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This past summer Amazon made a shocking announcement: for the first time (and ever since), it sold more electronic books than hardcover ones.
Now, that headline should have had half a page of footnotes. Amazon provided only the relative proportions of sales, not the actual quantities. It didn’t mention that its e-books of most best sellers cost a flat $10, compared with, for example, $25 for the same book in hardback. And it didn’t say anything at all about paperback sales (which sell the most of all).
Otherwise, though, the news sure sounded as though printed books are dying, right along with a slice of our cultural souls. We would lose the satisfaction of holding a sturdy bound volume, the pleasure of turning physical pages, even the beautiful covers that let us see what someone else on the subway is reading. But a funeral for the printed book is premature, for three reasons.
First, it’s human to underestimate the time it takes for fanciful technologies to arrive. We’re way past the 2001 of the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, but we’re still not bopping nonchalantly among the stars. According to The Terminator, the government’s Skynet computer should have had control over our nukes for 13 years by now. And if the dark 2019 dystopia of Blade Runner is really going to happen, it had better hurry up.
Second, when these tech changes do occur, they tend not to wipe out the existing technologies; instead they just add on. Television didn’t kill radio as everyone expected. E-mail didn’t wipe out paper mail, either; the paperless office may never arrive. For the same reason, e-books won’t kill paper books.
For the moment, there’s a third problem: the crudeness of e-book technology itself.
Today you can buy e-book readers from more than a dozen companies: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Sony, and so on. The prices have plummeted—a 2007 Kindle would have cost you $400; today an improved model goes for as low as $140.
But they’re still pricey enough that you’ll kick yourself if yours is lost or stolen. They’re much more fragile than books. They run out of power, leaving you with nothing to read.
Furthermore, most are built around e-ink screens. E-ink looks like black ink on light gray paper. There’s no backlight, no glare—and no need ever to turn it off, because e-ink draws power only when you actually turn a page. At that point, a brief electronic charge draws millions of particles into a pattern of letters. There they remain forever, even if you remove the battery.
But e-ink is also slow. With each page turn, there’s a distracting black-white-black flashing as the screen obliterates one page to prepare for the next. On some readers, that interruption takes a full second. That’s maddening when your current page ends with “He ripped the detonator from the flaming wreckage. Only one thing could save mankind now: a”
The biggest problem of all, though, is the e-books themselves. The publishers insist that e-books must be copy-protected. Predictably, each company uses a different protection scheme. You can’t read a Kindle book on a Barnes & Noble Nook or a Sony Reader book on an iPad.
You can still read a 200-year-old printed book. But the odds of being able to read one of today’s e-books in 200 years, or even 20, is practically zero.
No, you won’t be giving a well-worn e-book to your children. But you won’t be giving one to your friend, either; you can’t resell or even give away an e-book. It doesn’t seem right. Why shouldn’t you be able to pass along an e-book just the way you’d pass on a physical one? You paid for it, haven’t you?
Make no mistake: e-book sales will continue to climb. Screen technology will improve, and prices will fall. It’s theoretically possible, in fact, that the publishers’ Luddite lawyers will even relax a little bit about the copy protection.
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26 Comments
Add CommentThere is another problem with e-book devices manufacturers: their lack of capacity to finish their products. Except for Kindle and Sony (and perhaps B&N Nook) all devices have software problems because all are an embedded Linux with some other Open Source, put all without order. They are a fix-up of embedded software that most of time does not work well.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd an e-book reader is not a p-book: is a device that can do more other things with a book: share the annotations, investigate, allow searching and mixing and so. Except Kindle, all other devices lack those characteristics.
And finally, a simple task that can be search a word, becomes a nightmare of menu options, cursor movements and so... that when you reach the dictionary you forgot what was reading and that was the word you are searching... Only Kindle and perhaps Sony does this good.
Just my two cents.
