Penguin Pointlessly Annoys Readers With USB-Only eBooks
from the screw-you,-customers dept
Reader Jason Alcock alerts us to another example of a company taking a backwards approach to value-added services by putting artificial restrictions on their content. Apparently, while ebooks from the popular publisher Penguin are available to borrow from Kindle libraries, Penguin requires that they only be transferrable by USB, not wireless. This, in turn, means that they cannot be read with the free Kindle apps on platforms like iOS and Android, since USB transfer is only supported on the Kindle device itself.
I'm at a loss as to what this is supposed to accomplish. Kindle books are DRM-controlled regardless of how they are transmitted, so it has no impact on the potential for piracy. Presumably Penguin thinks this will spur more readers to buy rather than borrow, but in reality it has just created consumer confusion and angry backlash.
Of course, this isn't the first time a publisher has tried to place arbitrary restrictions on ebook lending. It's an especially frustrating trend, because the entire concept of "lending" ebooks is already one big artificial restriction. When will content companies learn that courting customers is about adding value, not taking it away?
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
USB?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: USB?
For regular Kindle users, it's only really an inconvenience. I tend to acquire a book on the amazon website, then turn on the wireless on my Kindle, and it will download. If I were to get one of these books, I'd have to get the cable, plug it into the computer, and figure out how to download books that way.
For people who use the kindle apps on their iOS/Andoids, it means they cannot use these books at all.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
yea
Then we just need to do away with cords. Wireless charging sound and data, I threw my last cable away when the powermat came.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
I've read articles in the past where publishers cite this as the reason they have not created more periodicals for the Kindle.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/content-and-e-books/article/46244-kindl e-we-have-a-problem-amazon-s-pricing-policies-affect-publishers-.html
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Learning Russian
http://www.rumvi.com/catalog/ebook/
"Russian ebooks available through Rumvi.com can be downloaded in different formats – epub, PDF, fb2, TXT and HTML among others. "
i.e. straightforward files - no DRM (and sensibly low prices).
Rumvi is able to operate like this, make a profit and pay the authors. Why can't the big english language publishers do the same?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Now where's my Jolly Roger?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: USB?
I don't think you even have to be rooted to take advantage of said workarounds, which means it's even easier to do for the Average Non-Willing To Tinker Joe.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Learning Russian
[ link to this | view in thread ]
In other news, your local grocery store dispenses with shopping trolleys and instead say you have to use a wheelbarrow (with only one handle, not two) to bring your goods to the car. So say the grocery store
In other news, a DVD won't play on your PC if you have two or disk drives. So say the movie studio
In other news, all of this means restricting what the customer does with purchase post sale.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Fruit loops...
Just look at iTunes incredible success. Why? Because it's EASY.
Make it easy... people buy. Make it hard... people find ways to make it easy themselves.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
While there is much complaint about pricing models being silly for ebook versions, it looks like (at least in the Amazon example) that Amazon wants books to be only $2.99 - $9.99. You get 70% as the publisher of the sale price, but then Amazon is still collecting a delivery fee. If you price below $2.99 or above $9.99 you only are paid 35% of the sale price and no delivery fee.
So is this that different than the gatekeeper model we seeing used in music sales? That at every step along the way everyone takes a cut. Amazon gets a cut of 30% off the sale price, and then decides they get some more fees based on how big the file ends up being. And the publisher then needs to make the file as small as possible and stick the price at $9.99 to get the best profit margin.
While I can understand how the USB only policy might look backwards and stupid, if Penguin is being forced to cough up more money every time the file is downloaded why would they not look for ways to avoid extra fees to get their books out there?
What is the happy balance?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: USB?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: yea
[ link to this | view in thread ]
and dont call me Shirley
[ link to this | view in thread ]
To be fair to them though, they are looking at a pretty scary situation.
They believe that libraries don't too terribly impact on sales of real books because people have to travel to them and the books have to be returned and it all has a certain level of inconvenience.
