Do We Own the E-books We Buy?

Do We Own the E-books We Buy? | Technology | Smart Spending | Mainstreet

Seth Fiegerman at Mainstreet wrote a heavily industry-biased piece on the e-book phenomenon. Most of his story is drawn from the self-interest-driven comments of Frederic Haber.

“For the most part there is no real distinction between an e-book and a piece of software. When you buy either, what you are really paying for is a license to use the product, not to own it,” said Frederic Haber, the Vice President and General Counsel at the Copyright Clearance Center. “The seller is giving you access to this product, but at some point in the future they are entitled to take it back.”

I like the "for the most part" qualification. An eBook is not software. It is intellectual property and needs to be protected, but the rules for what happens after I buy a book is different from the rules associated with purchasing software for a single CPU.

After watching the music industry suffer billions in loses from digital piracy, publishers were weary the same would happen with digital books, and the only way to prevent it was to maintain tight control. Unfortunately this attempt hasn’t been able to stop the rise of e-book piracy. Though there aren’t any exact numbers available yet, industry insiders claim e-book piracy is “exploding.”

Essentially Habler is hinting that the same strong-arm and fear-mongering tactics that the music industry has been trying for the last while will be tried with the publishing industry. The thing to remember here is that it is the publishing industries that are looking to maximize their own profit and control the way music and the written word is distributed.

Haber, the VP of Copyright Clearance Center, speculates that we may one day. Instead of paying $9.99 as a flat price for an e-book, publishers may allow for different pricing models where customers pay less to have the book for a couple months, or to buy just a few chapters, and pay more to actually purchase the whole book and keep it forever. But this could be years away. In the meantime, consumers will have to ask themselves whether ownership is all it’s cracked up to be. Maybe it’s enough to just be able to enjoy reading a book once through and forfeit the rest.

I think I foresee a a future where the publisher takes 10% and the artist takes the lion's share. Piracy is frowned upon, but seen as a marketing cost rather than a dagger to the heart of profits.

There will be a big shakeup coming in the next decade or two in the publishing industry. Just as radio waned as the driving force in record sales, so will the less mass-media driven sales of the book industry change the way all media (music and movies) are packaged and sold.