Until a week ago, I would have agreed with every word written in this column. However, one week ago I bought a Kindle. I am now a convert, and spend too much of my time 'proselytizing' the joys of an e-reader.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe observation that resonated most strongly with me is that e-books will augment paper books, not kill them. I still buy paper books. I love hardbacks, and will continue to build a library of well-loved volumes. That's precisely where e-readers come in. What I will no longer build up are shelves fully of once-read books that I will then dump on the used-book market -- books that I never passed on to friends or relatives in the first place.
Personally, I think one of the reasons e-books are going to leap in popularity over the next few years is precisely because of the non-backlit e-ink. That low-glare, no-imperceptible-but-ever-present-flicker-of-speeding-electrons screen is incredibly easy on the eyes; and I can adjust the font to humor my 53-year-old aging eyes. I have never read so many books with so little eyestrain as I have over the past week ... not even when I was young and majoring in literature at college. Kindle's latest upgrade has also cut down on that page-turn lag mentioned in this article. I read VERY quickly, and it simply is not an issue.
Will it replace dead-tree books? No. Absolutely not. No debate whatsoever there. But I believe the technology is further along and more useful than this column seems to suggest.
The only area where I truly disagree with the column is with the 'run out of power' accusation. That is a weak accusation at best. The Kindle runs for days on a single charge. If someone runs out of power, leaving them unable to read, it's because they failed to plug the thing in at night ... sort of like forgetting to grab a book on the way out of the house. That's pilot error, not a technological fault. It's like accusing your car of being defective because you ran out of gas. <grin>
I just bought a Kindle because of the near monopoly that it booksellers have established over books. For almost 10 years I read my ebooks on a PDA. I loved the backlit screen. It allowed me to read in bed without waking my light sensitive husband, or on the airplane without waking everyone around (I travel a lot can read 3-4 books on a flight to Asia from Canada). I loved that I could put my ebook stash on a SD card and have the files there to transfer to other machines if the existing machine failed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI hate the e-ink screen. I hate the size, it is awkward and the wrong size for my hands. I hate having to put on a light to read or having a bulky extra gadget, and the ill thought out navigation system. I hate the buttons on the side and no buttons on top form the landscape reading profile.
I love the fact that I can get favourite authors again,but hate the monopoly model. I love the fact that it delivers books from their website for free anywhere in the world, and that a limited number of other sites let me download books that I have already bought from them. It was the best of a bad business.
I hope that most publishers go the way of the Jim Baen company (www.webscriptions.com) and allow you to download any book that you have bought in any format, no matter how many times you chose to do so. Yes, of course, I am science fiction fan, that is why I am not crying for paper books, which I also love but can't schlep around the world. I don't miss the oral story tellers that books displaced, I hate being read to. I love my CDs and MP3 players and have never missed the troubadours with their lutes, even once.
The Kindle model is most pernicious because it undid the model in which when I bought a book, I was free to read it in any way I wanted, I miss my PDA which allowed me to chose the configuration of machine I preferred. Eventually I expect that e-readers will go the way of Mac-PC and allow people to chose the ebook reader they prefer and for the software people to allow each other to use each others' platforms
PS. What happened to the "Four Tips" promised at the end of this article in the print and Digital versions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually, you can read "Kindle" books on PCs, Macs, iPads, you just can't read them on other e-ink eReaders like Nook and Sony. The apps for the non-eReader devices are pretty decent and you can sync your reading and read on a PC at work, a Kindle on the bus, and an iPad at home, if you like.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's DRM that makes ebooks device or app-specific, and Nook and Sony ebooks suffer from that, too.
I can only speak for the Kindle, but the comments about running out of power are laughable. When I first started using my Kindle I purposely charged it completely, then didn't charge it until it ran out of power to see how long it would last. With the wireless turned off I got through four average sized novels and more than halfway through a fifth before the battery died. This misconception, plus comments like "fanciful technologies" and "the crudeness of e-book technology" show that the author did minimal research, hasn't spent much time using an e-reader himself and most likely made up his mind about the topic before he even picked up his first e-reader.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHaving just returned from an overseas trip that included about 30 hours of time spent sitting on airplanes I can tell you that the pros of the Kindle far outweigh the cons.
