By Edward Nawotka
A fear of piracy is one thing, but a fear of sharing? With the new digital age of publishing upon us there are many variables at work, among them whether or not allowing sharing of e-books among consumers is cannibalizing sales or otherwise causing economic damage. In today’s feature story, futurist Gerd Leonhard speaking at the World E-Reading Congress in London on Monday said that “Sharing should be non-negotiable.” It does not “cause economic damage,” he reiterated.
Many existing e-book sales platforms have sharing enabled, but you don’t often hear about the extent to which these are being used: are they, indeed popular? Of course, there are also companies — such as 18 month-old EbookFling.com that are set up exclusively to facilitate the sharing of e-books, which should be a “proof of concept.”
I can say that, personally, most of the people I know already own an e-reader and could, if they wanted, enable sharing with me. But I’ve never once had someone offer to share a book. I tend to buy what I need or want (thus reaffirming Leonhard’s assertion). But there are certainly times when I’d love to “borrow” an e-book from a friend who already owns one, such as when a fellow member of my book club has already finished a book we’ve opted to read and I’ve yet had a chance to read it. Would that be cannibalizing sales? Yes, perhaps, albeit this is a minor occurrence.
What about eliminating DRM on e-books entirely? The fear is that piracy will run rampant, but will it? Several publishers have opted to move to non-DRM formats — and other, such as O’Reilly, have been at the vanguard of arguing for elimination altogether (they prefer watermarking the books). Would the “sharing” of non DRM books also pinch publishers further? It’s all conjecture at this point, until we see a mass adoption of existing sharing technologies on a significant scale. Readers are still just getting their heads around “borrowing” e-books from libraries, Amazon and the like.
Of course, it all comes down to one simple thing: If social reading and community building is the cornerstone of book discovery, marketing and sales, then users must be trusted.
Let us know what you think in the comments.
3 Comments
As an English major, I love to read and I love to share books. My friends get books thrust upon them, even when they don’t want them. Because of this, I frequently own multiple copies of books, or buy them as gifts. I have also helped turn friends on to new authors through loaning out my collection. I really don’t see how this is any different with e-books. Sure, some will read free, but that is also free publicity for the authors. And I honestly do believe that will encourage people to try out a new book, a new author, or a new platform. I did not think I would enjoy e-books, until I read The Flinch for free. This has encourgaed me to make my first 2 e-book purchases. Thanks for this post!
I agree with Rebecca; people share paper books all the time, and only the person who is currently “holding” the book at the time is the one able to read it. It goes the same with e-readers, at least on the Barnes & Noble Nook. Their LendMe sharing system allows one Nook owner to share a lendable book only once with another Nook owner. Like most libraries, the person lent the book has 14 days to read it before it is “returned” to the purchaser. I’m sure there are still people out there who will try (and succeed) to get around this, but I don’t think this sort of sharing creates economic damage.
Melissa, but in your vision, the DRM is still closed as we have it now; the whole lend process is still running under a strict platform; the question is: with no DRM at all, the people only lend their books, or they´ll share them and it avoid a purchase to been made?.
When this discussions take place, most of cases and opinions are from fiction books, and most of cases have a good sense, but as a law books editor, I´m see on my everyday job a landscape completely different, most of each shared books is a purchase lost. No one downloads a Vade mecum and thinks “hmm, maybe I´ll read this later, perhaps i´m gonna buy it later…”