Steal this e-Book!

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Steal this e-Book!

by Danny O Snow
with Richard Eoin Nash, Dan Poynter, Wade Roush and Glenn Sanders

This document is intentionally formatted very simply for online viewing. For a more
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For more books and articles about electronic publishing, visit:

U-Publish.com

All rights to articles from BookTech Magazine reverted to the writer on publication,

used by permission. All rights to article from the PMA Newsletter reverted to the

permission. All other text and entire work © MMII by Danny O Snow.

Author: Snow, Danny O

Contributor: Nash, Richard Eoin

Contributor: Poynter, Dan

Contributor: Roush, Wade

Contributor: Sanders, Glenn

Cover Design: Coshow, Sabrina

Title: Steal this e-Book!

1. Publishing 2. Electronic Publishing

3. Technology

ISBN 1-59109-318-X

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Preface by Richard Eoin Nash

Making the Web Pay by Dan Poynter

xix

Chapter 1

An Experience at OEB

Chapter 2

A Letter to Harvard Magazine

Chapter 3

An Excerpt from 'U-Publish.com'

Chapter 4

Riding the Bullet

Chapter 5

Microsoft Reader and Adobe PDF

Chapter 6

The Pocket PC

Chapter 7

e-Book Formats Spar and Parry

Chapter 8

Supreme Court Rules for Writers

Chapter 9

e-Rights Update

Chapter 10

iPublish and MightyWords Fold

Chapter 11

Afterword

Chapter 12

Resources

Acknowledgements

Dan Snow gratefully acknowledges the encouragement and

support he has received over the years from the late William

Alfred, Sam Ardery, Ted Bayliss, Holly Blatman, BookTech
Magazine's Gretchen Kirby, Tom Buckner, John Childress,

Richard Adrian Dorr; eBookWeb founders Wade Roush and

Glenn Sanders, Mary Frances England, Burl Frame, Bud

Gilmore, John Hartley, John Houghton, David Jeffers, L. Bruce

Jones, Florrie Binford Kichler, Charlie King, Larry Larkin,

Chuck Loesche, The Clan MacAaron, John Mace, NAPCO's

Mark Herzog, Richard Eoin Nash, Cindy Newman, Brandee

O'Brien, Mark O'Donnell, PMA's Judith Appelbaum, Jan and

Terry Nathan and staff, Dan Poynter, Robert Burns Shaw, Mike

Shartiag, Dave Shearer, Jane Shore, Mark Swisher, Rick Sutton,

Greg Temple, Bob Zaltsberg, and most of all, his #1 fans (who

also happen to be his parents) Harry David and Jeanne L. Snow.

He also thanks thousands of readers of his book titled

U-Publish.com, co-authored with Dan Poynter, whose feedback

has been invaluable in shaping the ideas presented in this

book

Foreword

The French verb 'voler'

can mean 'to steal' and 'to fly.'

Gentle Reader,

Since you're reading this, you are already a participant in this

whimsical 'experiment in unsafe texts' and thank you for

playing.

This is a retrospective look at electronic books and

electronic rights that traces the evolution of e-Books from

ancient times (1999) to the present. But it may also have some

impact on the future. Here's why:

After Dan Poynter and I finished the first edition of

our book titled U-Publish.com back in 1999, we released it in

both electronic and printed form. Ironically, even though the

book was about new publishing technologies, the company that

distributed the e-Book didn't use encryption at all. I don't

believe that this was a deliberate choice; more likely they just

didn't care enough to pay for it.

Flattering myself, I wondered if pirated copies would show

up on Usenet (they didn't) or if people would buy the paperback

that followed in January 2000 (they did).

Dan Poynter wasn't worried. 'The book will be out of

date within a year since the publishing industry is changing so

quickly,' he said, and he was right. 'I'd consider any pirated

copies free advertising for the next edition,' he quipped.

In time, we noticed that a substantial percentage of people

who downloaded the e-Book later bought a paperback. That

was a pleasant surpise '” and it was the beginning of the concept

for this book.

After March of 2000, when Stephen King released Riding

the Bullet exclusively in electronic form, people in the book

industry raised quite a fuss about digital rights management

(DRM). Unlike my earlier e-Book, King's electronic novella,

which was distributed by a real publisher, and used real copy

protection, was out for only 48 hours before pirated copies

began showing up on the 'Net. And poor Stephen had sold only

400,000 copies at that point.

