Boog really cut my comment short when he quoted me for that article. He cut Mike's comment short as well.
Mike's comments basically said that it's okay to download the eBook as long as you pay for the eBook when the publisher gets around to releasing one.
My comment corrected the terminology (not piracy or theft, but civil copyright infringement), and then pointed out that Cohen's analogy was wrong - downloading the ebook was not akin to ripping a CD, for that to work, the user would have to scan and OCR the book himself. The difference was in the sweat-equity, the customer was paying for the new edition through time and effort (both scarce commodities).
And if customers didn't like a publisher not producing an eBook, let the customer know and support another who does.
No, watermarks are data that is contained within the file itself, undetectable to the human ear and requiring a special piece of technology to access.
This consumer-based information actually appears in the file's header, and can be accessed through any number of editing tools (including the default media players bundled into most OSes) as plain text.
With regards to how this would be a clear DMCA violation, I'd like to see your logic on that. As stated in the DMCA Section 1201(a)(3):
(A) to circumvent a technological measure means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner;
Now, this data is maintained in plaintext, so there is no descrambling nor decrypting. The question then seems to fall to the issue of whether that metadata is protected under copyright - and that answer seems to be no, as the metadata itself is examples of facts.
From what I can tell, it's not actually watermarking, just attached metadata. I don't know if it's similar to the ID3 metadata scheme or not, but it should be rather easy to alter. I've never had to do so - as I've never purchased anything from the offending retailers - but like most music geeks, I've gone through and done the corrects to my collections metadata by hand.
The upside to all this is, changing the metadata - either by removing your own details for privacy reasons, or adding details to make a track compatible with a cloud-based DRM scheme - doesn't seem to be a violation of the DMCA, at least not on the surface.
[Full disclosure - I am an independent digital strategist who works exclusively with authors and publishers. I am also a rather ardent supporter of eBooks and the potential they can bring.]
With regards to an honest breakdown of costs, there's been a couple done, but the problem is that costs differ from book to book even at the same publisher. However, the generalized cost for a priced eBook at $26 is as follows:
Footnotes
1 - Note that none of the author royalties are paid until the initial investment "earns out," that is, the author won't see any royalties until the advance from the publisher is fully recouped.
2 - Author royalties, while reasonably higher in electronic format (25% in eBook compared to 15% in hardcover, ~13 in trade paperback, and ~7.5% in mass market paperback), are variable because the debate has yet to be settled on which number the percent is derived from: list or net price. Current, most publishers are paying net, which means the author receives the lower royalty while the publisher earns the higher profit.
3 - The numbers that Motoko quoted for the $9.99 eBook in the source listed above are if the book is sold for $9.99 under the agency model. This set of data represents the current setup for eBooks sold on the Kindle under the wholesale system.
4 - I starred this number, as I've yet to see a major push by publishers to highlight the availability of the Kindle edition in anyway other than included with print announcements. If you take this number out of, under the current system, publishers earn more profit on a Kindle sale than the list price.
Granted, none of those numbers include incidental and fixed costs - office space, utilities, salaried staff, or unrecouped debt from the 70-90% of books that fail to earn out. However, this estimate also does not take into account rolling, continual, long tail profits from books that have earned out. So, there is a lot of room for fuzz with these numbers.
If memory serves me correctly, Orkut was released (in beta, of course) right around the same time as Gmail. The late spring of 2004. Both setups were moderately closed, requiring an invite, but users were given the ability to invite new users.
If you remember back, that was right around the same time that MySpace was gaining in popularity amongst teens and twenty-somethings in the United States. MySpace gained enough users to be self-sustaining in America, while the closed nature of Orkut became popular with Brazilian (and Indian) users.
As MySpace grew in importance in America, the number of active American users at Orkut atrophied. The more that left, the quicker the atrophy.
As a user who signed up for both services right around the same time, it was an interesting transition to watch.
There's a couple of people leaving anonymous comments on Boing Boing claiming to be from the same school or school district. The purported word on the street is that the minor defendant was smoking marijuana.
I think the chart would be better served with a third color representing the remaining people who, even in a survey, admit that they will not pay.
I'd also like to see the questions used in the survey - after all, I have (at one point or another) paid for at least a single item from most of the categories. However, the vast majority of the times I find other means to access the content that don't involve payment.
That is, the question is likely predicated to include everyone who's ever paid (even once) for a digital product in the blue, inflating the numbers further than they are in reality.
That's how I took it to mean. As physical relics, the compact disc will be around a long while. However, the modern CEO is a fleeting animal, which cannot exist in one location for long.
On the post: Misguided Outrage At NY Times' Ethicist Over Ethics Of Downloading A Book
Mike's comments basically said that it's okay to download the eBook as long as you pay for the eBook when the publisher gets around to releasing one.
My comment corrected the terminology (not piracy or theft, but civil copyright infringement), and then pointed out that Cohen's analogy was wrong - downloading the ebook was not akin to ripping a CD, for that to work, the user would have to scan and OCR the book himself. The difference was in the sweat-equity, the customer was paying for the new edition through time and effort (both scarce commodities).
