Technological Restrictions on E-Books and Culture Wars on Books in 2022

Despite the long title, this post will be fairly short. This blog used to publish a lot more often (I had a lot more free time in high school & college) and focus a lot more on issues related to free software, free culture, and things like that, yet even after looking through posts on this blog from its early years (which, aligning with the stereotype of an adult looking through essays written in high school, made me cringe at the quality of writing even if I agreed with some of the basic opinions), I actually couldn't find any posts specifically about the effects of so-called digital rights management (DRM) on E-books.

In any case, I was motivated to write this because I recently listened to an episode [LINK] of a podcast associated with The Daily Show in which the guests discussed recent instances of conservative politicians in the US preventing public schools & libraries from teaching or carrying books that offend those politicians' cultural sensibilities. I distinctly remember reading in high school & college about warnings of the consequences of putting DRM on E-books, including making it easier to ban such books. At that time, I and many others felt it would be ridiculous for politically motivated book bans to take effect in the US especially given respect for the First Amendment to the US Constitution. Leaving aside whether such book bans from public schools & libraries technically violate that amendment if such bans don't go beyond those domains, it is disheartening to see a direct example of censorship so closely connected to technological restrictions that are politically motivated (not due to fundamental technical limitations). It will be interesting to see whether authors of banned books encourage or tolerate people scanning & sharing unauthorized PDF files of the books for free; this wouldn't be unprecedented, given that the huge markup of textbooks in the US compared to other countries has led many textbook authors to encourage students to buy cheaper editions from other countries.

Sun Tzu and File Sharing

Yesterday, I was reading articles about eBook software for various OSs when I stumbled on the site Feedbooks which distributes eBooks of public domain works in various formats (including PDF). One of the featured books was Sun Tzu's The Art of War. I've heard several times that this book (handbook, really) is often used now for improving business and management strategies, and producing and selling movies and music is one such business, which file sharing is supposedly destroying. The debate over file sharing is often portrayed in popular media as a war between the poor, starving artists and the greedy freeloaders. In reality, of course, the poor, starving artists are just the RIAA and MPAA (though there are a handful of artists/filmmakers who genuinely resent and want to stop file sharing because they believe it harms there business), while the greedy freeloaders are actually people who would pay for such content if it was easy to buy and use and didn't have so many restrictions on its use (though there are quite a few people who would in fact only listen to music or watch videos for free (without regard to the legal status of said listening/watching)). So what if Sun Tzu was talking about file sharing? I can't analyze every single point made in the original book (I believe this is the Giles translation), but I will list a few that are very relevant to this issue (the citation of point Y in chapter X will be given as "(X.Y)"):

• Sun Tzu said: The art of war is of vital importance to the State. (1.1)
• It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected. (1.2)
• According as circumstances are favourable, one should modify one's plans. (1.16)
• Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardour damped, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity. Then no man, however wise, will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue. (2.4)
• Thus, though we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays. (2.5)
• Sun Tzu said: In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is better to capture an army entire than to destroy it, to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire than to destroy them. (3.1)
• Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting. (3.2)
• The general, unable to control his irritation, will launch his men to the assault like swarming ants, with the result that one-third of his men are slain, while the town still remains untaken. Such are the disastrous effects of a siege. (3.5)
• Therefore the skillful leader subdues the enemy's troops without any fighting; he captures their cities without laying siege to them; he overthrows their kingdom without lengthy operations in the field. (3.6)

Follow the jump to read a more sensible interpretation of this with regard to filesharing. (NOTE: I don't intend to be fair/balanced with this. I'm just interpreting it from what I've read and from my own preexisting opinions. If you don't agree, please feel free to leave a comment with a suggestion/alternative interpretation.)