So they see current ebook lending as being no less convenient than purchasing ebooks and massively more convenient than purchasing actual books and that is only because of their restrictions, without them library lending of ebooks would actually be more convenient than purchasing ebooks (as the only difference currently is the cost to the user and the availability of titles and with library lending there would be no cost and without the restrictions imposed there would be no shortage of titles available to borrow).
So given that if there were nothing less convenient about libraries they can see no reason why people would ever buy an ebook again and their business would have to get by on the roughly 6 pence a book/loan that they get from library lending (in the UK anyhow).
If you posit a situation where libraries can lend unlimited copies of whatever digital books they have, for as long as the readers wish to keep them and they can do it all from the comfort of their home/work pc or even directly from their ereader, wherever they might happen to be, then you can see why they would be dubious about anyone ever buying an ebook again. You can see why they would think that for the majority of people and the majority of books that purchasing in those conditions would be nonsensical and bang goes their business and the livelihoods of most professional writers would also be gone.
And yet, they do believe in making works available, they do believe that it is a good thing for those who cannot afford books to be able to borrow them and so they are left with hoping to recreate the "inconvenience" factor of regular library book loans, time limited borrowing, availability limited borrowing and having to travel to a specific location to avail of the library service.
I can see that their answer is the wrong answer because while it addresses their concerns it fails to take the true reality of the situation into account, which is, as we all know that whether they choose to make them available or not for lending, all popular titles will still be available for free via piracy whether it suits them or not.
Truthfully, I am not sure that libraries will survive this change, I am sure that writers will and some form of publishers will but I find it hard to see how libraries will be able to keep the good will of the industry when even with restrictions the reciprocal good done for the industry is so hard to see and without good will from the publishers it is easy to imagine them refusing to allow lending of ebooks at all.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: and dont call me Shirley
[ link to this | view in thread ]
USB mode
Uhhh, I hope this is in reference to Kindle lending libraries specifically and not Kindle books in general. I load ebooks into the Kindle app via USB all the time on my Android tablet (rooted Nook color) and phone (non-rooted HTC Thunderbolt). Plug it in, turn on USB at the prompt, and copy the book into the /kindle directory on the SD card. Eject, unplug, and fire up the Kindle app and start reading.
Kindle books are DRM-controlled regardless of how they are transmitted
Also not true. Some Kindle books have DRM, but many do not. You can even do a search for "drm free" on Amazon and get page after page of matching results.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: and dont call me Shirley
So no, there's nothing being shipped.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
The cars will still have conventional engines, though. However, they have no starter engine (which saves battery). The engine can be manually started by using two hand-cranks conveniently located in the front and the rear of the car, which must be turned synchronously.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
Sometimes there are gatekeepers along the path, in sheeps clothing, who will extract their pound of flesh no matter what.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
"Penguin requires that they only be transferrable by USB, not wireless"
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Censorship
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Yet another poster-child...
Attention Masnick! Attention! TD really needs a "Stupid-middleman tricks" tag (apologies if I simply haven't noticed one yet) to make it easier for we readers to quickly find over-the-top examples of poster-child/WTF-were-they-ever-thinking such as this. (For those moments when we need to be able to quickly find something at which we can roll our eyes and groan in disbelief, because no hammer is readily within reach and for some reason we wish to repeatedly hit ourselves on the head.)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
> about anyone ever buying an ebook again
Except, of course, the libraries. You know that libraries have to buy the books they lend out, right? And people still have the desire to own books, because then they can read them or refer to them after the lending period. E-books don't change any of that.
> I am not sure that libraries will survive this change
What are you talking about? The change to e-books? Publishers better find a solution, because "refusing to allow lending of ebooks" is not a solution. First-sale says I can do whatever I want with my purchace. If publishers try and do an end-run around that by claiming sh!t like, "You've actually purchased a licence to a book" (whatever the hell that means) they will find the public will not tolerate it. They have to find a way to lend e-books like dead-tree books, or there will be a mass exodus to infringement. The public recognizes bullsh!t.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: and dont call me Shirley
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Can't see an inherent value in ebooks anyway.
A paper copy has 'value' is tangible etc...