It amazed me how publishers whined about DRM in the

weeks that followed. Jeez, the guy sold almost half a million

books with production and shipping costs near zero, and people

called it a failure. I longed for that kind of failure.

And I kept thinking about the people who paid for my

little e-Book with Dan Poynter, and later paid again for the

paperback, bless 'em all.

According to Glenn Sanders of eBookWeb, in a 1998

article he reported, 'Three years ago Rough Guides did the

unthinkable; they placed the full text of several of [their] most

popular travel guides on the Web,' for free. 'Ever since Rough

Guides placed its content on the site, book sales have increased

by at least 20% per year,' he added.

More recently, Dan Poynter related yet another example.

National Academy Press put an entire series of e-Books online

for free, only to see sales of their tree-Books improve.

Finally, at BookTech 2002 in NYC, I heard industry experts
surmize that e-Books could be good tools to sell tree-Books,
but their comments were more like general impressions than hard facts.

That's when this 'experiment in unsafe texts' truly began

to take shape. Here's the plan that emerged: a company called

BookSurge suggested compiling a short collection of my writing

about electronic publishing, which they would turn into both an

e-Book and a paperback. Like the first edition of U-Publish.com,

the electronic version of Steal this e-Book! is going out without

copy protection. But this time the e-Book is free, the absence of

copy protection is intentional, and we're doing it for a specific

reason.

You see, we aren't planning any advertising or promotion

for the paperback. The free e-Book will be the only form of

marketing for the tree-Book. Will anyone buy the paperback? I

don't know -- but a year from now we'll have a fairly objective

count of how many paperbacks sold as a direct result of the

e-Book floating around for free.

If you're reading an electronic version and want a printed

copy, simply order one; if you don't want a paperback, that's OK too.

You're welcome to the e-Book for free.

Personally, I plan to e-mail dozens of copies to friends and

acquaintances, and post others at Web sites where readers can

download 'em for free. You are invited to do the same, whether

you want the paperback or not. So go ahead: Steal this e-Book!

As the hacker credo goes, 'Information wants to be free.' (To

which Dick Brass of Microsoft added, 'But content providers

want to be paid.') Maybe this book will finally prove objectively

that both goals can be achieved at the same time.

-- DOS

March, 2002

Preface

by Richard Eoin Nash

Richard Nash is among the 'digerati,' the 'digital literati'

who help today's readers, writers and publishers envision the

future of books. A Harvard scholar, author, playwright, and

former rights-permissions specialist with Oxford University

Press, he also writes about e-Books for several industry trade

publications, as well as speaking at publishing events across the

nation.

When I first decided to publish a free e-Book to see if

it would catalyse sales of a paperback, he was one of the first

experts I queried for advice.

Nash is often radical in his views, yet his arguments are

compelling. At more than one of his public appearances, I've

seen fellow authors and publishers come away with a sneaking

suspicion that 'we have seen the enemy and it is us.' Happily,

the sixties-vintage title Steal this e-Book! and guerilla marketing

concept held enough appeal to his revolutionary spirit that he

agreed to write the preface:

To Buy or Not to Buy, That is the Question

By Richard Eoin Nash

The following headline appeared at www.ditherati.com on

19 February 2002:

EXPROPRIATION TAKES COORDINATION

'Open source means to prove that collaboration works better

than authority, or private authorship, for that matter.'

-- Douglas Rushkoff, predicting that getting people to

contribute to his e-book novel for free will help him move

units of the print version

Wired News, 19 February 2002

For the digerati of the world, the fact that e-Books sell

print books is so self-evident it's almost beneath contempt.

This book is for everyone else.

This book not only lays out the case for the viability of using

wired or wireless technology to deliver content electronically

as a branding, marketing, or promotional tool '” it is the case.

This is the metatextual dimension of the book. As with Tristam

Shandy and Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds, there are nested

narratives here.

One narrative is the larger debate about what to do with

e-Books. Sell them? If so, for how much? Do we let people copy,

forward, print, listen, duplicate, select, cut? (The verbs cascade

forth.)

A second narrative connects to the evolution of intellectual

property in the 30 years since Abbie Hoffman found a new way

to announce that property is theft. In particular it concerns

the ever-less-material manifestation of intellectual property,

especially artistic works. Less and less material is required to

store and transmit intellectual property. The container of the

idea begins to slowly disappear, leaving only the idea itself, no

more palpable than a swarm of electrons.

