Prevalence of Digital Reading (Electronic Books, E-Books and E-Book Readers)
- 7-30-2008
By: Noah Eber-Schmid
A recent consumer survey reported that the number of people who regularly download an electronic book or e-book to an e-book reader could reach around 16 million adults in the next few years(1). The report by Fairfield Research, Inc. also found that 17% of book buyers surveyed have purchased an e-book in some digital format but that 55% of those surveyed "will only buy traditionally published books."(2) The report as well as recent endeavors by companies like Sony and Amazon to corner the market on e-book technology has reignited the debate and controversy over digital print, its popularity, and the implications for publishers.
Beginning in the late nineties and reaching its zenith of speculation in the early days of the new millennium, publishing and technology industry gurus, analysts, and pundits alike touted the supposedly imminent increase and dominance of electronic books (e-books) almost as an inevitability. But rather than the billions of dollars in sales e-books were forecasted to result in by 2005, sales of these digital wonders seem to have missed the mark (3), though there is some cause for speculation that use, purchase, and acceptance of e-books is increasing. With the introduction in the past year of Amazon's Kindle dedicated e-book reader in addition to Sony's eReader, e-books and other forms of digital print are a growing topic of speculation and debate. The speculation concerns the simple question (with a multitude of not so simple complexities) of whether or not e-books and their ilk will rival traditional paper-based books and other print texts. Accompanying the speculation, debate revolves around the much more contested issues of whether or not a move to digital print is a positive advance for modern-day readers and writers; the clash between readers, authors, and technologists over the merits and values of digital reading; and the highly contested issue of digital rights management which has pitted publishers, copyright owners, lawyers, and consumers against one another to assert their interests and claimed rights.
At times, the debate over e-books can get personal and downright nasty. Witness the venom heaped upon "Scan This Book!", an article appearing in the New York Times Magazine in 2006 (4) written by Kevin Kelly (a founder and former editor of Wired magazine) by famed author John Updike at a BookExpo America convention that year. Before an audience of publishing industry representatives, Updike made sarcastic remarks that received applause in response to portions of the piece which suggested alternative means of generating revenue for authors given the possible ease of modification and reproduction of an author's work should it be digitized (5). On the other side of the aisle, author Jeff Gomez, in his recent Print Is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age, launched a two-hundred page (and somewhat anecdotal) argument that publishers, writers, and snobbish "literati" have to adjust their business and creative models for digitization and user-modifiable electronic consumption by "generation download," an endearing neologism used to denote an abstract demographic swath of modern consumers whose boundary seems to be somewhere under the age of thirty-five (6).
Much of the popular debate over e-books and digital print has consisted of resistant authors proclaiming the value of printed books as sacrosanct physical embodiments of their work (often conflating books as physical objects with the texts within the pages of books) and decrying the possibility of an age without or with less printed books in which readers may read predominantly in electronic formats. Beyond the polemics on authenticity, the controversy features a real problem regarding ownership rights. The "e-book question" presents a very real challenge to publishers, readers, and authors when it comes to the realm of digital rights management, or DRM, which is the body of law and opinion relating to rights of ownership and control over digital material. At the heart of publishers and authors reservations, is a desire to retain control over the distribution and consumption of printed material such that written works are protected from illegal reproduction and acquisition.
In the past, authors were often entitled to receive royalties from each purchased copy of their printed work, while publishers acted as middlemen between the author and reader to finance and handle the production, distribution, and promotion (often as well as the writing) and sought to earn a profit from sales of authors' printed works. On the readers end, readers that purchased printed copies of books were subsequently entitled to a degree of ownership over the specific copy of the printed book they purchased and were generally allowed to pass their copy along or sell their copy to someone else under what is commonly known as the "first sale doctrine." Digital print and e-book technology has posed new challenges to this relationship of rights between authors, publishers, and readers and has resulted in new interpretations of ownership and control rights as they relate to textual matters.
