Impact of e-books

E-books will have impact on the publishing industry, on libraries and librarians, and on digital rights management.

E-book publishers/vendors

The centuries-old business model used by the publishing industry is unraveling. Its arcane hierarchical structure of writer, agent, editor, publisher, printer/binder, distributor and retailer is imploding. The e-book enables anyone to create books without the huge capital required to service this established order. Once an e-book is formatted, it can be distributed over the Internet without the conventional distribution and printing costs. The formatting process is very simple. The Microsoft Reader with ClearType offers one-click conversion of Word documents. The Open e-book Standard supports open source coding, hence all e-books formatted to this standard will work on all platforms, even though encryption solutions vary. Hence, publishers no longer need to contract with a printer/bindery, and need no warehousing, national retail distributor, sales representatives or bricks-and-mortar booksellers. Also, writers can submit manuscripts to publishers electronically, without an agent. A publisher can build an e-commerce Web site, connect personally with each customer, deliver e-books direct, worldwide, 24 hours a day and 365 days a year.

Broadly, e-book vendors fall into two groups. The first group is full-service hardware, software and content providers. These include Everybook (Everybook), NuvoMedia (Rocket eBook) and Softbook Press (Softbook). These vendors cover trade press (novels, romance and self-help), periodicals, and partnering deals. The second group is software and content-only providers. These include Librius, which offered its own viewer until recently, and Glassbook, which focuses solely on conversion, library control and viewer software. Both vendors support e-books for Palms, Windows CE devices, note-books and unspecified information appliances (Perlin, 1999).

Libraries/librarians

E-book technology creates circulation challenges for libraries/librarians. E-books, when downloaded, are locked into one specific device due to encryption and each title on each reader has to be paid for, so users cannot select specific titles to take home on the reader. This can be overcome by creating theme readers on which various titles can be loaded. The issuing and returning of e-book readers is time consuming. New users must be familiarized with the hardware during the check-out process, and notes made by previous users must be cleaned up after items are returned. Libraries also have to have credit cards to purchase e-books instantaneously. The e-book market is aimed at the individual customer and the vendors have no concept and little interest in the library market. Replacing the readers lost or damaged by users and cataloging the devices and the titles on the devices remains a challenge.

Digital rights management (DRM)

The DRM distribution cycle begins when an author creates an original work and submits it to an e-book publisher. The publisher converts the work to an e-book format, then employs DRM encryption to lock the file and generate a unique encryption key. The e-book distributor manages the encryption key and locked file, ensuring that unauthorized users cannot view the protected work. The e-book distributor transfers the work to an e-book retailer, who then sells the secure e-book online and offers e-book buyers an easy way to purchase keys to decrypt and read the work. The e-book buyer who visits an e-book retailer Web site can purchase the work and read it, using an e-book reading device, after unlocking the file with a DRM key.

The select market-leading DRM providers and solutions include: Adobe PDF Merchant and WebBuy; Xerox/Microsoft’s ContentGuard; Reciprocal.com; SoftLock; netLibrary; InterTrust MetaTrust Utility; LockStream.com; and e-book publisher solutions such as MightyWords.com. Based on competing formats and emerging open-source specifications, the industry is concerned to bring out a flexible DRM specification. The Electronic Book Exchange (EBX) Working Group was formed to create a copyright protection and distribution specification that works with all e-book formats. EBX is a voucher-file model that allows super-distribution, which enables e-book buyers to move e-books among different reading devices and permits borrowing, loaning and gift giving.

While negotiating e-book contracts, authors want acceptable compensation from all players in the DRM distribution cycle if, because of negligence, any one of them fails to encrypt or protect the author’s works. E-book publishers will seek to limit liability for loss in value of an author’s copyright as a result of preventable or foreseeable piracy. E-book DRM solutions are being coupled with rights clearinghouses that connect publishers, agents, sub-agents and book scouts worldwide.

Companies such as rightscenter.com and reciprocal.com provide secure receipt, storage, tracking and fulfillment of consumer orders for digital goods distributed through Web retail storefronts. Audit records of “keys” sent to e-book consumers are sent to the digital clearing service; this information is used to generate reports and distribute financial payments to publishers. Other techniques forward transactions in secure DigiBox containers that ensure that everyone who is supposed to be paid is paid and that audit data are immediately available. The implication of real-time payment and transaction-tracking means that standard publishing clauses, whereby royalty payments are held for months to facilitate publisher accounting systems will no longer be justified with regard to e-books (Neylon, 2001; Pimm, 2002).

Date: 2014-12-22; view: 923