[bookport] Re: the realistic nature of piracy and the reasonableness of the NLS focus on copyright protections (little actual bookport content)

  • From: Kelly Pierce <kellytalk@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2007 16:34:23 -0500

Christy analysis of the audio book market also explains why companies can't just be judged on access issues on what they do with audio books alone. For example, the publishing divisions of Newscorp nearly universally do not allow their audio books on Overdrive to be burned onto a CD. Yet, the company's major film division, 20th Century Fox, has committed to releasing all of its movies with both audio descriptions and closed captions. This is a major commitment that only one other company, general electric, has done in pledging support for accessible content. 


Kelly
----- Original Message ----- From: "Christy Porter" <cporter001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
To: <bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2007 12:50 PM
Subject: [bookport] Re: the realistic nature of piracy and the reasonableness of the NLS focus on copyright protections (little actual bookport content) 



.>  It

would be interesting to learn if certain publishers were consistently

absent

from the audible catalog of materials.


Well, it's probably easier or more realistic to consider the issue on an
author by author basis, since each work has audio rights that must be
purchased from the author originally.  Most major publishers have audio
divisions these days, or make use of existing producers like Recorded Books, Brilliance, or Books on Tape. Simon and Schuster has it's own division, as does Random House. Not sure about some of the others. But not every title they produce is made into an audio book, only the ones they think will make them money with the general public. And you'll notice that the majority of books available for general public consumption are still abridged. This is also a way of "protecting" copyright, or creative work, since you have to go 
buy the hard copy to get the whole thing.  It's also a factor of the
expected audio attention span of the average user -- not very long! --
rather than of the attention span of people who rely on audio, like us.
[smile]

--Christy
http://caution-blind-driver.blogspot.com/



-----Original Message-----
From: bookport-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bookport-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
On

Behalf Of albert griffith
Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2007 4:06 AM
To: bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bookport] Re: the realistic nature of piracy and the

reasonableness of

the NLS focus on copyright protections (little actual bookport content)

Currently, sound Taxi, a fifteen dollar program will convert Audible

files.

I originally purchased the program to convert files I received from my
public library through a service, Net Library.  Net Library, and

Overdrive,

are two audio book publishing concerns which distribute books to library
lending sites.  Both companies offer downloadable books and they have

allot
to choose from. Sound Taxi allowed me to play the files on my Book Port. 
I

felt cracking their scheme was appropriate civil disobedience since I

wasn't

distributing them for profit.  I'm the guy who stated, some publishers
didn't want to work with Audible. I only guessed the reason was security related but I remember reading there were some concerns in that area I'm 
grateful I still have thousands

of title from which to choose through my local lending library because I
don't usually like carrying around a cassette player. I sold my book port 
in anticipation of receiving the new model.

-----Original Message-----
From: bookport-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bookport-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
On Behalf Of Christy Porter
Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2007 2:24 AM
To: bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bookport] the realistic nature of piracy and the reasonableness 
of

the NLS focus on copyright protections (little actual bookport content)

Good point.  If I remember correctly, at one point, each title had a

little
cd with flames next to it to indicate that burning to cd was possible for the title. By the time audible.com redesigned all its webpages, I was no longer using the screen, but JAWS, so I don't know if they still indicate 
this for each individual title.
On the other hand, when I was still driving and even now for road trips, I 
burn titles to CD to share over the car audio system since it's more
interactive on a long trip, and we enjoy sharing some titles. I must have 
40 to 50 books burned to cd, all in their little paper covers, filed and
stored [grin]. Yes, I'm such a geek. [laughing], but the cd's are about

the

only organized thing in the house, so I'm content.

So far, though, I've never run into a title that I could not burn to CD.
I've not made use of Audible Manager for quite some time, however. Do you 
still have to download the cd burning software as a separate add-on?
Anyway, personally, I've always been extremely pleased with audible

overall.



And I have to agree with what others have said.  If someone is really

intent

on breaking copyright, they'll find a way.  It seems to me a matter of
weighing the potential for making money from selling audiobooks in a
reasonably protected format that is still somewhat flexible like the

Audible

books vs. having copyright protection as a primary concern, above and

beyond

all others.
How much control do authors and publishers have over whether or not their 
titles are included in the NLS system?  If they don't have "opt out"
options, and since the service is not about making money selling the books 
with money going to the authors for their creative work, but about
distributing the books for free in good faith, then I can understand why
this issue is far more of a determining factor for the NLS books.
Personally, I'll just stick with the cassettes until the library players
come out or until I win the lotto.

When a regular public library buys audiobooks on CD to distribute (or

print
books, for that matter) , they pay an additional fee for the book based on 
their potential readership to help compensate for the income not being

made

by forcing everyone to purchase copies.  It doesn't cover the difference

by

any means, of course, and there's no real allotment for the chance that
someone will photocopy the pages illegally or rip the CD's while the books 
are checked out.  But having the books on audio CD for the local library

to
purchase and lend is part of the advantage of having them on audio cd for 
sale at all, and the author or publisher gets to choose those risks and

the

potential for income against those risks.

There's no (or very little) potential benefit for the authors and

publishers

to having their titles in the NLS audio library system.  So, yeah, those

who
didn't choose to take the risk of having their materials on audio cd would 
be justified in their concern for copyright protection in the new NLS
formats, particularly since those titles could be distributed widely with the click of a mouse once they were opened on a single personal computer.
As for who would screw around making 10 to 20 CD's or more for a book and then rip them back into the computer in MP3 format? Well, few would do it for a single copy to be played on a more convenient player. But money has 
always made boredom more acceptable to many.  Someone interested in

serious
piracy could do it and make cash, or 20 people who wanted to pay a dollar 
each for a single Audible membership and then distribute copies amongst
themselves might find it less tedious than I would.  All you can do is

hope

such people don't screw it up for the rest of us! But it's hardly such a

far

fetched idea as your comments seem to imply.

