our industrial capability to the developing world. There is a sense that services and intellectual property are still an area of American dominance. DRM could be an attempt to use technical means to ensure that overseas consumers respect the commercial exchanges that benefit America. It also establishes a mechanism of complaint in international trade circles that can be used as leverage over unfair practices by our trading partners (i.e. – China’s refusal to float its currency).
Attempts to enforce it rigorously in America may have as much to do with demonstrating feasibility as with wringing as much money out of the consumer as possible.
Your argument really rings true for me. From the day I was able to read, I’ve benefited from my father’s book collection, and it’s probably had a huge effect on my reading tastes today. We’re always passing books back and forth, and I take a lot of joy in introducing him to a new author I’ve discovered. I loaned the first of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files to him a year or two ago – he now owns every one of that considerable series. If I had purchased that on my Nook, would Butcher or his publisher have made those sales? Nope. It’s the music industry all over again. And the same lessons will be learned. Right now, though, I buy a lot of ebooks – B&N stores simply don’t have many of the authors I want, and I’ve become used to downloading and reading new books instantly. I just operate in the hope that one day they will realize what the consumers really want, and accommodate that.
having watched the evolution of DRM in the gaming industry and seen it go to the extreme where (pc) gaming is no longer of interest (to me), I can only imagine that DRM in ebooks will evolve in the same sordid direction.
Maybe it is a good thing, though, cause a few lighthearted commercials between chapters of war and peace might lighten the mood…
Since before Gutenberg humans have developed relationships with books, physical, referable, shareable, shelfable books. But is persisting this relationship realistic?
I’ve read hundreds of library books. They’re not on my shelf. In fact, I have no books on my shelf. I don’t believe in retaining a book for posterity or nostalgia. Any book I might buy I either gift to a friend or acquaintance or I donate to a library – right after reading it.
I’ve started a book list on GoodReads which is useful for recalling what I’ve read. And BookCrossing is great for sharing physical books. But retaining books to help define who I am? Nope. Won’t happen. There are simply too many to manage.
Perhaps in an age long past, in a Victorian era where tea or lunch was held in one’s library and polite discussion regarding the latest controversial author was bantered about, such ideals of book collecting might be found. Now? I’m afraid the world has moved on from such extravagances as a personal physical library. Can you imagine the 00′s generation or the X’Geners keeping a stack of books around? Yeah, in their slablets maybe.
When I got my iPad I excited that I would be able to carry at one time not only the fiction books I was currently reading but also the research books and papers in one device. And for the most part it’s worked the way I thought.
But the downside came when I realized that at some point I would no longer be able to loan my Discworld books to my girlfriend. Now she’ll have to buy her own copy of the books. And now that begs the question(s).
Is DRM the publisher’s way of making sure that book loaning goes away? Is it just continued greed by big business? Why does my eBook cost the same as the hardcover book even though there’s no raw materials, no printing, no storage, no shipping, or any of the other circumstances that go along with the material book.
I have decided to go back to my “real books” and only keep the research papers I need on the iPad.
@Anonymole: I guess it just highlights the difference in culture. I am a gen X’er and yet I have a number of books that have been with me 20 years or more. Some are partially chewed by my once dog, others soaked by various accidents etc… Its just that some books are worth keeping around as you continue to get more from them….
Make that an online book… forget it. I’ve been through hard drive and computer crash and scraps that nothing has survived.
I appreciate your perspective.
But it will never be mine for certain…
I must admit – I love libraries. They’re like a free candy story for the mind. But, I’ll also admit that the paper book model is flawed. A digital copy is weightless, infinitely searchable, cross correlatable, annotatable, directly referenceable.
But, not sharable. You’re right. That part hasn’t been figured out yet. But like newspapers, magazines, the RIAA and other change or die industries, I think the publishers will be forced to morph into something else. I don’t know what that is just yet. But it’s coming.
But even without DRM, how to reproduce the experience of perusing another’s bookshelf?