2010 January 3: National Security and Book Piracy

The first thing I would like to talk about is national security - specifically the recent failed bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight bound for Detroit and the aftermath.
I think the way President Obama handled the issue showed that with respect to national security, he is as out of touch as George W. Bush was. Obama was vacationing in Hawaii when this happened and didn't even make an official response until 72 hours later.
More seriously, the government just couldn't connect the dots with respect to this terrorist. I have chastised Bush for not connecting the obvious dots before 9/11, and I am chastising Obama even more for not connecting the even more obvious dots.
For goodness sake, the terrorist's dad, after the terrorist dissolved ties with his family, went to the US Embassy to warn the ambassadors/other officials of his son's radicalization and to ensure that appropriate action is taken.
Appropriate action, anyone?
Umm, can anyone say oops?
To make matters worse, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said that regarding how the terrorist managed to slip through standard security, "the system worked".
What?
The system worked?
I don't even want to know what it would be like if it didn't work. Apocalypse now, anyone (pun definitely intended)?
Then, Napolitano clarified her previous statement, saying that "in this case, the system didn't work".
That didn't do her any favors (in my eyes).
Then, finally, Obama comes on the scene.
I definitely agree with Newsweek's analysis that his acknowledgement of the heroism of the passengers who subdued the terrorist was lacking, and that he should have been more full-on in the praise. To turn this into action, he should have increased the Citizen Corps's (the volunteer body designed for citizens to fight terrorism like this) budget and not the DHS's.
Furthermore, he said he would [and I'm paraphrasing here] "work with the Yemeni government". (The terrorist received training in Arabic and bombmaking in Yemen.)
What?
His "no-drama" approach has reached its physical limit. He really needs to take a hard stand against this sort of action. What could possibly happen through negotiation with the Yemeni government?
Obama has really dropped the ball on national security. He had better pick it up soon.

The second thing I want to talk about is book piracy - specifically, Native American poet and author Sherman Alexie's take on it.
Basically, he believes it is bad, which I agree with. However, he goes on to say that the open-source culture is fostering this, and that the whole culture is bad. He has also said that e-book readers are "elitist", on the grounds that poor rural people will not be able to buy them.
I think that last statement alone throws out his credibility on talking about new technologies and how they will shape the way we read.
Seriously? "Elitist"?
It's of course not going to be as expensive when it becomes more widespread. Furthermore, a lot of people even now don't have the money to purchase physical books, let alone e-books. That's why they go to the library to read/borrow their books. I foresee a similar thing happening in the future, at which point the readers themselves will be cheap enough for the people referred to by Alexie to publish.
I'm not going to pick on Alexie's misrepresentation of open-source culture, as it was a mix-up of terminology. That would just be mean and unfair of me.
I won't focus on Alexie anymore, as it pretty clear that he is pretty out of touch on the benefits and power such new technologies bestow. Of course, he also believes in going in person around the country to promote his book, especially in small towns; this is admirable, so I will leave him alone (his works seem to be pretty good on their own (i.e. discounting his views on technology)).
The larger point is about the future of reading, writing, and publishing.
With the very low prices of computers and word processing programs (heck, OpenOffice.org is free, as is AbiWord), it is very easy to physically type a book. The problem comes with then distributing it, ensuring that the author derives a fair return for this distribution. Now, it is very easy and cheap (though not totally free) to scan a published paper book and upload it to the Internet.
While reading through the comments on said article in Slashdot, I came across an idea which I thought was genius and should define future publishing; ironically, the basic concept is actually very old.
Charles Dickens used to publish his books in magazines in parts: basically, he would publish chapter 1 in one week's publication of the magazine, chapter 2 in the next week's publication, etc. He made huge profits from this, after which he published the entire book as a whole.
Stephen King has employed a similar system online; he can capitalize on his already-earned fame as a writer to do this. For some of his books, he has published chapter 1 online and would only publish the next chapter if he gets a certain number of legitimate sales for chapter 1 (or the current chapter). The vast majority of readers are willing to pay for the books and would rather acquire the book legally and not illegally, meaning that he has earned record profits from this model. After each chapter's sales target is met, the book is then published as a whole.
I think it's a model that can work for everyone, and it's a great model for its total reliance on the free market to determine whether the author floats or sinks, while creating an (not legally-binding) artificial scarcity that can only be circumvented through further purchase.
Granted, Stephen King can do this due to his already-earned fame, but other authors can and are doing it too. I see a new model in which the first 1 or 2 books by an author are distributed online for free (while donations are accepted), and if a sufficiently large fanbase is gathered, the aforementioned model can be employed.
Libraries could still operate; they could buy the fully-published physical book once it does become published.
Publishers and the WGA, your modus operandi is horribly outdated. People have been complaining about the current system, but until now, no suitable alternative has been proposed. Here it is.
I know there are probably a lot of flaws I haven't thought through. Please post those and any other suggestions/thoughts in the comments!