And if customers didn't like a publisher not producing an eBook, let the customer know and support another who does.
Since Jason didn't link to the original article, you can find it here: http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/publishing/ny_times_ethicist_approves_of_illegal_downloading_an _ebook_157343.asp
On the post: As Expected, Labels Now Want To Use Privacy-Reducing Watermarks As 'Cloud DRM'
Re: Re: Not Actually Watermarking
This consumer-based information actually appears in the file's header, and can be accessed through any number of editing tools (including the default media players bundled into most OSes) as plain text.
With regards to how this would be a clear DMCA violation, I'd like to see your logic on that. As stated in the DMCA Section 1201(a)(3):
(A) to circumvent a technological measure means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner;
Now, this data is maintained in plaintext, so there is no descrambling nor decrypting. The question then seems to fall to the issue of whether that metadata is protected under copyright - and that answer seems to be no, as the metadata itself is examples of facts.
On the post: As Expected, Labels Now Want To Use Privacy-Reducing Watermarks As 'Cloud DRM'
Not Actually Watermarking
The upside to all this is, changing the metadata - either by removing your own details for privacy reasons, or adding details to make a track compatible with a cloud-based DRM scheme - doesn't seem to be a violation of the DMCA, at least not on the surface.
On the post: Are Publishers Putting Too Much Stock In The iPad, Or Are They Just Doing It Wrong?
Re: Re: Re:
With regards to an honest breakdown of costs, there's been a couple done, but the problem is that costs differ from book to book even at the same publisher. However, the generalized cost for a priced eBook at $26 is as follows:
Wholesale price: $13
Authors Royalty (*1): $3.90
Printing/Storage/Shipping: $3.25
Design/Typesetting/editing: $0.80
Marketing: $1.00
-
Profit before overhead: $4.05
Agency Model pricing structure, eBook, $12.99 list price
Publisher's 70%: $9.09
Author's Royalty (*2): $2.27~$3.25
Digitizing/Typesetting/Editing: $.50
Marketing: $0.78
-
Profit before overhead: $4.56~$5.54
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2010/03/01/business/01ebook_g.html?ref=media
Extrapolated Kindle Costs under Wholesale Model, $9.99 list (*3)
Wholesale Price: $13
Authors Royalty (*2): $2.50~3.25
Design/Typesetting/editing: $0.50
Marketing (*4): $0.78
-
Profits before Overhead: = $8.47~9.22
Footnotes
1 - Note that none of the author royalties are paid until the initial investment "earns out," that is, the author won't see any royalties until the advance from the publisher is fully recouped.
2 - Author royalties, while reasonably higher in electronic format (25% in eBook compared to 15% in hardcover, ~13 in trade paperback, and ~7.5% in mass market paperback), are variable because the debate has yet to be settled on which number the percent is derived from: list or net price. Current, most publishers are paying net, which means the author receives the lower royalty while the publisher earns the higher profit.
3 - The numbers that Motoko quoted for the $9.99 eBook in the source listed above are if the book is sold for $9.99 under the agency model. This set of data represents the current setup for eBooks sold on the Kindle under the wholesale system.
4 - I starred this number, as I've yet to see a major push by publishers to highlight the availability of the Kindle edition in anyway other than included with print announcements. If you take this number out of, under the current system, publishers earn more profit on a Kindle sale than the list price.
Granted, none of those numbers include incidental and fixed costs - office space, utilities, salaried staff, or unrecouped debt from the 70-90% of books that fail to earn out. However, this estimate also does not take into account rolling, continual, long tail profits from books that have earned out. So, there is a lot of room for fuzz with these numbers.
On the post: Google Fined For Not Blocking Dirty Jokes
Orkut's Popularity in Brazil
If you remember back, that was right around the same time that MySpace was gaining in popularity amongst teens and twenty-somethings in the United States. MySpace gained enough users to be self-sustaining in America, while the closed nature of Orkut became popular with Brazilian (and Indian) users.
As MySpace grew in importance in America, the number of active American users at Orkut atrophied. The more that left, the quicker the atrophy.
As a user who signed up for both services right around the same time, it was an interesting transition to watch.
On the post: School Accused Of Spying On Kids In Their Homes With Spyware That Secretly Activated Webcams
Re:
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/02/17/school-used-student.html#comment-716396
On the post: Will People Pay For Content Online?
I'd also like to see the questions used in the survey - after all, I have (at one point or another) paid for at least a single item from most of the categories. However, the vast majority of the times I find other means to access the content that don't involve payment.
That is, the question is likely predicated to include everyone who's ever paid (even once) for a digital product in the blue, inflating the numbers further than they are in reality.
On the post: Universal Music Gets A New CEO... Who Thinks CDs Are The Future
Re:
On the post: Universal Music Gets A New CEO... Who Thinks CDs Are The Future
Re: THIS....
On the post: Warner Music Shoots Self In Head; Says No More Free Streaming
On the post: Yes, Three Strikes Laws Have Unintended Consequences That Even Music Industry Execs Hate
Re: Turns out
Next >>