Design vs Art is following very close the developments on the electronic paper (epaper) industry. We think it is a great technology that is about to explode. Specially ebook readers could be the next big thing. Epaper is making the revolution that will change everything unstoppable. For that reason, the publishing industry needs a redesign.
After hearing about the Amazon-George Orwell incident (article on the New York Times), I decided to try to buy Orwell’s Animal Farm ebook in its original language and to write down on my Moleskine details about that experience. From the beginning the task was set to be difficult; I had an Amazon Kindle and I live in Germany, meaning that I can not buy ebooks at the Amazon/Kindle store.
The above described exercise took me to the following impressions:
Amazon would not sell me the ebook with a European credit card, so I went to Mobipocket.com and bought the digital version of Animal Farm. The Mobipocket software does not work on Apple Macs so I directly downloaded the book and send it to the Kindle using Calibre, an ebook management software. I tried to open the ebook and I got a disgusting message saying that the file was protected and could not be displayed in an unregistered device. Of course, I didn’t know that I could not register a Kindle on Mobipocket.
In case I was not clear enough, I would like to say again that I paid for the book I was trying to open. The whole user experience was totally frustrating.
You are not allowed to read this ebook on this unregistered device.
What I discovered while looking for ebooks is that copyright laws are actually preventing publishers to make more money. Many ebooks are available only for some countries; if the user is connecting from another place she might not be allowed to buy and download the book. That’s a model that used to work fine in the past, but the future is digital and people want to buy from different resources.
For copyright reasons you can not buy this ebook from your country.
I tried to find Animal Farm in a German ebook store but I found only the German version of it. I wanted to buy the book in English language but it was not available. A lot of people love reading books in different languages, if this kind of restrictions continue customers will lose, students will lose, publishers will lose.
Even worse, somebody could eventually decide which version of a book a whole nation should read. This is something that might be already happening somewhere in the world, but readers have the chance to travel, buy books somewhere else and smuggle them if necessary; something that is not going to be possible in a digital publishing industry controlled but old copyright laws.
You have to use our German store, buy the German version of this ebook.
In a completely digital publishing industry the control over what people should read could be managed in an easier way. Amazon showed its customers how dangerous its proposed design is. I am not blaming neither Amazon nor publishers. But what if an untrustworthy government buys a piece of Amazon and controls what Kindle users read? A book could be deleted or a paragraph could be changed to benefit somebody. Recently, Barnes & Noble announced it would team up with Plastic Logic to mimic the Kindle experience, enforcing a trend started by Amazon but that could (actually, hopefully) fail.
Yes, the user experience of buying an ebook at Amazon and have it delivered to a Kindle is great. Everybody loves that. But I have also read comments on forums from panicking customers promising not to activate their Kindle wireless feature anymore, worrying that the ebooks they bought in the past could disappear. The user experience is broken, the system is not trusty anymore.
Delete that ebook from all the devices in this country.
We have to help the publishing industry to survive. We should pay for our music and for our books. Publishers are in disadvantage in comparison to the music industry, they can not make money selling concert tickets. But illegal copies of books are already there and they will be there for ever, it can not be stopped. It is also impossible to stop the ebook reader revolution.
I looked for the electronic version of Animal Farm on a torrent search engine. The book was there. I could have downloaded it for free in a few seconds. It could have been so easy…
I have to say this again: I tried to get a legal copy of the book. I actually paid for the book, but I was not allowed to read it on my device.
To download an ebook illegally is already easier than buying it.
The publishing business needs a redesign in order to keep making money and to sponsor writers. The danger is big but the future could also be brighter for publishers. This new technology offers the possibility of a better, faster, cost-effective distribution system. They only have to make it happen before someone else do it for them, sooner or later.
Article by Alexis Brion.
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