The third is Danny's own narrative, episodes from the

last three years of his life as he comes to terms with what the

future holds for an industry, and a practice, that he holds so

dear. It's the story of the market, of the technology, of the

companies, but also the story of the writer, an 'Autobiography

of an X-Book Man.'

The fourth narrative, as I see it, is actually a theoretically

infinite number of narratives: the decision each reader (that's

you, by the way) will make as to whether to buy the print book.

What might your reasons be to buy? To prove a point, pro or

con? Because you find it easier to read as hard copy? As a way to

'pay' the author, since he'll be paid a little when a print book is

sold, but nothing at all for the e-Book? Because a friend might

like it and s/he would find it easier to read on paper '” although

you can, after all, forward an e-copy to as many people as you

like? What might your reasons be not to buy? Again to prove a

point, this time con?

To buy or not to buy, that is our question to you, and so you

too are part of the story this book is telling: 'a gift that keeps

on giving.'

There are no 'right' or 'wrong' answers to the fundamental

question posed by this book: do electronic books compete with

printed ones, or complement them?

The electronic version of Steal this e-Book! is free; the

paperback is not, and the e-Book is the only form of

advertising for its printed counterpart.

It doesn't matter whether ten paperbacks are sold, or

10,000; all of the print sales will come directly from the

availability of the free electronic version.

Whether you prefer e-Book, tree-Book or both, you'll be

right '” and you'll be helping us learn more about what the

future holds. With your help, we'll cast this digital bread upon

the waters, and see what the tide brings back.

Making the Web Pay

By Dan Poynter

Dan Poynter is widely recognized as one of the world's foremost

authorities on independent book publishing and promotion,

with more than 80 books in print. In his 'Instant Report' titled

Making the Web Pay he notes that publishers have long been

wary of electronic publishing because of a fear of sharing.

Having seen all the bootlegging of software, publishers are

understandably reluctant to release books as downloadable

files that can be copied at the click of a mouse.

Yet the report itself is available to download in PDF format

at www.parapub.com '” along with hundreds of other reports,

documents, and entire books in electronic form. The following

excerpts explain why.

Making the Web Pay
By Dan Poynter

There are millions of Internet users and [the] number of

people accessing the Web continues to grow every day. It is not

lost on publishers that everyone is interested in searching the

Web and buying online. In fact, statistics indicate that if you

are not using the Internet as part of your business you will no

longer be competitive enough to compete in the global digital

economy of the 21st Century.

While computer-book publishers are searching for new

Internet-Web manuscripts, all publishers are faced with two

different challenges: Getting on the Web and making the

making money from it.

The Internet is communication channels, and fortunately,

publishers have information that can be communicated. We

publish what the Web needs: content. Publishers may use

the Web to display their catalog of books and to sell those

books in both paper editions and in electronic versions online.

Customers may be directed to bookstores for the paper version

or they may send an order directly to the publisher. Or they can

unlock and access an online edition instantly. Now, how does a

publisher get people to visit the site and spend money?

Para Publishing has been on the Web since early 1995.

The site has continually been expanded with some very clever

marketing devices and response mechanisms. This site is an

example of what publishers can do on the Web. The site not

only shows products and describes services, it sells them. You

may wish to log on to www.ParaPub.com to test some of the

features as they are described.

For many years, Poynter has been known as an early

adopter of new technologies. For example, he was recognized

for implementing one of the earliest fax-on-demand systems,

and more recently received the Irwin Award for the best

electronic promotion campaign by the Book Publicists of

Southern California.

Many of Poynter's electronic texts are not copy protected,

yet his business is profitable. Moreover, he sells both printed

and electronic versions successfully. For example, the popular

Self-Publishing Manual has more than 175,000 copies in print.

The availability of the e-Book has not eroded sales of the tree-

Book.Poynter's success in marketing electronic texts, starting

long before most other publishers, was a big influence in my

own experiments with e-publishing, of which this book is the

latest example.

Chapter 1

An Experience at OEB, circa 1999

Letter to NPR's 'Weekend Edition'

This collection is chronological. When I say 'chronological,' I

mean that it's a series of letters and articles covering events

starting in 1999 and continuing to early 2002. They are

presented in the order of the events, not the publication dates.

