[Dtb-talk] Publishers Phase Out Piracy Protection on Audio Books

[T. Joseph Carter]

Greg,

Somewhere near my own views?  If dishonest people want access to DRM'd
files, they're going to get it somehow.  If a very smart but generally
honest finds he cannot do something he rightly should be allowed to do,
the means to defeat the DRM is going to happen a lot faster.

It's probably a very good thing the Victor Stream got support for the
AudioPlus books when it did.  I happen to know for certain that the format
was cracked and that a person was writing and intended to anonymously
release a tool to automate the process for Windows when the new Stream
firmware came out.  The code was deleted because the person responsible is
an honest guy--but he wasn't about to let some idiotic content restriction
interfere with his access to his textbooks!

For the record, before someone suggests I'm speaking of myself, like Greg,
I use a Mac, not Windows.  If I'd done it, it would have been a UNIX tool.
But I didn't.  And in the end, he didn't either.  But if either of us
could, someone else could too.

You cannot give smart people the ciphered file, the algorithm to decrypt
it, and the key, then expect they won't be able to figure it out in the
end.  They can.  They will, too.  Sooner or later, it will happen, either
for Copyright infringement by the dishonest, or for access that should not
have been restricted by the honest who are annoyed by the senseless
restriction.

And don't think the NLS digital books would be immune either.  Anybody
with a USB microphone adapter and a 35mm stereo miniplug patch cable can
turn any NLS book into a low-bitrate mp3 book.  How do you think they do
it now?  Most people don't need precise navigation, so what do they lose
by it?  They downsample the quality anyway, so certainly not that.  My
adopted little brother can figure that one out and he's eight years old
and has developmental delays.

Apparently, so do the people who thing DRM is effective.  Oh well.

Joseph

On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 08:40:17PM -0600, Greg Kearney wrote:
> Many of you know of my thinking about digital rights management in  
> digital talking books so I will not repeat myself here. No mater what  
> your feelings as to the matter you may all find this of interest.
> 
> Publishers Phase Out Piracy Protection on Audio Books
> By BRAD STONE
> Reprinted from the New York Times
> Originally published: March 3, 2008
> 
> SAN FRANCISCO - Some of the largest book publishers in the world are  
> stripping away the anticopying software on digital downloads of audio  
> books.
> 
> The trend will allow consumers who download audio books to freely  
> transfer these digital files between devices like their computers,  
> iPods and cellphones - and conceivably share them with others.  
> Dropping copying restrictions could also allow a variety of online  
> retailers to start to sell audio book downloads.
> 
> The publishers hope this openness could spark renewed growth in the  
> audio book business, which generated $923 million in sales last year,  
> according to the Audio Publishers Association.
> 
> Random House was the first to announce it was backing away from  
> D.R.M., or digital rights management software, the protective wrapping  
> placed around digital files to make them difficult to copy. In a  
> letter sent to its industry partners last month, Random House, the  
> world's largest publisher, announced it would offer all of its audio  
> books as unprotected MP3 files beginning this month, unless retail  
> partners or authors specified otherwise.
> 
> Penguin Group, the second-largest publisher in the United States  
> behind Random House, now appears set to follow suit. Dick Heffernan,  
> publisher of Penguin Audio, said the company would make all of its  
> audio book titles available for download in the MP3 format on eMusic,  
> the Web's second-largest digital music service after iTunes.
> 
> Penguin was initially going to join the eMusic service last fall, when  
> it introduced its audio books download store. But it backed off when  
> executives at Pearson, the London-based media company that owns  
> Penguin, became concerned that such a move could fuel piracy.
> 
> Mr. Heffernan said the company changed its mind partly after watching  
> the major music labels, like Warner Brothers and Sony BMG, abandon  
> D.R.M. on the digital music they sell on Amazon.com. "I'm looking at  
> this as a test," he said. "But I do believe the audio book market  
> without D.R.M. is going to be the future."
> 
> Other major book publishers seem to agree. Chris Lynch, executive vice  
> president and publisher of Simon & Schuster Audio, said the company  
> would make 150 titles available for download in an unprotected digital  
> format in "the next couple of months."
> 
> An executive at HarperCollins said the publisher was watching these  
> developments closely but was not yet ready to end D.R.M.
> 
> If the major book publishers follow music labels in abandoning  
> copyright protections, it could alter the balance of power in the  
> rapidly growing world of digital media downloads. Currently there is  
> only one significant provider of digital audio books: Audible, a  
> company in Seattle that was bought by Amazon for $300 million in  
> January. Audible provides Apple with the audio books on the iTunes  
> store.
> 
> Apple's popular iPod plays only audio books that are in Audible's  
> format or unprotected formats like MP3. Book publishers do not want to  
> make the same error originally made by the music labels and limit  
> consumers to a single online store to buy digital files that will play  
> on the iPod. Doing so would give that single store owner - Apple - too  
> much influence.
> 
> Turning to the unprotected MP3 format, says Madeline McIntosh, a  
> senior vice president at the Random House Audio Group, will enable a  
> number of online retailers to begin selling audio books that will work  
> on all digital devices.
> 
> Some bookstores are already showing interest. The Borders Group, based  
> in Ann Arbor, Mich., introduced an online audio book store in November  
> using D.R.M. provided by Microsoft. Its books cannot be played on the  
> iPod, a distinction that turns off many customers. But Pam Promer,  
> audio book buyer for Borders, said the company welcomed moves by the  
> publishers and planned to begin selling MP3 downloads by early spring.
> 
> A spokesman for Barnes & Noble said the retailer had "no plans to  
> enter the audio book market at this time."
> 
> Publishers, like the music labels and movie studios, stuck to D.R.M.  
> out of fear that pirated copies would diminish revenue. Random House  
> tested the justification for this fear when it introduced the D.R.M.- 
> less concept with eMusic last fall. It encoded those audio books with  
> a digital watermark and monitored online file sharing networks, only  
> to find that pirated copies of its audio books had been made from  
> physical CDs or D.R.M.-encoded digital downloads whose anticopying  
> protections were overridden.
> 
> "Our feeling is that D.R.M. is not actually doing anything to prevent  
> piracy," said Ms. McIntosh of Random House Audio.
> 
> Amazon and Audible would not comment on whether they would preserve  
> D.R.M. protections on their own audio books, citing Securities and  
> Exchange Commission restrictions surrounding the recent acquisition.
> Greg Kearney
> 535 S. Jackson St.
> Casper, Wyoming 82601
> 307-224-4022
> gkearney at gmail.com