I wonder if the author reads by candlelight, since the technology in those crazy electric lights is still unproven and imperfect.
You ask: "Why shouldn’t you be able to pass along an e-book just the way you’d pass on a physical one? You paid for it, haven’t you?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe answer is no. You have not exactly "paid for it". You have purchased a license to read the book on any of your own devices and also to create a back-up storage copy for your own protection.
You have not purchased all rights to the work itself. Think about it. Registering a copyright costs the author approximately $45 plus the cost of postage and the paper and ink to create the hard copy to lodge in the Library Of Congress. It wouldn't make sense to sell that value for $2.99 or even $12.99.
(Leaving aside the value of a year's work of full time work it took to write the story, and the value at at least $2 per page to have the work edited, and the value of the artwork, and the cost of the ISBN, and the cost of print and internet advertising....)
An author easily has $30,000 personally invested in every book she writes. Is it reasonable that you should reap all the rewards of her investment for an outlay of less than $20?
So, no. You have not paid for the work. You do not own the work.
The law says that the owner of the work, the copyright owner (the author) has the sole right to control the reproduction and distribution of the work. That is why you may not create electronic copies of the work, and why you may not distribute or "share" or sell or otherwise monetize the work.
Burning it onto a CD with a bunch of other e-books and selling 10 copies of the CD at a time via an auction site is also illegal. The work remains copyrighted to the author.
By the way, you also may not upload the cover art to Picasa and sell prints of it or put it on mousepads. Cover art is also copyrighted.
What you absolutely may do is load the e-book onto your Kindle or ipad, and lend the loaded Kindle or ipad to someone else. They, they have the loaded piece of hardware and you do not. That equates to passing over a physical book. If you love to share with your friends, consider buying a second Kindle or ipad for the purpose of "sharing". That is legal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince this is Scientific American, I should love to see an article that explicitly relates e-book piracy to the scientific phenomenon of "motivated reasoning".
The October 11th issue of NEWSWEEK has a fascinating article by Sharon Begley about the psychology of an angry electorate.
Quote..."People have a great capacity to engage in what's called 'motivated reasoning'," says political scientist Hank Jenkins-Smith of the University of Oklahoma. "If you have a strongly held belief with an emotional component, the brain defends information that reinforces those 'priors' and is skeptical of information that challenges them."... End Quote.
This article shows ignorance of intellectual property rights.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf I buy a book and then give it to someone, it is one physical object. If I buy data in electronic form (be it a book, a recording of music or whatever), I have duplicated it by giving it to someone else. Where there were one, now there are two, which is not the case for the physical book.
As an author, I may have spent anything from 3 months to 10 years in writing a book. I would like to be paid for copies being circulated, thank you. If my work is on paper, once that book is sold, I have been paid for this copy and what happens to it is no longer of concern to me. But if it is an electronic file, I would like to be paid for each instance in existence. Otherwise, I work for nothing.
Why should musicians, film makers, authors etc. be treated any differently from bakers and shoemakers?
:)
Dr Bob Rich
http://bobswriting.com
BER Response Part 1
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was very disappointed by this article. I found the reasons to be substantially ill conceived and one-sided. Let’s take a look at the three reasons given:
The first is the statement that “it’s human to underestimate the time it takes for fanciful technologies to arrive.” Truly the human imagination is very prolific and can imagine things for which the technology does not exist. We can anticipate extensions of our reality to non-existent concepts and technologies that may not exist until well into the future. However, the delays are primarily driven by technological barriers. Each situation must be evaluated on its own merits.
In the case of e-books, the technology is not the problem. Now it is a simple issue of whether or not the technology offers a capability sufficient to replace prior technology. E-books do have a following and are doing well considering a second reason for slow uptake; resistance to change, especially by people who are simply set in there ways. My parents do not use DVDs simply because they lack the ability to comprehend the new technology. Smaller numbers of others resist for unique reasons (e.g. people who still prefer LPs to CDs presumably because of the “quality” of the sound.
