Adding Free Ebooks to the Kobo Reader (or a look at Ebook piracy)
The ebook scene is a different animal then the music scene. Name an album and I can almost guarantee that you we'll be able to find an illicit copy of it somewhere. Conversely name a book. Let's say a current book on the Globe and Mail best seller list. Now, I can almost guarantee you that you'll be hard pressed to find an illicit copy of that book somewhere. The genie is out of the bottle on the MP3 scene but content providers aren't letting the same thing happen with the EPUB scene. Why? DRM mostly but I'm also guessing other facts play a part: market fragmentation, pirates don't read, lack of a clear winner in the ebook file format wars... but I digress.
Free ebooks are out there
First and foremost you don't need to resort to piracy to get ebooks. Plenty of legit, public domain books can be downloaded and added to your Kobo without the pang of guilt. Here is a short top list:
Project Gutenberg - This site provides an extensive collection of digitized classics available in a variety of formats. Currently the site has about 33,000 titles and chances are, if it's a classic, you'll be able to find it here in a variety of different formats.
Internet Archive - The IA has a huge collection of digitized materials that come from a large number of different sources. Once again this is a collection of public domain works, so you might only be able to find older material. If you look though it shouldn't take long to find something interesting.
Epubbooks - This site is also a collection of mostly public domain books but it benefits from having nice cover images and pleasing smooth fonts.
Adding Gutenberg Books to your Kobo
You'll find the procedure for adding these ebooks to your Kobo really straight forward:
1. Download your ePub File
Mmm... Math based Sci Fi Romance
Not Every Book has an ePub Version
2. Plug in your Kobo
Yup, it'll work in Linux
3. Drag and Drop the File
It doesn't matter what folder but root is good enough
4. Eject & Read
a
Wow, those Gutenberg books have great cover art..
Back to eBook Piracy
I can see how content providers want to protect their investments. I can also see how an author wants to be compensated for their effort, but ebooks might not take off because of crippling DRM, lack of a standard open format, and no real price incentives. Leaving piracy as an only alternative...
Take for instance DRM... you buy an ebook, unlock it, and you only have limited access to what you can do with the digital version. I mean you bought it, not leased it, why can't you do what you want with it? Even iTunes sells music without pesky DRM. Why can't you get an ebook without it?
How about ebook formats? At last check there were 26 different ebook formats listed on Wikipedia. That makes for a particularly difficult choice of ebook platforms and software for the average reader. I'm casting my vote for ePub with my purchase of the Kobo but who's to say that MobiPocket won't be the winner in the end. (As long as the PDF doesn't win I'll be happy)
How about price incentives? Here's the paper version of the popular The Girl Who Played With Fire. The ebook version is actually 50 cents more... Granted there is a bit of a markdown on the list price for both versions but would you pay 50 cents more for a version of the book that isn't restricted in any way? I would. To me, this means that the cost of producing a paper book is negligible and a non factor. Which seems counter intuitive. I don't get a specific break on the price because I'm getting an electronic version instead of paper. I'm at a loss to explain how this happens. In amongst all this discussion of piracy and compensation I'm reminded of Lawrence Lessig. He's posted every book he's ever written free and online through his site. He's mentioned that it has actually driven up sales of his works.
Here's the most pragmatic calculation I could devise:
If you tie down an ebook with loads of DRM and sell it for 10 bucks a piece you'll be lucky to sell let's say 100 copies creating a revenue of $1000. Say that book is pirated and distributed to 100,000 people, if only 1% of those people end up buying the book at some point you're still generating the same revenue and a lot more people have read the book (or skimmed it at least) getting the author more exposure, increasing the chances that the book will be turned into a movie... etc.
I guess what I'm saying is that MP3 piracy kicked off a lot of things; digital music sales, new distribution methods for music, and (finally) competitive prices for music. Ebooks needs a similar kick start, not to say piracy is the answer but maybe the removal of DRM is a good first step and an act of good faith. CNN has said that the age of Ebook piracy is now upon us, however there also is evidence to show that removing DRM increases book sales. I'm not sure exactly how the future will go with ebooks and print books but it would be easier to call if DRM wasn't in the picture.
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Comments
8 comments postedePubs have emerged the true winners already, IMO.
I just downloaded 900 books in about 30s (torrent p2p download method) and copied them over onto my kobo.
Boom 900 free books - some old, some new, etc.
Thing is with this - people won't have to decrypt DRM files to make epubs, they can make epubs without the kobo/DRM platform (independently of...) and since kobo reads plain file format ePubs... just makes it too easy.
Not that I condone piracy, but should a DRM downloaded file really cost 10$? I realize the author has to make money, but there is *NO* overhead. No store, no staff to hire, no print even... Maybe the issue is the publishers take most of the authors profits, but I really have no problem doing this.
If I found a photocopied book on the street (public domain, as the internet is) I wouldn't feel guilty taking it home.
Just my two cents, I know ppl disagree.
Well the publisher is for sure taking something off the top with these purchases, however saying they are too expensive to buy really robs the author more then anything else. Yup, epubs can be made without DRM, however I think content providers are worried about protecting revenue. That being said iTunes has been selling music without DRM on the files for years now and they are still making money...
This procedure does not work.
this does not work for me either. Help!
I don't know what to tell you. I've already loaded and read about a dozen Gutenberg books doing this. Be sure you're using the epub version of the book and not the txt or html.
PS: Just for the heck of it, I went to the Globe and Mail bestseller list.
I looked for the top 5 items on the list on a pirated content site I know about. Of the top 5 on the G&M Bestsellers list this month, 2 of them are available as ebooks. 4 of them are available as audio books (again, more like music, CDs and all).
2/5 is certainly less than the 100% you'd surely get from the top 5 pop music albums. But I bet higher than you expected. Somewhat higher than _I_ expected, at this still fairly early stage in the ebook adoption curve.
So apparently DRM-craziness has it's limits already.
One reason there is so much less ebook piracy: Before the internet even happened, there were a whole bunch of non-DRM'd digital copies of albums already out there in the form of CD, which could be very easily shared.
There are many fewer ebooks out there compared to how many CDs are out there. This will change as ebooks get more popular, I think it's not a question of "if" but "when" ebooks become very popular.
Which is exactly why the book publishers are so concerned with making all of these copies DRM'd copies. They don't have the "legacy" problem of music publishers, a whole pre-existing business model built on non-DRM'd digital copies that play in an installed base of hardware that doesn't handle DRM (CDs). So the lesson they draw from this is to prevent that from happening, by making sure all the digital copies that increasingly get out there are DRM'd.
(Of course people CAN scan their own paper books, but an analogy would be people digitizing their own vinyl LPs to pirate. It happens, but if that's what it took for all music piracy, there woudln't be much music piracy).
So I don't see them easily giving this up. What I do see happening is that DRM'd ebooks are going to become increasingly popular, a larger and larger part of the book market. At that point, when they reach critical mass, perhaps people are going to find a way to pirate them anyway (no DRM is all that secure, in the end). Or perhaps the inconvenience of DRM will make people complain a lot. Either of those things _might_ open up space for a non-DRM ebook market. But prior to that... we'll see.
I agree with the high cost of eBooks being absurd. I happily sat down at my computer tonight and logged onto Kobo's website and after looking at a few pages and seeing that the average selling price was $10+ dollars I said 'Nope".
I would've been happy to pay 2-5 bucks for books for my daughter but paying the same price as a hardcopy is a no deal for me. That's why I don't buy my kids books right now, because I can't afford them. So I'll stick to the library for now until the prices become more realistic.