For example, the first item below talks about one of the

earliest meetings of the Open e-Book Initiative, early in 1999,

though it didn't actually air until the weekend of June 3, 2000.

As an early participant in the 'Open e-Book Initiative,'

I had the pleasure of meeting with representatives of leading

publishing concerns at the headquarters of R.R. Donnelley &

Sons in Chicago, early in 1999. The discussion was heady stuff

-- nothing less than the future of books. At one point, a direct

descendant of the venerable R.R. Donnelley himself directed

my attention to a panel that slid from the wall, displaying a page

from the Gutenberg Bible. The juxtaposition was striking.

As noted ... in your broadcast, these new technologies are

still in their infancy, especially in terms of copyright protection.

In addition, they are not yet in widespread use by the general

public.

Adobe Systems offers special software products named

'Web Buy' and 'PDF Merchant' designed for the secure sale of

content from the Internet. Microsoft and Xerox have recently

announced the formation of ContentGuard Inc., which

promises to allow a document's author, publisher, distributor

or seller to secure it against piracy, track its movements, and

require users to pay before using it.

However, as noted in your interview, Stephen King's

electronic novella Riding the Bullet survived less than 48 hours,

before pirated copies started to surface on the Internet.

According to The New York Times, the May 23 announcement

about the release of Michael Crichton's thriller Timeline and

other titles for the Pocket PC was made 'even if it is not clear

yet how protected the electronic titles are from hackers.'

In 1999, the first generation of hardware devices specifically

designed for reading electronic books (the Rocket e-Book,

SoftBook, GlassBook, etc.) became available to public. At

present, however, compared to millions and millions of desktop

and laptop computers, the number of dedicated e-Book reading

devices in use is extremely limited. The new Pocket PC with

Microsoft Reader holds the promise of bringing e-Books more

squarely into mainstream markets '” but again, it will take time

before the number of Pocket PCs even begins to approach the

ubiquity of the desktop or laptop computer.

Why, then, are major publishers jumping on the e-Book

bandwagon?

The answer is simple: the economic advantages of

e-publishing are so compelling that the New York houses can no

longer ignore them.

By drastically reducing the physical expenses and economic risks

that have traditionally been borne by publishers, electronic distribution

will change the entire dynamic of what 'publishing' means in the new

millennium.

Eliminating waste and slashing production costs will change the

publisher's focus from 'playing it safe' with commercial material, to a

new era of innovation and creativity that benefits readers and writers

alike.

No one knows exactly what the future holds, but it seems

certain that e-publishing is here to stay '” and that it will

dramatically alter the way writers and publishers reach readers

in the 21st century.

The italic text above was excerpted by NPR's 'Weekend

Edition' for its broadcast that aired over the weekend of Book

Expo America. A sound byte is available at the Web location

below:

http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/wesat/20000603.wesat.04.ram

Chapter 2

Cancel My Subscription

Harvard Magazine, January 2000

The next item is a letter that appeared in Harvard Magazine.

Incidentally, the magazine is published both in print and online,

and Harvard warns its alumni that anything they publish in the

magazine will be freely available online to the teeming millions.

Personally, I like it when more people read things I've written,

so this policy is fine by me.

You can't write about electronic publishing without

discussing electronic rights at least in passing. The funny thing

is that the conversation seems too often to focus on hardware

and software issues.

My letter glossed over the issue of copyright protection

because it was written in response to an article about hardware.

I was confident that a DRM solution would be found, but

didn't know what it would be. I still don't.

The 'killer ap' for e-Books remains elusive, and I still

doubt that the answer lies solely in hardware or software.

Instead, my hunch is that the solution will be a combination of

hardware, DRM and new pricing and business models that fit

the normal buying behavior of consumers.

Sure, an 'honor system' may be naive, but perhaps not

entirely so. Look at the software industry: some shareware

developers do make money.

Using a similar marketing model, Adobe distributes the

Acrobat reader for free, but users are encouraged to upgrade to

the inexpensive pro version.

On the other hand, I hear that there's a brisk trade in black

market copies of more expensive software products.

I think that cost is a big factor. When the price is low,

consumers will pay for more ease of use, and more features.

When the price is high, they are more likely to look the other

way at piracy.

Even today in 2002, some publishers persist in charging

high prices for e-Books. It's hard to understand why, when the

production and shipping costs are so low.

This undermines a primary power of e-publishing: the

potential to charge consumers less, pay content creators more

-- and still make money.

