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On owning books
On owning books
For various reasons, in the last month I have been filled with "life-nostalgia". My daughter recently turned 7, her celebration prompting like shadow puppets faint memories of my own childhood; my mother's birthday recently passed, but then, so had she a few years ago, so she was not around to enjoy it; and I've watched the news reports on Edward Kennedy's cancer with profound sadness; a loved family member had his own brush with a glioma a decade ago. It all makes one pause.
The delights of growing old: taking enjoyment from many small things. For me, one tenacious root of happiness is a shared enjoyment of reading with my father. It is to him that I must give credit for a love of books; as a professor of contemporary American literature for years, his book suggestions turned to Barthelme, Barth, and Pynchon when I was still in middle school. And for my father now, reading is something for him to hold onto; a love that only failing eyesight might stand to disperse -- and then there will be audiobooks.
I speak with my father weekly, and we reserve time to compare what is being read, how we heard about it, how it relates to other things we have enjoyed. And no doubt in part as a result of growing up in house filled with books, we've discovered that the walls of our house now bridge whole sections of the continent, for we mail books to each other regularly.
My father will mail me a copy of Willie Morris' North Toward Home and a few Durrells; I will mail him the hilarious and poignant A Thousand Shall Fall, and an old edition of Grimble's We Chose the Islands. And we argue over whom first heard about Andy Adam's The Log of a Cowboy; then we realize we both have editions in our homes.
Here is the thing: it's hard to say who owns these books. They are ours, collectively; they fling back and forth between Texas and California, and either household is only a temporary resting place. These books are shared, because they are appreciated; loved, because they are enjoyed with others.
Ultimately, I do not much care whether these books are paper or made of some other less organic substance, whether substrates and electrons, or plastic polymers. Instead what matters is that we are able to share books with each other; in return for the gift of spreading delight, a wait of days and the cost of media rate shipping are very modest penalties.
Whatever digital (ebook) books look like in the future, if they do not embody the right to share, in an unrestricted and platform independent manner, they will be poorer things.
This is called the first sale doctrine. It's part of why people love books -- a love built from sharing. It's what makes libraries possible. A world where content is licensed, and sold with restrictions on use, is a world less full of enthusiastic readers; less full of love.
To any publisher who sees the wisdom of DRM: don't.
7 comments
I will be missing the smell of paper books. Maybe will find a spray, like there's one of 'new-car-smell'.
Hopefully book publishers will realize that their music industry and movie industry colleagues made a huge mistake going DRM, and will avoid it.
We may evolve to that world and it may be unavoidable, but whatever value is provided today by book publishers will have to be provided some other way. I will have to think a bit about whether that's the world
I like the idea of evolving to, but you would understand if a publisher saw it as a slow-motion form of suicide. Right?
When I was at the NISO conference on digital resources in SF this May, I was heartened to hear the head of licensing for the Naxos label say the overwhelming trend was "buy it for life" - no more LP to CD to Blu-Ray transitions impinging on the consumer's experience. The last dwindling holdouts on control are streaming and file expiration, and those are fading fast.
He admitted that current models of music monetization and the jobs around it are in danger, but he emphasized that the future of music was tremendous. New technology brings old music alive, and new forms of expression and distribution are emerging all around us.
Digital is a threat to current models of publishing. But it is no more a threat to reading than my iPod is to the enjoyment of music. In the space of that opportunity resides a creative industry capable of rebirth.
I like the post and I love the sentiment!
Eoin
PB: Mike, I think the "we'll only sell one book" fallacy is what drives publishers to DRM; it's what drove the music industry almost into the ground.
MS: The record companies were doomed by new technology. Are doomed. They were selling value by the album while people valued music by the song. Whether they'd offered it themselves or not, ultimately, the model had to be completely rewritten. And musicians have a fallback position: they can play live for money.
PB: When I was at the NISO conference on digital resources in SF this May, I was heartened to hear the head of licensing for the Naxos label say the overwhelming trend was "buy it for life" - no more LP to CD to Blu-Ray transitions impinging on the consumer's experience. The last dwindling holdouts on control are streaming and file expiration, and those are fading fast.
MS: Music is different in a hundred ways. But you weren't asking for the right to move it from device to device for your enjoyment. You're asking for the right to give it to anybody you want to give it to. I repeat what I said: if that's the model, connectivity will evolve and sales will fall inversely, ultimately approaching "one".
PB: He admitted that current models of music monetization and the jobs around it are in danger, but he emphasized that the future of music was tremendous. New technology brings old music alive, and new forms of expression and distribution are emerging all around us.
MS: Damn right the models don't work and the jobs are going. I am sure the "future of music" will be fine. Most musicians I know would rather play than eat anyway. Mozart and Beethoven did fine working for what the royalty would pay them. We can go back to that model.
PB: Digital is a threat to current models of publishing. But it is no more a threat to reading than my iPod is to the enjoyment of music. In the space of that opportunity resides a creative industry capable of rebirth.
MS: Now you're supporting my point, not disputing it. I said I hadn't decided how I feel about a world where publishing means "sell one"; I just said the publisher functions would have to be served some other way and anybody making a living being a publisher today would be nuts to do anything other than resist that future. So please give me an objection that responds to that point.
In preface, I'm not convinced this necessarily implies a trendline down to "sell one". I think there might be a "sell lots" future - although notably, I am not exactly sure what the "lots" will be of, whether books, or some variety of services. I think part of the answer is reliant on how we consume digital books: what forms of content; on what kind of devices; and in what transactional context. Certainly the fundamental economics are going to have to change.
On the larger point, I can't object. We agree. It's a fearsome leap into a place where we must conjure substance from the void of the future.
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