As an example, consider a book like The Historian or one of the other

titles

I have that are 48 or 50 cd's long and cost about $80 a pop in the
bookstore?  The Historian was originally two audio audible credits or

about
24 bucks through audible, and now it's only one credit or about 12 bucks. 
Amazon.com has used unabridged copies listed at $119.00; I don't recall
seeing this available unabridged on CD in the bookstores, though. Hard to 
come by.  Audible's "regular" price for the unabridged version is listed

as
$68 with the member cash price set at about $48.00 bucks for a 26-27 hour 
long title.

The cheapest way to purchase the title, is, of course, through the
subscription service at 12 bucks for one credit.  With a fast processor,
your talking about several hours of work to break the copyright through

the

cd to mp3 long route.  Then, even if a schmuck only charged $40 or 50

bucks

for the book, the schmuck would make a significant amount of money per
pirated copy for all those who want "just this one title" without paying

the

premium market worth of the title or undertaking the liabilities of a
subscription.  The creepy pirate would have plenty of takers in a big

city.

Should Creep have a fast burner and processor and be required to spend
significant amounts of time at the computer anyway or should creep want a 
way to pay for his World of Warcraft time that he can do while playing

World

of Warcraft, the time spent to make this title accessible or pirate-able
would be nothing. Extrapolate now as to the value, ease, and dirty money 
to

be made doing all this over the internet with something instantly
distributable via download once the protection code was cracked?  Creep
could pay for college, buy even more computers for criminal activity,
lessons on how to hide his I p address by hacking into and through other
servers,  and STILL spend all day and night playing World of Warcraft.

With
the money to be made for something that hits pop culture fame, like The Da 
Vinci Code or Tolkien's novels, and the fact that my scenario requires

Creep

to have little to no skills for coming up with a way to work around the
protective software, I'm actually surprised it doesn't happen more often.
If the authors and publishers can't opt out of being in the NLS, and we're talking about an instantly downloadable book acquired completely for free 
as

the NLS books are, I can understand why they want more than just the
irritation and time factors to keep people from burning to CD as a
workaround.  Also, given the vast number of titles eventually available
through NLS, the far reaching nature of potential piracy and the impact

such

piracy could have on the authors' incomes and returns for creative work

over

time, yeah, I'd be worried, particularly since the depth of the library
would make a crack program far more worth developing than it would for
audible.com's current, though admittedly growing, list of titles?  The

easy

and perpetual access to the books also becomes a significant factor in
weighing the concerns of potential piracy.  For many authors, NLS has

entire

bodies of work available, not just a single, more recent title, or a

series

as does audible or recorded books, or Audiobookstand.

Perhaps the only reason piracy hasn't yet happened on a larger scale in
audiobooks is that the percentage of the population who can actually enjoy 
a

full length audio book is still relatively small when compared to the
percentage who can read print or who can listen to pirated music. As the popularity of audiobooks continues to grow, though, I'm sure the criminal 
element will follow.  As it is, we who rely on audiobooks are still

spending
large amounts of time scrambling to find all the titles we want in spoken 
audio format, so perhaps the potential and feasibility for criminal

activity

over the next five years is not so easy to recognize as our own

frustration.

[smile]  An I agree with you, I'm surprised they're going to allow the

Icon

to play the books, too.  But I'd never day they are paranoid.
Me, I'll stick to my bookport; it is just dandy for me, and I don't have 
the nerves for that type of thing. When I grow up, retire,  or win that
lotto, I'd love to make my living writing historical trash novels. [grin] So I'm interested in maintaining a certain level of copyright protection. And, for an individual, as you say, why bother? Audible is quite generous 
with the number of devices you can have activated, so whenever someone's
wanted to borrow a title, I put it onto my old "Audible Otis" and let them 
borrow the whole thing just like borrowing a paperback.  MUCH more
efficient! I've been using Audible since 2002, so I've plenty of titles

that

can still go on such an "ancient" gadget. Though I've noticed fewer and
fewer titles still have the level one or level two formats available.
Again, as the copyright protections get more sophisticated, so must the
gadgets, which is exactly where we are with the bookport and NLS.  Nice
loop, yes?  Well, maybe more irritating than nice, but there you've got

me.


Oh, and thanks to Pam and APH for being straight with us.  You've earned

my

loyalty yet again! And honestly, by the time you have the chance to

develop
the bookport 2 at the high quality we've gotten used to, I won't be quite so disgruntled over having just gotten mine two years ago and being faced 
with the need to upgrade! [grin]

--Christy
http://caution-blind-driver.blogspot.com/


> -----Original Message-----
> From: bookport-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:bookport-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On
> Behalf Of Kitty Litter
> Sent: Friday, September 28, 2007 7:02 PM
> To: bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [bookport] Re: Audible vs. NLS
>
> This is not quite true. The ability to burn certain audible books to
> CD is built-in to the audible software. If they wanted too, they could
> remove
that
> component from audible manager. Publishers know this and I believe
> audible can turn this off on a per book basis. Who in their right mind
> would screw around making ten CD's or whatever and then ripping them
> to mp3? Most
people
> wouldn't bother. And I'm curious whether the guy who said publishers
> wouldn't allow audible to sell their books because of the lack of
> security can site the source for that statement?
>
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> Version: 7.5.488 / Virus Database: 269.13.33/1036 - Release Date:
9/28/2007 3:40
> PM
>

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