But the power is there, for those who find ways to use it

effectively. The right combination of hardware, software and

business model will appear in time. The real issue is WHEN,

not IF.

Cancel My Subscription

The sheer economics of electronic publishing virtually

guarantee that a substantial portion of all publishing will be

electronic in the future. By drastically reducing the physical

expenses and economic risks traditionally borne by publishers,

electronic distribution will change the entire dynamic of what

'publishing' means in the new millennium. Eliminating waste

and slashing production costs will change the publisher's focus

from playing it safe with commercial material, to a new era

of innovation and creativity that benefits readers and writers

alike.Jerome Rubin '46 ('The New Gutenberg?' May-June, page

85) is dead on target in his statement that the weak link in the

chain of delivering 'content' (books, magazines, newspapers,

and more) from writers to publishers to readers electronically is

the 'user interface' (read: computer screen) where the content

is read. The publishing industry has made huge and rapid strides

in developing software solutions for the delivery of online

content, yet the hardware lags behind.

Technologists and publishing-industry watchers now

speculate endlessly about which hardware and software will

ultimately prevail in the marketplace, how they will work, how

they will protect the copyrights of authors and publishers, and a

variety of other issues. But it seems certain that e-publishing is

here to stay'”and that it will dramatically alter the way writers

and publishers reach readers in the twenty-first century.

Like Rubin, as much as I would prefer to save Harvard

Magazine the cost of printing and mailing each issue to my

snail-mail address, it simply isn't comfortable to read the entire

magazine while sitting upright before a computer screen. As

much as I enjoy your publication, I look forward to cancelling

my subscription (to the printed version) as soon as a more

satisfactory medium for reading it electronically is available.

This item is still available online in the Harvard Magazine

archive:

http://www.harvard-magazine.com/archive/00ja/

ja00.letters.html#cancel

Chapter 3

Stop the Presses!

Excerpt from U-Publish.com

First paperback edition, January 2000

The following item is a chapter titled 'Stop the Presses!' from the

first edition of my book titled U-Publish.com, co-authored with

Dan Poynter.

For historical context, note the 1999 estimate of the

Internet population at '70 to 100 million users,' and other

quaint artifacts like the reference to PDF Merchant as a 'new'

software product from Adobe.

More interesting was the prediction that 100% copy

protection might prove impossible. Remember that this was

written months before Stephen King's Riding the Bullet was

released in 'secure' PDF format '” and cracked within hours.

Mr. Poynter and I emphasized that the best strategy is to

deter piracy, by making the benefits of fair use (and ease of use)

outweigh the savings from stealing a modestly-priced product.

Stop the Presses!

What's important about a book? Does it make a big

difference whether the book is printed on white paper or tan

paper? Whether the book is 8.5x11' or 5x8' or another size?

While there are a small number of cases where physical

appearance is really important, such as picture books for your

coffee table or leather-bound classics for your library, usually it's

the words in a book that matter most to the overwhelming majority

of readers.

This is not to say that an attractive book isn't better than

an unattractive one, or that an attractive cover and good book

design aren't factors in sales. But generally speaking, people buy

books because they want the information contained in them.

With the rise of the Internet, it is now possible to deliver

information anywhere in the world in a matter of moments.

The kinds of information now available on the World Wide

Web are almost limitless, including not only websites per se, but

also online newspapers, 'e-zines' (electronic magazines) and

electronic books.

For those unfamiliar with the term, 'e-Books' are not

physical objects made of paper and ink; instead, they are full

length books that can be downloaded from the Internet directly

to the computers of an estimated 100 million or more people

around the world.

e-Books are also called virtual books, online books, digital

books, and a variety of other names. No matter what you call

them, they are revolutionizing the entire publishing industry.

Advantages of e-Books:

'Digital books make sense: By eliminating paper and ink, over-

the-road shipping, unsold copies and middlemen, Web books sidestep

the considerable environmental and economic costs of conventional

publishing. Those savings are passed on. Authors typically receive

royalty payments of 30 to 50 percent, compared to a conventional

industry standard of 5 to 15 percent. Readers come out ahead, too,

paying 25 to 50 percent less than softcover prices for most digital

books.''” Cate Terwilliger in the Denver Post, 2/8/99

When a book is published in electronic form, the publisher

drastically reduces almost all of the expenses discussed at the

beginning of this chapter that create economic risks: printing,

binding, packaging, distributing, shipping, warehousing,

inventory, percentages paid to middlemen, and returns of

damaged or unsold copies.