Part of the problem is how to reconcile the fears of publishers and authors over how their rights can and will be protected with the accessibility to written works which the emergence of e-books and digital print has dramatically increased. Many publishers are hesitant to fully engage the e-book market and digitize future as well as back catalogue releases because of concerns over the ease of distribution and reproduction inherent in online technologies. The fear that digitizing works could aid in pirating is a very real concern for publishers as it is a perceived direct attack on their ability to protect their control over their product as well as their ability to profit from their investment into the publication of a work. The logic here is simple; if publishers go digital, written works will be easier to copy and pass along which could increase pirating, and an increase in pirating could mean a decrease in sales from publication and distribution. The possibility of extreme conclusions from this line of logic could even inspire fear that with an increase in pirating and a decrease in incentive for publishers to finance and publish books, there could be an overall decrease in the number of quality works which publishers are willing to engage, a disturbing notion that implies a negative impact on modern literary culture. Some publishers now find themselves hesitant to engage in e-book publication or digitize printed books for electronic readership, however, other publishers have already entered the reinvigorated and burgeoning e-book market.
In an effort to protect their rights and hinder the possibility of pirating, some publishers which have engaged digital reading have released e-books in protected file formats that make use of a variety of forms of Digital Rights Management (DRM) to effectively limit what a purchasing reader can and cannot do with their digital purchase. There is a growing array of DRM protected formats with a varying degree of security and management which are currently available to digitally inclined publishers that go beyond the basic PDF format many computer users are familiar with today. These formats range from restricting e-book customers to reading their purchase on a single computer and without the capability to print, to specific timed limits on what and when portions of an e-book can be printed as well as limiting the ability of a user to share or transfer their purchased e-book and restricting the type of devices an e-book may be read on.
The recent developments of the release of Amazon's Kindle dedicated digital reading device and Sony's competing Reader Digital Book have sparked questions over the actual right of ownership a customer has to an e-book purchased and downloaded to a dedicated electronic reading device. Both devices make use of e-book technologies which restrict the reader in how they can read and use their purchased e-books. For example, Amazon's Kindle restricts the reading of e-books purchased from their Kindle store in accordance with the license which the purchaser must abide by in which Amazon "grants you the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy of the applicable Digital Content and to view, use, and display such Digital Content an unlimited number of times, solely on the Device or as authorized by Amazon as part of the Service and solely for your personal, non-commercial use."(7) This restriction effectively limits the reader from being able to transfer purchased e-books to another reader or resell used e-books like thousands of college and graduate students do at the end of every school term (8). Sony's Reader Digital Book has a similarly restrictive licensing agreement and compliant DRM software which restricts the user to reading the purchased e-book on the reader but allows for reading of the e-book on their computer and additionally allows multiple copies so long as they are registered to the same purchaser and compliant with licensing agreements. Both Sony and Amazon appear to be pursuing a trend of restrictive licensing for e-book purchasing and distribution.
This trend of e-book distributors and publishers to offer e-book purchases as compliant with licensing agreements rather than traditional sales of a physical product, as is the case with printed books, represents a new challenge to rights and ownership issues which the publishing industry has yet to fully work out. While the possibilities of communications and digital print technology have opened the door for new and more efficient means of content delivery, e-book ownership and rights issues have publishers and authors worried about the future security of book publishing, not too mention challenges and concerns by authors and readers surrounding the cultural implications of these new technologies.
1. Jim Milliot. "Report Finds Growing Acceptance of Digital Books", Publishers Weekly. New York 2/18/2008. 255.7: 6.
2. Fairfield Research Inc. "Traditional Publishing versus Digital Formats", The Digital Book in America, A 2008 Consumer Study. Executive summary. [PowerPoint Slides]
3. Walt Crawford, "Why Aren't Ebooks more successful", Econtentmag.com. October 2006. http://www.econtentmag.com/?ArticleID=18144
4. Kevin Kelly, "Scan This Book!" New York Times Magazine; May 14, 2006; p.42
5. Bob Thompson, "Explosive Words; At BookExpo America, Publishing's Digital Wave Crashes Against a Literary Pillar". The Washington Post. Washington, D.C.: May 22, 2006. pg. C.01
6. Gomez loosely defines "generation download" as "the generation coming of age in the new millennium" (Jeff Gomez, Print Is Dead: Books In Our Digital Age. New York: Macmillan, 2008. Quote appears on page 70.)
7. Amazon.com. Digital Content, Use of Digital Content. Amazon Kindle: License Agreement and Terms of Use. Last accessed on 4 April 2008. http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200144530
8. The reader should be aware that the full legal implications of this sort of license are still being explored and that this article is in no way acting as a form of legal advice or expert summation.
