(2006-12-01) Doctorow Ebook Drm Business Model

Cory Doctorow on EBook-s, DRM, and Business Models For Information.

• The thing about an e-book is that it's a Social Object. It wants to be copied from friend to friend, beamed from a Palm device, pasted into a mailing list. It begs to be converted to witty signatures at the bottom of e-mails. It is so fluid and intangible that it can spread itself over your whole life. Nothing sells books like a personal recommendation--when I worked in a bookstore, the sweetest words we could hear were "My friend suggested I pick up...." The friend had made the sale for us, we just had to consummate it. In an age of online friendship, e-books trump dead trees for Word Of Mouth.

• But say it does come to pass that electronic books are all anyone wants. I don't think it's practical to charge for copies of electronic works. Bits aren't ever going to get harder to copy. So we'll have to figure out how to charge for something else. That's not to say you can't charge for a copy-able bit, but you sure can't force a reader to pay for access to information anymore... Who could have foreseen that radio's great fortunes would be had through creating a blanket license, securing a Congressional consent decree, chartering a collecting society and inventing a new form of statistical mathematics to fund it?

• It's good business for me, too. This "market research" of giving away e-books sells Printed Book-s. What's more, having my books more widely read opens many other opportunities for me to earn a living from activities around my writing, such as the Fulbright Chair I got at USC this year, this high-paying article in Forbes, speaking engagements and other opportunities to teach, write and license my work for translation and adaptation. My fans' tireless evangelism for my work doesn't just sell books--it sells me... The golden age of hundreds of writers who lived off of nothing but their royalties is bunkum. Throughout history, writers have relied on DayJob-s, teaching, grants, inheritances, translation, licensing and other varied sources to make ends meet.