Interview with Bill Rosenblatt

This month we talked with Bill Rosenblatt, whose blog Copyright and Technology regularly discusses issues related to digital property, piracy, Digital Rights Management (DRM), and the latest technological innovations (including eBooks and eReaders). Author of the book Digital Rights Management: Business and Technology, Bill has worked in the publishing industry and is the founder of GiantSteps Media Technology Strategies, which supports content providers and technology vendors working with digital media. As a recognized authority on both digital media technology and the security of intellectual property online, Bill had a lot of insight to offer on the subject of eBook piracy and protection.

 

 

You've published a book about Digital Rights Management, and it's constantly a popular subject on your blog. Can you tell us a little more about DRM?

In the narrowest sense, DRM is file encryption. The file is gibberish unless you have software or hardware on the eReading device that decrypts the content, and you need permission to decrypt it. This permission can be granted through authentication - you must prove to the service that either you or the device is allowed to access that content. For example, in the case of the Kindle, a customer buys an eBook from Amazon, and if a Kindle is registered to their account, the software will decrypt the eBook on their Kindle. This eBook won't work on other people's Kindles, though. And even if you could get file off of the Kindle, it wouldn't be readable because it's the Amazon account that enables you to read it. That's why applications from the Kindle can run on other devices, like a Blackberry or an iPhone - the personal account is what matters to unlock the DRM.

 

So the Kindle has its own DRM - does each eReader require different DRM for the eBooks that can be read on it?

 

There are two major flavors of DRM: the Amazon format used for the Kindle and Kindle apps, called Mobipocket, and the Adobe format, used by just about all the other eBook readers, including Sony, Barnes and Noble, Plastic Logic, etc. There's also the Blio reader, which uses Microsoft PlayReady DRM, but that one is much smaller at this point. Right now there is a two horse race evolving between Amazon and Adobe. This situation is very, very typical in tech markets: there is a market leader and there's everybody else. The market leader has technology that doesn't interoperate with everybody else's technology, so everyone bands together to compete with the leader. This happened in the music industry - we had the Apple iPod DRM vs. the Microsoft DRM, so music bought on iTunes could be played on the iPod, but couldn't be played by any other music player; on the other hand, music obtained in the Microsoft DRM could be played on any music player that uses that technology. I'm not sure that it's the case yet that, for example, you could buy an eBook using the Adobe DRM and have it be interoperable between eReaders. When the Apple iPad comes out, it will have its own DRM for eBooks, so that will add another competitor to this race. There are usually two major formats that compete with each other in this kind of technology market, and in this case there may be three formats, if the industry decides to stick with DRM.

 

Who has more control over the DRM on eBooks, the publisher or the author? For instance, could a self-publishing author have DRM on their eBooks?

 

Good question. I don't know the answer, though. If you wanted to get Amazon to publish your eBook to be listed on the Kindle, then it would be formatted with DRM for the Kindle. You can also put it up on Scribd, which uses Adobe DRM if the author chooses to use DRM. Basically, you choose your DRM based on which service you submit your eBook to.

 

Do you see one of these formats of DRM winning out in the end, or will there always be a divide between formats?

 

Barnes and Noble enhanced the DRM on their eBooks to allow lending, and maybe Adobe will adapt it so that the Barnes and Noble format becomes the standard DRM, and eBooks can be shared among multiple eReaders. But otherwise, that's just the way it is. It took years for Microsoft files and Apple files to be readable from a PC to a Mac. If that happens for eBooks and eReaders, it will be a while. My opinion is that there's never going to be full interoperability unless we give up DRM. Only then will there be ways to translate eBooks between eReaders. It's just a fact of life in the digital world.

What other methods are being used to protect the rights of authors and publishers?

 

Well, there are a couple other things to do. Microsoft introduced something several years ago called the Microsoft Reader, which is no longer available, but similar technology is now referred to as "social DRM." With the Microsoft Reader, you could set your level of protection as a choice of no protection, social DRM, or full encryption DRM. With social DRM, it is not encrypted, but it is embedded with personal information about the user, like a credit card number for example. Then, if the user wants to send the file to someone, they have to ask themselves, "Do I want them to know this information?" which would prevent widespread file-sharing. Many readers would object to that kind of technology on privacy grounds, and people in general don't like DRM, so social DRM is not an easy answer.

 

Other ways really vary - it's all about how easy it is to hack. How much of a hassle is it? Encryption is hard to hack, generally, but there are levels of encryption. If there is an unencrypted eBook with a credit card number on the front page, that is relatively easy to remove. If a unique serial number is embedded on each eBook you buy, they can be traced back to you, but that can be removed as well. How inconvenient is this? A phrase I really like to describe it is from Jaron Lanier's book You Are Not a Gadget: "Locks are only amulets of inconvenience." These different schemes for protecting files are only measured by how inconvenient they are to pirates. There is a theory that says that no DRM is hackproof, that once it is hacked, all bets are off. This is a ridiculous theory, because the only question is how much trouble are you willing to go through in order to get this thing? It's all about inconvenience and risk.

Do you think that eBooks and ePublishing are comparable to mp3s and the music industry, in that file-sharing sites for eBooks (RapidShare, BitTorrent, etc.) will continue to grow in popularity?
Absolutely.

 

Can you suggest ways for authors and publishers to combat piracy?

DRM is not a cure-all for eBook piracy. Publishers try to fight piracy, and they do it in a number of different ways, ranging from putting out a decent product at a fair price, so people don't feel compelled to pirate, to educating the public about copyright issues, to technological measures like DRM, to legal enforcement. They are fighting the battle on all fronts. DRM will help cut down on some unauthorized activities that people would otherwise do, but if they're really determined, they'll find a way to pirate eBooks. DRM tries to balance effectiveness against piracy and inconvenience to the user.

 

One big problem is that no one has a way to measure the effectiveness of DRM in relation to its cost to publishers. Questions like "exactly how many times did this illegal copy turn into a legitimate sale?" are hard to answer. There are different variables, and the attempted studies to quantify these variables have fallen short. At this point, publishers use DRM just because they think it will help, not because it is a proven fact.

I know it's been suggested, for instance, that lowering eBook prices (to $.99) would help. What do you think?

 

No. In a nutshell, that's a terrible idea. Now I'm going to reveal my personal bias: I myself am a book author, and I'm also the son of musicians. I firmly believe that content creators should get paid and should be able to make a living. Continual lowering of prices only gets you to zero. The content in question should have a perceived value to the public. Because of the way that record companies are now distributing music, the user perceives it as being free or close to free, and thus music is perceived to have no value. Lowering prices on eBooks is the same slippery slope: it cannot be the answer if it will put publishers out of business and make sure authors have no incentive to write. Just because something is digital doesn't mean it doesn't cost money to distribute. Of course, eBooks do not cost the same amount as printed books, but they still cost money to market and distribute, so they cannot be free. Lowering prices is a dangerous game that doesn't benefit authors. That's not to say that people should charge as much as possible for eBooks, though. One thing they could try is to charge more for files without DRM. People will pay more for DRM-free files, because they are more interoperable.

 

On that note, what do you think of the recent disputes between Amazon and publishers like Macmillan over eBook prices?

 

I don't really have an opinion on how much an eBook should cost. These disputes are getting into certain aspects of competition law and antitrust law. Essentially, if you're a manufacturer of something, you cannot dictate the retail prices - those are left up to retailer. Amazon is trying to build the market for eBooks, so they have established low prices for them. Now, for the iPad, Apple isn't considered a retailer, but rather as an agent for the publishers, so the publishers have a say in the pricing of eBooks. As far as the "right" price for eBooks goes, I don't have an opinion, though.