The last item is the most powerful one. Because e-Books

are generated 'on demand' (that is: one at a time, as each copy

is purchased) there are no wasted copies. At the same time,

an unlimited number of copies is available to the public. By

definition, e-Books are never 'out of stock.' There is always

exactly the right number of copies available: one for every

reader, not more, not less.

Electronic books also have powers far beyond those of

mortal books. For readers with vision problems, type sizes can

easily be increased. Books on subjects that change frequently

can be quickly updated, without reprinting. e-Books are fully

searchable. A library patron will never find that an e-Book is

unavailable because someone else has checked it out, nor will

there be a late fee for returning it after it is due. A thousand

e-Books can be stored in less space than a typical cookbook.

Students can copy and paste key passages from their e-Books

to book reports without retyping. e-Books can include sound,

animation, interactive graphs and charts, and links to other

online resources.

For example, if you are reading the electronic version of

this book on a computer with an active connection to the

Internet, you can simply click on the link below to visit the

homepage for this book for regular updates:

www.u-publish.com

Technical capabilities aside, the economic advantages of

e-Books are why they are turning the publishing industry upside

down. Because the cost of bringing books to market is slashed,

the publisher's financial risks are virtually (pun intended)

eliminated. Because economic risks are nominal, publishers can

take a chance on books which might not otherwise reach the

reading public. More choices for readers means more books

sold. More books sold means lower prices, and lower prices

mean more are sold.

Instead of investing $8,000 or more on an initial press

run, a publisher can now make an e-Book available worldwide

for about one tenth of that amount. If the book sells for $5,

the publisher needs to sell only about 200 copies to recover his

initial investment in full. Since there is little difference in the

publisher's cost to sell 200 e-Books or 200,000, every copy sold

thereafter creates a profit.

When economic risks are eliminated, the entire dynamic

of publishing a book changes. The focus shifts from 'playing

it safe' with writers and subjects that have proven commercial

potential, to making more choices available to readers, so there

is something for everybody. It also allows publishers to take a

chance on a greater variety of material, to charge less for books,

and to pay writers a larger share of the profits. Everyone wins:

the reader, the writer, and the publisher.

Disadvantages of e-Books:

From a strictly technical or economic perspective, e-Books

are vastly superior to conventional ones. But they are not

without drawbacks.

First of all, not everyone in the world has a computer yet.

Although the number of Internet users is huge (estimates range

from 70 million to 100 million or more) and growing daily, the

fact remains that there are millions of readers who don't own

computers, aren't online, or both. Savvy writers and publishers

won't ignore these more traditional folks.

Secondly, many people find it uncomfortable to read

electronic books on their personal computers. Given the size

of most computer screens, an entire page usually won't fit on a

computer screen, unless the monitor is very large or the type is

extremely small.

A new generation of electronic devices specifically designed

for reading e-Books, with names such as the Rocket e-Book,

the SoftBook, the GlassBook, and the EveryBook are just now

reaching the market in the summer of 1999.

These e-Book readers are smaller than a laptop computer,

usually only 2-3 pounds, and their screens are perfect for

reading. With these devices, you really can comfortably curl up

in bed with a good e-Book! As an added bonus, they're backlit

so you can read without a light on, too.

It seems likely that lots of them will appear in households

in the years ahead. At this time, however, there only several

thousand e-Book readers in circulation, compared with millions

and millions of personal computers '” so for now, most e-Books

need to be read on desktop PCs, with the limitations described

above.

Of course, it's possible to print an e-Book on your laser

printer, but the resulting hard copy loses its search capabilities

and many other features that make e-Books special.

Publishers also have security and copyright concerns about

electronic books that deserve consideration. After all, they

don't want a 'pirate' to put a copy of an e-Book on a public

website, and offer unsuspecting visitors illegal copies without

paying for them, although there are civil remedies for this.

Distributors of online content are making huge strides in

the protection of intellectual property. To cite just one example,

a new software suite named Web Buy and PDF Merchant

from Adobe Systems holds the promise of making it nearly

impossible to make unauthorized copies of e-Books, for all but

the most determined pirate.