If a paper copy is purchased, an ebook is really only an 'add-on' that should be available as a supplement to the physical book for say a nominal fee, to allow the reading on and portability offered by electronic devices.
If an ebook is purchased it should cost a minimal amount.
IMHO.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Still learning..
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Still learning..
Almost like a 3rd party was collecting a cut over and over and over....
[ link to this | view in thread ]
What the customer hears: "You should just go ahead and pirate our content."
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: USB?
Oh, and as an added bonus, I get to charge my phone while I'm transferring files!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: USB?
It's all just a matter of personal preference.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
What the customer ignores: the company that sold you your happy reader, is demanding more money from the publishers to pay for the bandwidth for your checked out book.
Your "free" downloading capabilities have a price, and they all have to use the toll roads from each ebook seller.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
As it currently stands libraries do buy more than that and if you check out numerous libraries that have overdrive you will see many titles not available as (in the current bizarre world of overdrive) all copies are already loaned out along with a long list of people waiting to get the next available copy.
These restrictions however are not making the publishers happy, they still feel that without the inconvenience of actually having to make special trips to the library the lending will impact sales. They may even be right.
I do not agree with their solutions as I stated because they simply ignore the fact that drm free copies of pretty much all ebooks are readily available over the internet and putting these restrictions on libraries will not affect that one iota. So they are damaging the ability of libraries to function while not boosting sales at all.
Their paranoia may see them withdrawing from any kind of ebook lending in which case libraries become pointless, cute and quirky places that only hold paper books and that would spell the end for libraries.
Libraries as physical places that you actually go to are probably doomed in the medium term anyway, but rather than the obvious progression of morphing into online resources which the publishers would strenuously oppose what future can you imagine for them?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
Specialist libraries or University type combined quiet study area with access to information are a slightly different matter.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: USB?
Now it is understandable, still not a great decision but at least it kinda makes sense.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
Also, you made my point exactly. Your "free" downloading capabilities cost the publisher money. If you just pirate, you won't cost them any money. The publisher is making it more practical for customers to pirate rather than to check out the books from the library.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: yea
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
The platform (software) has demands.
The platform (hardware) has demands.
The consumer has demands.
The costs listed in the article linked above ...
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120307/11580818023/penguin-pointlessly-annoys-readers-with-u sb-only-ebooks.shtml#c110
Show that they are extracting even more than the rate the cell companies are charging their consumers. So a large company like Amazon was unable to get a better rate than consumers?!
While this might lead to more people pirating, I do not think its tone deaf publishers doing it. They are being bled by the platforms, and then bled again and again every time someone checks out a book. Imagine if every time a dead tree copy was checked out, there had to be a payment made by someone to someone else involved in producing the book.
While this solution is not the best, it does stop the bleeding while they look for another path to let people check books out to read.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
A single person with a digital file can seed it and have millions of people get a copy - which is why a library and piracy have nothing to do with each other at all.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The consumer of devices other than kindles are already paying for their bandwidth, why would the "platform" be double dipping in this way for android and ios platform versions?
Does the fault of this lie in the control of the platform staying on 1 location where more fees can be extracted, rather than creating a system where the library maintains their "copies" on their network and could offer the checkouts via a wireless connection they provide that doesn't require paying to be connected to the whole of the internet?
But then this might eat into the profits others are getting by keeping their gatekeeper position, so obviously it is a bad idea. /sarc
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
that they cannot compete with free.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
No. Not only does Amazon not charge publishers for delivering library books but library books are WiFi only; no 3G fees involved.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Jolly Roger
All your content files are just ordinary files that you can copy around as you please. They play on any device you choose, with no internet connection required. That is the way things should be.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The stupid, it burns
I continue to be baffled by the silly restrictions publishers put on their content. It doesn't serve the business goals that they claim to be aiming for, it hurts legitimate consumers, and people who are willing to pirate that content can still do so easily. There's zero point in this kind of behavior by publishers.
We've decided not to buy another Penguin book.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Enter your zip code here
[ link to this | view in thread ]
There must be a workaround to break their bullshit
[ link to this | view in thread ]