The second reason as stated is even more egregious. To make a blanket statement that “when these tech changes do occur, they tend not to wipe out the existing technologies; instead they just add on” is ill conceived. Actual experience does show that technologies do replace older technologies for the purposes to which they are best designed. TV did replace radio in many of the various disperse markets originally served by radio. Radio’s continues existence is driven primarily by markets for which TV is ill suited. These continuing radio markets included ones requiring transportability or situation where the distractions of focusing your attention on a screen would be a problem such as when driving. How long has it been since the family gathered around a radio at home to listen to their favorite drama series.
BER Response Part 2
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, CDs effectively replaced cassettes, which effectively replaced 8-track tapes which effectively replaced LPs. Now we simply carry electronic versions of music on portable electronic players. All of these evolutions occurred in a very short period of time. When was the last time you used a mimeograph to make copies? What about carbon paper or a typewriter? I gave up my slide rule a long time ago.
A copyright protection is clearly a difficult subject. Although sharing (which is permitted up to a given number of copies for most services) is nice; the writers do deserve to be compensated for their work. On the other hand, e-books offer a great benefit. Once a book is no longer under protection, a number of services offer them on the web for instant download for free. What a deal, thousands of titles for free. Prior to e-books, there were never available for free.
Also, e-books and electronic distribution will provide a means for lesser known titles to become available to the general population.
Finally, some formats offer text searches. I love it. Have you ever read a book and remembered something you wanted to go back and find? Well with the proper format (hopefully to be universal soon) you can do text searches to find your passage.
B. Reed
Old style books will remain , but mostly for the generation which was brought up on paper books.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe younger generation is more likely to opt for e-books
but will younger people who write in short hand like'
CUB4 LUNCH ' have the same literary appreciation that we have had ?
What would they make of wonderful literary observations
like my ; Old scribes never die - they just scribble away ...'
"Hey can we shorten that a little "? is likely to be their attitude.
No, eReaders won't replace paper books, they will supplement them. There's still an enjoyment to be had in reading hardcover books and physically turning the page. But eBooks (which are cheaper, you can purchase them at home, and they don't use messy ink or waste paper) give you another sense of reading pleasure. The freedom to take a veritable library with me wherever I go is amazing. But the biggest pleasure I get with my eReader is not having to move my booklight when I quietly turn the page.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is INTERESTING. There was time for Noah ingenuity, also Moses and came the chinese documentation today the electronics design of INK and paper. I don't think science is sleeping? ARE WE SLEEPING? I believe solution to your proposition and observation is already on ground and solution are being work out.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI bought a Kindle a few months ago, mainly to see if it would be easier on the eyes to read in a larger font. It was, indeed, an improvement. Since then, I've discovered lots of other advantages, like the fact that taking a Kindle to a waiting room is like taking a puppy to the park. All of a sudden, everybody wants to talk to you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI bought Kindles for both of my adult children for Xmas. I'm sold and they are (in the words of my daughter) "over the moon".
A Kindle is not a book replacement. It overlaps the functions of a book. I use it to have New York Times digest and the local paper delivered every day. The Kindle will save my poor eyes by reading me the news. I use it for instant access to a hundred or so audible books I've purchased over the last six years. I used it to purchase and read the Booker Prize winning novel minutes after it is announced.
But it's very poor for graphics. The electonic format is often unsuitable for textbooks (that's why sales in "how to" books still survive in spite of the tital wave of on-line "help" and video instruction). My library is full of books that will never "go e-book". It's a terrible Internet browser.
In my experience, the e-book works best for documents that are consumed straight through from beginning to end, like novels. I like it for journals and newspapers, too, but it suffers from poor support for browsing. I love the fact that I can shop the huge Amazon selection and read a chapter of a book for free, then instantly purchase the book if I like it. This is an aspect of the e-book that was missed in your review. It's the "pointy end" of a marketing and distribution channel that seriously challenges the traditional book store. It's not just the device in your hand, its the quality of access it provides to the underlying information product.