Keep in mind, this book costs less than $10. How much

time would you be willing to waste, to steal something with such

a reasonable price? We do hope the information proves much

more valuable to you than $10 '” but it probably isn't worth

hours and hours of your time, and the risk of prosecution, to

steal it.

To skeptics who are still paranoid about pirating of

electronic books, we ask this question: suppose an unethical

reader buys a copy of any conventional book from any

conventional bookstore, then scans it and puts the resulting file

anonymously on a public website and offers free illegal copies

'” how can publishers prevent this from happening?

The truth is: they can't. While the publisher can sue if the

culprit is caught, our point is that there are no 100% solutions.

It's similar to buying a security system for your home: if a burglar

really wants to break in badly enough, he probably will. The key

is deter the crime, making the cost of the theft outweigh the

value of what is stolen. In our view, e-Books are already at least

as secure as conventional books, and rapidly becoming more

so. Nevertheless, the perception can be more important than

the reality. In the immediate future, the security of electronic

books will continue to be controversial.

For the author/publisher who distributes from his own

website, attracting readers and handling technical issues can

be a challenge. Few writers have the computer experience, or

inclination, to become full-time webmasters:

'But why not just set up your own website and sell your book

there? Because, virtual book publishers say, people are a lot more likely

to visit a site that has hundreds of books than a site that has only one

or two. And because publishers have the resources to promote their site

and their books. And because they take care of the hassle. They handle

the orders, the credit-card numbers, the downloads. All you have to do

is wait for the royalty check.'

-- Soyia Ellison in the Winston-Salem Journal, 9/9/98

One final drawback to electronic books: in most cases,

the reader needs a credit card to buy them. Most e-Books are

distributed from websites, which require the reader to input

their card number before they can download the file.

Some readers don't have credit cards. Others are simply

reluctant to use them on the Internet.

It seems certain that in time, the general public will be

more comfortable using credit cards on the Internet, or that

some other form of 'cyber-cash' will eventually be used by

meaningful numbers of ordinary people.

Meanwhile, the best plan is to combine the benefits of

electronic distribution with those of more traditional methods.

Happily, such a combination is already available, and gives the

writer/publisher an unbeatable one-two punch that knocks the

socks off any method available in the past.

Since 2000, we've published two more editions of the

book titled U-Publish.com to help readers keep pace with rapid

changes in technology and the book industry. Many sections of

the book are updated online in between editions, at a Web site

named for the book: www.U-Publish.com

Chapter 4

Riding the Bullet

eBookNet, March 2000

eBookNet broke the story that Stephen King's electronic novella

Riding the Bullet had been pirated within 48 hours of release.

(eBookNet later evolved into eBookWeb, now a leading online

resource about electronic books and devices for reading them.)

Founders Glenn Sanders and Wade Roush e-mailed the news to

me before the story hit the national wires, with the following

item appearing at the U-Publish.com Web site the next day.

Hackers Crack Stephen King's e-Book

Since 'U-Publish.com' was released in January '00, new

information has become available in some important areas:

In the early chapters of the book, the authors discuss the

advantages of electronic books in detail, as well as drawbacks.

Security concerns are among the most important. New

technologies, such as Adobe's Web Buy and PDF Merchant

software and the upcoming Microsoft Reader, hold the promise

of making it possible to distribute electronic books online,

while protecting the writer's copyright. If you are planning to

publish an e-Book, it is crucial to make sure that adequate copy

protection is used.

Even with 'industrial strength' encryption, security can

present a problem for authors of books with widespread public

appeal. As reported on 3/23/2000 by eBookNet, a leading online

resource center for electronic books, a major development that

illustrates the issue has just occurred. Click on the link below

for the full article titled 'Cracking the Bullet: Hackers Decrypt

PDF Version of Stephen King e-Book' by Glenn Sanders and

Wade Roush:

http://web.archive.org/web/20000620153828/

www.ebooknet.com/story.jsp?id=1671

Here are some excerpts:

'Pirated PDF versions of Stephen King's Riding the Bullet

have been circulating on the Internet since March 17. While

many ISPs have forced members to remove the decrypted files,

they are still available from a Swiss site, providing stark evidence

of security weaknesses in PC-based e-Book distribution systems.

The episode has irked the companies developing such systems,

who complain that export restrictions have kept them from

using more powerful encryption techniques.'