A recent consumer survey reported that the number of people who regularly download an electronic book or e-book to an e-book reader could reach around 16 million adults in the next few years(1). The report by Fairfield Research, Inc. also found that 17% of book buyers surveyed have purchased an e-book in some digital format but that 55% of those surveyed "will only buy traditionally published books."(2) The report as well as recent endeavors by companies like Sony and Amazon to corner the market on e-book technology has reignited the debate and controversy over digital print, its popularity, and the implications for publishers.
Beginning in the late nineties and reaching its zenith of speculation in the early days of the new millennium, publishing and technology industry gurus, analysts, and pundits alike touted the supposedly imminent increase and dominance of electronic books (e-books) almost as an inevitability. But rather than the billions of dollars in sales e-books were forecasted to result in by 2005, sales of these digital wonders seem to have missed the mark (3), though there is some cause for speculation that use, purchase, and acceptance of e-books is increasing. With the introduction in the past year of Amazon's Kindle dedicated e-book reader in addition to Sony's eReader, e-books and other forms of digital print are a growing topic of speculation and debate. The speculation concerns the simple question (with a multitude of not so simple complexities) of whether or not e-books and their ilk will rival traditional paper-based books and other print texts. Accompanying the speculation, debate revolves around the much more contested issues of whether or not a move to digital print is a positive advance for modern-day readers and writers; the clash between readers, authors, and technologists over the merits and values of digital reading; and the highly contested issue of digital rights management which has pitted publishers, copyright owners, lawyers, and consumers against one another to assert their interests and claimed rights.
At times, the debate over e-books can get personal and downright nasty. Witness the venom heaped upon "Scan This Book!", an article appearing in the New York Times Magazine in 2006 (4) written by Kevin Kelly (a founder and former editor of Wired magazine) by famed author John Updike at a BookExpo America convention that year. Before an audience of publishing industry representatives, Updike made sarcastic remarks that received applause in response to portions of the piece which suggested alternative means of generating revenue for authors given the possible ease of modification and reproduction of an author's work should it be digitized (5). On the other side of the aisle, author Jeff Gomez, in his recent Print Is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age, launched a two-hundred page (and somewhat anecdotal) argument that publishers, writers, and snobbish "literati" have to adjust their business and creative models for digitization and user-modifiable electronic consumption by "generation download," an endearing neologism used to denote an abstract demographic swath of modern consumers whose boundary seems to be somewhere under the age of thirty-five (6).
Much of the popular debate over e-books and digital print has consisted of resistant authors proclaiming the value of printed books as sacrosanct physical embodiments of their work (often conflating books as physical objects with the texts within the pages of books) and decrying the possibility of an age without or with less printed books in which readers may read predominantly in electronic formats. Beyond the polemics on authenticity, the controversy features a real problem regarding ownership rights. The "e-book question" presents a very real challenge to publishers, readers, and authors when it comes to the realm of digital rights management, or DRM, which is the body of law and opinion relating to rights of ownership and control over digital material. At the heart of publishers and authors reservations, is a desire to retain control over the distribution and consumption of printed material such that written works are protected from illegal reproduction and acquisition.
In the past, authors were often entitled to receive royalties from each purchased copy of their printed work, while publishers acted as middlemen between the author and reader to finance and handle the production, distribution, and promotion (often as well as the writing) and sought to earn a profit from sales of authors' printed works. On the readers end, readers that purchased printed copies of books were subsequently entitled to a degree of ownership over the specific copy of the printed book they purchased and were generally allowed to pass their copy along or sell their copy to someone else under what is commonly known as the "first sale doctrine." Digital print and e-book technology has posed new challenges to this relationship of rights between authors, publishers, and readers and has resulted in new interpretations of ownership and control rights as they relate to textual matters.