My CD collection has been replaced by iStuff. The video store has been replaced by Apple TV and Netflix. I've dropped my land line for a cell phone. Documentary video is gradually migrating to my iPod Touch. My dictionaries, encyclopedias and phone books gather dust, replaced by the Web. I don't own a cheque book -- e-commerce meets all my financial needs. I haven't written or received a personal letter on paper for years. It's all e-mail. What's happening is a merging, re-shuffling and refining of media categories and a broader choice of the way you access them.
Comparing e-readers to books misses the point entirely.
You have a good point about navagating around with an e-reader. I'm a Kindle lover, but I really miss the multi-tasking capabilities of a PC or Mac. My favourite pet peeve is the need to go back in a novel and remind myself who some character is. I usually get so tangled up that I give up and guess.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut we're just at the beginning of this technology. I've been deleloping computer applications for 40 years and one thing I've learned is that you need feedback from user experience to develop a product that will converge to something a lot of people will love to use.
My bet is on Apple. I own the stock. They're cleaning up in the personal computer application market just like Microsoft cleaned up in the business market in the mid 80's.
Spot on! I could have written this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour point about storing once-read books is a good one. I have dozens of banker boxes of old books that will never see the light of day again. To be honest, most of them would make terrible e-books (they're mostly computer textbooks that cost $50 and up each). I still love a good paper volume, but they go in my "lending library" when I'm done with them. For the same reason, I share a Kindle account (and 3 Kindles) with my adult children.
You've put your finger on some key issues. Your preference for back-lit versus e-ink is shared by many people. Mine goes the other way. I like to read in full sunlight.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's not easy to change the way you absorb your favourite type of information. It took me a couple of years to realize that popping a computer error message back into Google would get me better information (but in a maddenly-different format) from the traditional door-stop manuals.
I see the Kindle as one more way that Amazon can get its product to you. They are also happy to sell old-fashioned books or audible books. They're getting very, very good at it. For example, they delivered two new Kindles to my door two days after I ordered them from Canada.
This is a point that's often missed by the consumer. From the vendor's point of view, success is all about distribution. I got stuck in a snowstorm once with the guy who mastermined the Commodor rout Texas Instraments for the home computer market back in the stone age. He said the three most important things in business are distribution, distribution and distribution.
Apple TV is another case that could be pulled into this discussion. It locks you into a certain selection of content, but delivers it in a form that's an order of magnitude or two better than traditional cable TV. But there's nothing stopping from me from having BOTH Apple TV and cable.
The demise of Blockbuster is another case in point. That distribution channel is obsolete. People are opting for the convenience of Video on Demand and services like Apple TV and NetFlix -- opting for more convenience and a larger (if still limited) choice of content.
But Comodore is gone now, so there must be other factors besides distribution.
From the vendor point of view, you want flexbility in your distribution platform. Kindle content can be read by all kinds of devices besides the Kindle.
But what the consumer wants is to access all appropriate product on the same piece of hardware.
I'd be looking for something like a Net Book with the power of a high-end Mac. With that type of device, there's nothing stopping you from conveniently accessing every vendor from Kindle to NetFlix.
Lots of my relatives pack around iPhones and can't understand why I have a cell phone AND an iPhone Touch. They don't get why I don't "text" with my phone or use it as a web browser. I guess I'm one of those guys who likes to use the best possible piece of hardware for the task at hand. Others (like you) want to travel light.
The future is bright for both of us.
DRM is a major pain in the butt, but I made my living for 40 years selling my software. I have frieds and relatives that make their living writing and performing music. We need to appreciate the need of the creators to be paid for their effort and be paid well for exceptional effort, whether they're starving singer-songwriters or Steve Jobs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAmazon allows you to have up to six Kindles on the same account which is as much sharing as most people need. This doesn't mean you need to buy six Kindles. You can (for example) run three "real" Kindles and three PC Kindle simulators. This is perfect for a family like mine that's always trading books back and forth.