'The developments could temporarily slow the adoption

of Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF) as a common

standard for commercial e-Books. It is still uncertain how

crackers disabled built-in encryption mechanisms, which are

intended to allow only one person at a time, the purchaser,

to display a PDF e-Book on a computer screen. But Simon

& Schuster and the commercial distributors of the e-Book are

trying hard to limit the damage to Mr. King's legal rights, and

e-Book industry insiders are equally anxious to fix the apparent

security weaknesses exposed by the decryption.

'Some in the industry fear that the pirating episode could

give publishers another reason to hesitate before releasing more

of their books on open, general-purpose devices such as PCs

and handheld computers, which are considered to be more

vulnerable to security attacks than closed, dedicated devices. A

1999 study of e-Book security commissioned by the American

Association of Publishers concluded that "Current general-

purpose devices do not provide a trusted base for applications

since they were not designed from the beginning with security

in mind ... No matter what protection the e-Book system

provides the content en route, when it is decrypted for display,

it is potentially vulnerable to interception."

Chapter 5

Microsoft Reader and Adobe PDF Go Head

to Head

eBookNet, April 2000

Microsoft made a major push to capture the fledgling e-Book

market in 2000. By releasing an XML-based alternative to

PDF, it could use its market muscle to get Microsoft Reader

installed on millions of computers (not unlike the bundling of

the Internet Explorer browser with the Windows operating

system) and move e-Books more squarely into the mainstream

of our culture.

While Adobe had an early advantage, due to the many

millions of copies of Acrobat already in use prior to 2000,

Microsoft had the power and resources to get its competitive

product widely and rapidly installed on the computers of

consumers '” whether consumers thought that they wanted it

or not.

Following as it did shortly on the heels of the Stephen

King incident, the MSR roll-out included a lot of discussion

about DRM issues. But Wade Roush and I suspected that

in the long term, the contest would be decided more on the

basis of business models than technology. Our hunch was that

the availability of content, and the price, would prove more

important than the software itself.

Microsoft Reader and Adobe PDF Go Head to Head

by Danny O Snow and Wade Roush

'May you live in interesting times,' reads an ancient

Chinese curse. For those who follow electronic books, these

are interesting times indeed. Major new products specifically

designed for delivery of online content have set the publishing

industry abuzz, amid a flurry of controversy over early efforts to

bring e-Books more squarely into mainstream markets.

Web Buy and PDF Merchant software from Adobe

Systems rolled out early in 2000, promising secure delivery of

online content across a wide range of hardware and software

platforms. Meanwhile, industry watchers are closely following

the introduction of the new PocketPC devices and Microsoft

Reader, designed to make electronic content almost universally

available to the reading public.

On March 14, Simon & Schuster released Stephen King's

electronic-only novella Riding the Bullet, and received orders

for more than 400,000 copies within 24 hours. As the first

electronic-only bestseller, the book marked a watershed in the

history of publishing. Yet within 48 hours of its release, pirated

copies of King's story began to surface on the Internet, raising

new questions about how to prevent e-Book piracy.

In this climate of upheaval, we've compiled the following

comparison of new products from Microsoft and Adobe.

Any fair comparison of these products must reflect that

Adobe Web Buy and PDF Merchant are already publicly

available, while the full version of Microsoft Reader with

ClearType has yet to be released. For this reason, the amount

of information available about the MS Reader is less detailed.

It will be possible to make a more meaningful comparison when

Microsoft Reader is available (in 'mid-2000,' according to

Microsoft). EBN readers are encouraged to weigh these factors

before drawing conclusions about either product.

In order to present a balanced view of both products,

EBN interviewed senior representatives from both companies

in April, 2000. Jeff Ramos, director of marketing for e-Books,

responded for Microsoft. Mark Heisten, former PR manager of

ePaper Solutions, and Rebecca Michals, senior PR manager of

ePaper Solutions, responded for Adobe.

Below, we list each company's responses to a series of

questions from eBookNet managing editor Wade Roush, and

guest columnist Danny O Snow, co-author of a new book

about the latest publishing technologies titled U-Publish.com,

available in both electronic and printed form. Additional notes

have been added in a few places where the writers felt that

additional commentary might help put the comments of those

interviewed in better context.

What are the technical requirements for your product?

Adobe: There are different requirements for Web Buy &

PDF Merchant, depending on the product and features used:

Acrobat Reader with Web Buy and Acrobat with Web Buy,

Version 4.05 or higher of either product on the Windows or

Macintosh platforms.

For File locking and key distribution: