NEWS: Speak Geek to Me: Geek's Lament

GEEK: Speak Geek to Me: Geek's Lament

I’m so often feeling “Kumbaya” about the aspects of my geeky lifestyle that it hits me like a train every time two aspects don’t quite mesh. In this moment, it's my love of geeky toys vs. my card carrying EFF member's stance against DRM and other shackles on digital content.

On one hand, I love my toys. I added up how much tech I carry around with me (camera, digital recorder, Flip video cam, iPod, Blackberry…) and was a little amazed. I never thought I was a gadget-head, and I am usually one to hold back when something shiny hits the market so I can get opinions on it and allow the company to work out kinks (I’m still not sold on the iPhone). But when I do get the toys, I love them dearly.

On the other hand, I’m an avid enthusiast for open media, Creative Commons, and digital content. I love what the Internet has done for creators and the doors it’s opened for us. DRM (Digital Rights Management) is a foul word in my language, and I am very pro-sharing of content, believing the artists’ fans will give back if/when they can. (And I hope this will be proven next week as my book Playing For Keeps will be released via free PDF and a print version on Amazon.com.)

I didn’t think these two things could butt heads, but I was wrong. I discovered this when my mother bought me an Amazon Kindle for my birthday.

Now, I’d heard that the Kindle was pure evil in a tapered, white tablet. It has DRM on the files, it won’t let you share, it’s unmodifiable (one of the requirements of DRM is you have to keep the device pure, else people can modify it to unlock said content), it won’t support simple PDFs. It is too expensive and it eats babies.

I’d also heard that the Kindle was going to be the ebook reader to end all readers. Its wireless capability would allow for amazing versatility in regards to purchasing books, emailing files to the Kindle, even listening to music while you read. The screen is ePaper, as readable as regular paper (no glare, no backlight), and buying content is so simple I would see my kid’s college money draining away.

So my Kindle in hand, I contacted a friend who’s a staunch anti-DRM advocate. I asked him, “My mom bought me a Kindle for my birthday. What’s an anti-DRM woman to do?”

His advice was to sell it and buy a Palm.

Possibly good advice if I’d won it, but considering my own mother gave it to me, I feel it’s rude to treat it like a big Amazon gift certificate. And besides. It’s shiny.

I was delighted to find that the Kindle was inspired in part by one of my favorite books, The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, which centers around an interactive smart book that falls into the hands of a little poor girl and is instrumental in raising her.

I spent a lot of time exploring the capabilities of the Kindle, from the basic browser (I can log into Twitter, but can’t seem to actually tweet from it) to putting music on it to testing out the various PDF conversions. Lack of PDF support was one of the biggest issues with the release of the Kindle, but the conversion support that allows you to email DOC and TXT files to your Kindle (among others) seems to work with PDF now. At least, I was able to get a PDF on my Kindle with no problems. (I also checked out the program Stanza, which also converted it to a Kindle-friendly format, but removed the paragraph breaks of my books, which would get rather annoying. For windows users I believe the MOBIpocket program works for conversion. But try just emailing a PDF first and see how that does.)

But damn. It’s shiny. It looks good. The instant gratification factor is high. The thought of putting all my ebooks that I didn’t want to read on my computer makes me giddy. I am not on board with paying for otherwise free blogs, but I did get a subscription to Asimov’s and was thrilled when the August and September issues landed on my Kindle. I’d like to have the cover art of the magazine, but that’s a minor quibble. And the deal is, honestly, I can see a lot of room for improvement. I mean that in the best way; the problems are clear and look like they can be fixed in the next generation - no page numbers is puzzling, some people dislike the blink in the page that comes before a new page loads, etc. But damn, a Kindle with these minor problems fixed would be formidable.

But the big problem still exists: I can’t stand DRM. It’s a principle thing. I’m not fuming at being unable to send the file to all my buddies, I’m annoyed at the assumption that I’m a criminal and would do so if they didn’t stop me. Also, I’ve purchased this content, but I can only read it on my Kindle. If I drop my Kindle and break it, too bad! I have to buy another Kindle to keep reading. I don’t like not having access to content I pay for.

And as a creator, DRM offends me. It feels vaguely unsettling to have this device (shiny!) and enjoy it a lot (so shiny!) and yet when I consider my book coming out in a couple of weeks, I don’t want it to be available for the Kindle. I don’t want my content crippled by DRM; if people want to download my PDF and put it on their Kindle, rock on with their bad selves. But I want them to have the same control over the content they pay for that I demand from the content I purchase.

