The Wall Street Journal had an interesting story on recent development in publishing books electronically. Might give some ideas to our hobby authors.

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September 11, 2000

New E-Book Technology

Helps Protect Copyrights

By THOMAS E. WEBER

IMAGINE A BOOK that you can't sell, give away or even lend to a
friend. Imagine that this book refuses to wait patiently on your shelf
but instead demands money from time to time and threatens to
self-destruct if you don't cough up the dough.

That book is here, and it's filled with pictures of teeth. It's a new kind
of electronic textbook for dental students being introduced right now at
New York University and other schools. Packing thousands of pages
onto a glittering digital videodisk, the e-book offers impressive
potential for learning. But to safeguard it against copying, the book's
creators have built in all kinds of restrictions as well.

In this age of Napster, it's no surprise that authors and publishers
want to use technology to protect their intellectual property. Yet the
same tools that can prevent copying also allow publishers to sell
material in new, potentially troubling, ways. In the case of the
dental-school text, students won't actually buy their books. They'll
effectively rent them under stringent terms.

FILE-SHARING TECHNOLOGIES undoubtedly represent a threat to
creators' rights. Now, as publishers learn how to fight back, we may
find that consumers' rights aren't safe either. For many people,
owning a book or an album creates a special bond with the material, a
feeling of power from possessing knowledge and artistry. But the cure
for Napster could morph us from readers and listeners into licensees.

"We totally blow away the current
book-distribution model," says Robert T.
Watkins, the founder and president of Vital
Source Technologies in Raleigh, N.C. A
dentist by training, Dr. Watkins persuaded
some big dental-textbook publishers to give
his e-book approach a try.

Dr. Watkins began exploring electronic
textbooks a decade ago at the behest of
Kenneth Kalkwarf, dean of the dental school
at the University of Texas Health Science
Center at San Antonio. Dr. Kalkwarf was
worried about the availability of high-quality, up-to-date texts for
students. High prices prompt many students to buy used books or
forego purchasing some texts altogether. Then, the lower sales
volume makes it less attractive for publishers to produce new or
revised editions.

Dr. Watkins came up with the VitalBook, essentially a format for
storing textbooks on DVDs. The disk is portable, and schools can
tailor it to fit their program, including course notes and video clips, all
indexed by a powerful search engine.

The economic benefits are terrific, too. Right off the bat, publishers
save the cost of producing paper books. But other advantages are
even more attractive. Books are "no longer sold to students for a
one-time payment," brags the Vital Source Web site. "Continually
updated information is now licensed to students for a recurring yearly
fee." In other words, for publishers this is the book that keeps on
giving.

The technology that makes this kind of
system work is called digital rights
management. And that's why Dr. Watkins's
e-book approach is worth scrutiny from
everyone, not just dental students. DRM
technology is one of the best hopes for publishers of books, music
and movies who want to sell digital wares online without exposing
them to rampant copying.

DRM SYSTEMS MAKE SURE that only someone who has paid for
material can access it. But they also make it possible to impose new
charges. You've heard of pay-per-view? Welcome to pay-per-listen
and pay-per-read. Talk to a Net-savvy publisher about DRM, and you'll
find they're salivating about the possibilities.

At NYU, students will pay nearly $5,000 to use their VitalBook disks
through all four years of dental school. Michael Alfano, the school's
dean, says that's roughly what it would cost to buy the recommended
texts in paper form. However, between buying second-hand books
and using texts in the library, many students actually spend far less,
he says. As an additional copy-protection measure, schools must
agree to make purchasing the e-book mandatory, ensuring there
won't be any customers for illegal copies.

So far students haven't complained. But
the arrangement has sparked a debate on
some open-source software sites.
Especially controversial was a
question-and-answer section on Vital Source's Web site, where
people who asked whether they could share their e-books were told:
"Only registered students and faculty are legally allowed to use ... the
VitalBook DVD. Any unauthorized use ... is subject to legal action."

Vital Source now says it erred with that posting. "Of course you can
show it to someone. You just can't make copies of it or transfer the
license," says Rick Johnson, the company's chief technical officer.
Fact is, though, when publishers sell content under a license, they're
free to impose practically any conditions they want.

Even big Vital Source fans have misgivings. NYU's Dr. Alfano raves
about the e-book's capabilities but is less thrilled that the disk will stop
working after graduation unless students pay additional subscription
fees. "It's troublesome," he says.

The University of Texas's Dr. Kalkwarf
admits that people may need to change
how they think about books. But he says
the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. "I
view this as win-win-win if everybody gets
in the right frame of mind," he says.