Part of the problem is how to reconcile the fears of publishers and authors over how their rights can and will be protected with the accessibility to written works which the emergence of e-books and digital print has dramatically increased. Many publishers are hesitant to fully engage the e-book market and digitize future as well as back catalogue releases because of concerns over the ease of distribution and reproduction inherent in online technologies. The fear that digitizing works could aid in pirating is a very real concern for publishers as it is a perceived direct attack on their ability to protect their control over their product as well as their ability to profit from their investment into the publication of a work. The logic here is simple; if publishers go digital, written works will be easier to copy and pass along which could increase pirating, and an increase in pirating could mean a decrease in sales from publication and distribution. The possibility of extreme conclusions from this line of logic could even inspire fear that with an increase in pirating and a decrease in incentive for publishers to finance and publish books, there could be an overall decrease in the number of quality works which publishers are willing to engage, a disturbing notion that implies a negative impact on modern literary culture. Some publishers now find themselves hesitant to engage in e-book publication or digitize printed books for electronic readership, however, other publishers have already entered the reinvigorated and burgeoning e-book market.
In an effort to protect their rights and hinder the possibility of pirating, some publishers which have engaged digital reading have released e-books in protected file formats that make use of a variety of forms of Digital Rights Management (DRM) to effectively limit what a purchasing reader can and cannot do with their digital purchase. There is a growing array of DRM protected formats with a varying degree of security and management which are currently available to digitally inclined publishers that go beyond the basic PDF format many computer users are familiar with today. These formats range from restricting e-book customers to reading their purchase on a single computer and without the capability to print, to specific timed limits on what and when portions of an e-book can be printed as well as limiting the ability of a user to share or transfer their purchased e-book and restricting the type of devices an e-book may be read on.
The recent developments of the release of Amazon's Kindle dedicated digital reading device and Sony's competing Reader Digital Book have sparked questions over the actual right of ownership a customer has to an e-book purchased and downloaded to a dedicated electronic reading device. Both devices make use of e-book technologies which restrict the reader in how they can read and use their purchased e-books. For example, Amazon's Kindle restricts the reading of e-books purchased from their Kindle store in accordance with the license which the purchaser must abide by in which Amazon "grants you the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy of the applicable Digital Content and to view, use, and display such Digital Content an unlimited number of times, solely on the Device or as authorized by Amazon as part of the Service and solely for your personal, non-commercial use."(7) This restriction effectively limits the reader from being able to transfer purchased e-books to another reader or resell used e-books like thousands of college and graduate students do at the end of every school term (8). Sony's Reader Digital Book has a similarly restrictive licensing agreement and compliant DRM software which restricts the user to reading the purchased e-book on the reader but allows for reading of the e-book on their computer and additionally allows multiple copies so long as they are registered to the same purchaser and compliant with licensing agreements. Both Sony and Amazon appear to be pursuing a trend of restrictive licensing for e-book purchasing and distribution.
This trend of e-book distributors and publishers to offer e-book purchases as compliant with licensing agreements rather than traditional sales of a physical product, as is the case with printed books, represents a new challenge to rights and ownership issues which the publishing industry has yet to fully work out. While the possibilities of communications and digital print technology have opened the door for new and more efficient means of content delivery, e-book ownership and rights issues have publishers and authors worried about the future security of book publishing, not too mention challenges and concerns by authors and readers surrounding the cultural implications of these new technologies.
1. Jim Milliot. "Report Finds Growing Acceptance of Digital Books", Publishers Weekly. New York 2/18/2008. 255.7: 6.
2. Fairfield Research Inc. "Traditional Publishing versus Digital Formats", The Digital Book in America, A 2008 Consumer Study. Executive summary. [PowerPoint Slides]
3. Walt Crawford, "Why Aren't Ebooks more successful", Econtentmag.com. October 2006. http://www.econtentmag.com/?ArticleID=18144
4. Kevin Kelly, "Scan This Book!" New York Times Magazine; May 14, 2006; p.42
5. Bob Thompson, "Explosive Words; At BookExpo America, Publishing's Digital Wave Crashes Against a Literary Pillar". The Washington Post. Washington, D.C.: May 22, 2006. pg. C.01
6. Gomez loosely defines "generation download" as "the generation coming of age in the new millennium" (Jeff Gomez, Print Is Dead: Books In Our Digital Age. New York: Macmillan, 2008. Quote appears on page 70.)
7. Amazon.com. Digital Content, Use of Digital Content. Amazon Kindle: License Agreement and Terms of Use. Last accessed on 4 April 2008. http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200144530
8. The reader should be aware that the full legal implications of this sort of license are still being explored and that this article is in no way acting as a form of legal advice or expert summation.