I've made this point elsewhere so I won't go into detail, but you can share your Kindle (and the included Audible.com) library with up to six Kindle devices (including free PC or Mac readers) which can, in theory, be posessed by up to six different (groups of) people at any one time. The downside is that all these people have access to your Amazon account, which means they need to be TRUSTED people. This sounds like sharing content with family members, which is pretty close to a perfect compromise to the DRM issue for everybody.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm new to SA, and I've noticed some articles are basically polarized opinions rather that the S near to the A; this is one example.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishow can we thing about TV being a replacement for Radio?
yes, paper mail hasnt disappeared, but, come on man! what are you trying to say here?, i havent sent a letter in my whole life! well... i used to, to my girlfriend 20 years ago... handwritten... what are the chances that i do that now?
Paper mail is a different thing now, computer generated spam with an acceptable appeal? Or Bills... or proofs of receipt...
Paperless office is a reality in big institutions and will be a cost driven reality, soon, now.
I would wish ebooks not to kill paper for just one reason, one day, when the internet is no longer a garden of freedom, books, documents and everything written and digitalized would and will be smothly edited (censored) with just 1 click, and hard copies wont be around to keep us safe from that, we will loose so much that we wont even notice.
But, apart from that, it is certainly a natural replacement, the next step, a direct one, and the obstacules are just technological, but, please, once again, how can you say months of battery lifespan is "leaving you with nothing to read"?
How slower can it be a digital page turn than a human one?
I cant find any other word for phrases like this different as missinformation.
I think you are not well informed about this issue.
And, I think you should, I love to read smart magazines like yours.
Now, I'm a CD seller, it is understandable for us (old guys) the sense of tangibility of the piece, the romance of it, the smell, the sensorial experience... but, we're off already, all that is past nostalgia.
Come on David, buy yourself a Kindle and confront your words in your next TechnoFile.
Cheers.
Carlos Oñoro
I find it faintly ironic that I'm reading this article from the web rather printed. Can't wait a fraction of second for the page to turn? I mean, I don't blame you. I'm as impatient as the next guy, which is why I love that I don't need to worry that the cheap crappy pages in in my paperback on the plane are going to be stuck together or missing entirely. I had one where the binding melted entirely, and some ~400 pages fell all over. No, as you quite aptly pointed out, most of us have not been purchasing printed books which inspire any positive emotions about printed media. Most of us get crummy paper with poor bindings and awful ink that often don't survive a transatlantic flight or a road trip, much less 200 years.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs far the digital rights management nonsense, and it most certainly is nonsense, it's still a blip. Google, the Gutenberg project, and others are already doing a fine job of finding orphaned or out of copyright books and making them available in open digital formats. In 200 years, unless another ethically bankrupt copyright law is passed, every book available today will be freely and easily available on in your digital format of choice.
I would go further. Do people still sail and in tar caulked keel ships. Yes. Is it how people get around generally. No. The old format is the niche, not the new.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRe: rfog_'s comment: Well... Not only the "other" readers are based on Linux. Amazon Kindle and B&N Nook also are - And I don't know about Sony, but I would not be surprised. Why? Because a fully free OS, widely tested by millions of people and open for improvement, very scalable (both up and down — Both for embedded devices as an ebook reader and for huge data centers) is very hard to beat as a platform to start building around.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is one unexpected benefit. My wife, who has dyslexia, can read the Kindle presentation of words. Printed books she finds difficult. Do not know why but the effect is amazing. She enjoys reading now. Besides being practical in terms of weight, transport, versatility,this machine may allow others with similar reading difficulties to explore worlds previously not available. Which brings up an interesting point: could this benefit children diagnosed with dyslexia, or poor reading skills due to eyesight issues, to read? This technology might provide solutions to learning problems.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHello. You propose a very interesting point. But, is it not the same when a book is shared by people (friends, neighbors, book club, libraries) as compared to electronic? Is it a matter of financial interests? I do think writers need to be paid but cannot help comparing the circumstances you bring up. Thanks.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this