Thus, even as I squee and dance around with my shiny toy, this small, gnawing sense of hypocrisy is always there. I’ll read others’ DRM protected work, but won’t do the same for my own. I am considering how to deal with this, but I haven’t reached a conclusion yet. As far as I know, my publisher doesn’t release Kindle editions yet, which I know is just a cop-out for me, but this is a bridge I must cross eventually.

So make it easy on a conflicted geek with principles and a shiny toy, Amazon. Kill the DRM. Then I can happily squee, put my books on your Kindle, and when the second gen comes out, maybe I’ll even buy one myself. OK?

(It’s so shiny!)

Mur Lafferty is a writer and podcaster from Durham, NC. Her first book, Playing For Keeps, will be released in print August 25 - there are no plans for a Kindle edition.

Yeah, well. I sold out and bought an iPhone. Life is like that. I have an OpenMoko, but I could never get it to do anything useful, and I needed a phone.

What's most important is that when you produce your own content, you do your best not to use DRM if you can avoid it. Sometimes you can't - not everybody is Cory Doctorow. I have no idea whether my book is even available on Kindle, but I am pretty sure it's /not/ available under the Creative Commons license, because back when I wrote it that really wasn't an option. But if/when I write another book, I'll try to do it differently.

I really don't think you should guilt trip about the Kindle. You know its limitations. Use it the way you would use the ebook reader of your dreams. I mean, how many books do you read twice? Buy those on paper. Buy the stuff you're going to read once on the Kindle. You're still supporting your favorite artists. I think that's really key. And you're not killing trees to print something you're going to read once.

Wow ! That is shiny

Great article !
thanks

Oh, and Here is an article about hacking Kindles DRM.
I haven't read it yet, but I thought it might interest you.

There's no real info that I can find on it right now, but the Readius is going to have a cellular connection similar to the kindles, though right now I can't figure out how close, or if it will be as good. It seems like maybe it might not be crippled with DRM, but it's not out yet, so who knows. But my god, the form factor kicks the kindles ass. A pocket sized device with a foldable epaper screen. Dang. My biggest problem with the epaper readers has been the size. My ancient PDA may not have the sweet-ass epaper screen, but it does fit in my pocket. Plus, no DRM. If my willpower holds out, I think I'll wait until they start coming out with color epaper.

Count me in the anti-DRM camp, for sure. And despite the shinier features of the Kindle, I'm pretty sure I neither want a Kindle nor Kindle-formatted eBooks - in fact, I'm really not keen on buying eBooks at all, mostly due to the lack of a used market. But I'm not so sure that it's as easy as saying "Dammit, Amazon, get rid of this DRM stuff". Amazon may or may not want the DRM themselves - it has certain advantages to them, for sure, but it may also inhibit sales - but they're not the ones that ultimately get to decide that unless they take up publishing. The publishers (and the occasional self-published author) get to make that call. If they're anything like the equivalents in other industries, that may well be a hard sell. I mean, DRM-free digital content exists in both music and video games - be it the iTunes Plus format (or some alternative vendor I'm not currently familiar with), or Stardock's Impulse digital distribution platform - but there's still a lot of content that's not being made available in that form, almost certainly because of the decision of the rights holder(s).

I did read it. Basically, Kindle books are a specific subtype of the Mobipocket format, and thus the Kindle can read Mobipocket files...but it doesn't normally work with ordinary, DRMed Mobipocket files from sources other than Amazon. That guy figured out how to, in essence, make DRMed Mobipocket files into DRMed Kindle files. It doesn't deal with the DRM issue as such. And it didn't work with all sources of DRMed Mobipocket files, and from the most recent comments, may not work at all anymore.

Love this column. More please!

Meh. I had the choice between a Kindle and a Nokia N810. Not even a contest.

Besides, I like *BOOKS* - if I want a portable PDF reader, browser, and general all-round Linux box, that's the N810

Oh yeah, and it Bluetooth-pairs with the Apple Wireless Keyboard. slobberslobberslobber

Thanks for doin my homework.

Now, hand over the lunch money geek.

i too am offended by stupid DRM but i for some reason buy most of my music from itunes. it must be the instant gratification aspect and the fact that my iphone is shiny too.

Mur Lafferty dances with the Devil so you don't have to. BOW TO HER. And join the DRM rebellion. Or rather the rebellion against DRM. Either way.

I love all your columns, so please keep writing them

As far as the Kindle goes in my opinion, it was a gift to you, so use it without guilt. I hate DRM as much as the next guy and really appreciate how you distribute your work. This makes me want to buy your books more just to support your model. (you writing is so great I would buy it regardless). Using the Kindle does Not put you in bed with the devil.

Anyhow, just my opinion, but thanks again for a great column.