Smashwords and DRM

I spent some of last night looking over the Smashwords upload requirements. The idea was to make my own e-book for the Kindle and Nook online e-bookstores and to let smashwords handle all the others.

Then I hit a glitch.

Smashwords publishes in virtually every e-reader format and does not use Digital Rights Management encoding. In fact, they almost brag about it. Because they trust their customers.

That's a deal-breaker for me and should be to anyone who writes textbooks. People freely share digital content when they know how to do it and they know they won't get caught. There's a reason why all amazon's upper-level books use DRM.

I haven't seen DRM discussed here. Might be an old topic, before my time. It can be a controversial topic on other forums.

The smashwords policy is probably because they want to distribute e-books in formats that don't support DRM all the way from raw text and html through mobi. It might be okay for genres whose marketplace doesn't know how to copy files. Chances are the typical romance novel reader doesn't know how the books get in their devices and doesn't care. But the typical student or young professional person considers that a minor hack.

Am I the only one here who cares about this? That's a surprise.

Uh, no.

But the whole DRM thing (digital rights management) went right over my head. I have no idea what it is nor how it works.

My books (besides being in paperback) are on Kindle (at Amazon) and Nook (at Barnes & Noble).

Maybe if you could tell me how DRM affects my books in this case it may help me to understand the issue??

When you buy an ebook that is encoded with DRM encryption, it can be read only on e-reader devices that you have registered with the sales outlet. You cannot give your downloaded file to another person. Well, you can, but they can't do anything with it.

DRM is an attempt to prevent bootlegging of intellectual property.

When you upload your ebook to amazon to sell, you specify whether you want to use DRM.

I'm against DRM. It just inconveniences the buyer and doesn't stop piracy. A waste of time.

You probably have never been the victim of intellectual property piracy.

I don't have to be to know it's wrong.

As a consumer, I find DRM really annoying. I avoid products with DRM.

And here's what Neal Gaimon has to say about piracy:

https://youtu.be/0Qkyt1wXNlI

"Wrong" in this sense is a value judgement. Artists who have been ripped off tend to change their opinions about it. Kind of reminds me of the old hippy "music should be free" nonsense in the 60s and 70s.

As I said earlier, it is a controversial subject. I won't publish an ebook without DRM unless it is to be a free one.

As to your resolve not to buy a DRM product, I don't believe they tell you in advance when you buy an ebook for the Kindle or iPad whether it has DRM encryption. It doesn't come up until you try to do something untoward with the file. I could be wrong on that, but I don't see any notification on my Kindle listings on amazon.

I find it to be no inconvenience at all. Only those who wish to unlawfully share copyrighted material should find it to be inconvenient. It's easily cracked for those who have techie skills, but most do not. DRM is mostly transparent to the lawful consumer.

Of course, this discussion is about ebooks. I have no experience with DRM as applied to online digital audio tracks and video files. I can imagine where that could be inconvenient even for the lawful consumer.

L & L Dreamspell recently contracted with a service that licenses ebooks to libraries. For the purpose of that contract, L & L Dreamspell is using DRM. Do I understand all this? No. However, they stated it was for the purpose of protecting the ebooks that are checked out from libraries from being copied.

That's right, Diane. When you upload a Kindle book to amazon, you can specify that buyers may share the ebook on a loan basis with another registered kindle device (Kindle, iPad, Nook, K4PC, etc.) owner for a specified number of days during which the original buyer does not have access to the book. Apparently L&L's license service does something similar.

We can agree to disagree on this. DRM destroys value, period. It doesn't stop piracy and alienates your intended target.

How does DRM of an ebook alienate the target unless they plan to illegaly share it?

I watched that video. Gaimen says he realized piracy of his electronic works was good because -wait for it- some people then bought his printed works. What if you don't have printed works to sell, just digital ones?

Does Kindle have a loan policy? I know that Nook does, but I've never heard of one for Kindle, and I have quite a few Kindle books. The Nook books are very clear about their rental capabilities, and how to use the feature.

Ann

alj wrote:

Does Kindle have a loan policy?

Yes.

Quote :

The Kindle Book Lending feature will allow users to lend digital books they have purchased through the Kindle Store to their friends and family. Each book may be lent once for a duration of 14 days and will not be readable by the lender during the loan period. All KDP titles are enrolled in lending by default. For titles in the 35% royalty option, you may choose to opt out of lending by deselecting the checkbox under 'Kindle Book Lending', but you may not choose to opt out a title if it is included in the lending program of another sales or distribution channel.

Interesting. It sounds like you are quoting from information for the potential author's perspective. I've looked all over the Amazon sites for Kindle owners, and can't find anything about it. The B&N site makes sure the readers are aware of the option.

Ann

The lender initiates it:

1. Log onto amazon.com with your userid and password
   
2. Go to Kindle>eBooks
   
3. Click "Manage Your Kindle"
   
4. In the list of books you've downloaded, select a book to loan and click the + icon to the left of the title
   
5. If the book can be lent, it has a "Loan this book" button to the right of the cover image. Click that button.
   
6. Fill in the form with the recipient's info
   
7. Click the "Send now" button
   

Thanks, Al. Went there earlier; missed it; will look again.

Ann

It's easy to miss. Amazon's user interface isn't for the faint of heart.

Al,

Contact Mark Coker at Smashwords and ask if you can upload your book without releasing it for sale on Smashwords (by not clicking any of the format boxes) but still have the book distributed for ebook readers that use DRM.

Hmmm
Smashwords .. a very good idea
Now your main concern was the DRM protection

If you buy a paperback or Hardcover book what is to stop you from photocopying the entire book. You can also lend the book to a friend etc

DRM is not great protection. The fact is you can remove the DRM from any ebook with FREE software. Takes all of 4 secs to start the process and not very long to have a fully DRM free copy
The music industry also forced rights management on music
Now quite a few sites have moved away form that
The Logic is simple if it is possible to steal, people will no matter how much PROTECTION you have installed
This is how it is
Smashwords can and will distribute to all of the major book dealers for you, at zero cost to you and give you a better percentage in most cases then doing it yourself
The are many companies that will distribute your Book( E-book) to the same book dealers at a very hefty price.
The Deal Breaker should be "NOT GETTING YOUR BOOK OUT THERE" and not because someone has installed lame protection