Lulu, the self-publishing platform through which I'm distributing some of my work, recently announced that now they're doing "eBooks." Interesting piece of "news," since they've offered electronic distribution right from the start of their operation, and I've been using it myself for years already. What's new? It turns out the actually new part is that instead of just allowing people to buy and sell downloadable PDFs, now they're going further to support commercial "eBook" devices... and they're claiming an additional $1.49 out of every download sold on top of their previous claim of 20% of the retail price (it's going to be interesting if they try to take $1.49 out of my Japanese syllabary flash cards, which are currently priced at $1.00)... and (for another $0.99) they'll let you apply DRM to your "eBook."
I'm inclined to think that at the very least, I shouldn't publish with Lulu again; and, probably, I should also withdraw my existing publications from their system and find some other print-on-demand outfit. Is that an overreaction?
ETA: They've posted a response, see below.
It appears that the new pricing will apply to future items, and existing ones if and only if I update them (which I don't need to do). So I can continue collecting my existing royalty of $2.80 from every copy of Chessudoku and $0.80 from the flash cards. Nobody's bought either product in the few days since the change, so I don't know for sure that it still works, but it seems to be what the documentation says. My royalties change to $1.61 for downloads of Chessudoku (remaining at $2.80 for hardcopy), and "sorry, you have to discontinue these or raise the price" for the flash cards, if they become eligible for the new pricing.
If it were only the pricing issue, then I'd think twice about using Lulu for future projects, but I probably wouldn't pull my existing ones; it won't break if I don't fix it. I think $1.49 base price is too much for an electronic book download (because it's too big a fraction of $5.00 and I think few if any book downloads can reasonably be priced beyond $5.00); but if it were just the pricing, I might even continue to use Lulu for print-based future projects (on which the pricing hasn't changed).
However, it's not just the pricing. DRM is pretty much a show-stopper issue for me. Lulu is not requiring me to use DRM, but they're offering it to me and trying to sell it to me as a desirable thing. That's not the behaviour of the kind of outfit I thought I was signing with, when I signed with Lulu a few years ago, when they were endorsing Creative Commons. Right now I'm leaning towards taking all my print-on-demand business elsewhere.
Interesting hypothetical question: my current book project is intended for professional publication. Leaving Lulu is a lot easier than leaving a real publisher. If I manage to sell Kaago, there's a good chance the publisher will want to do an "eBook" release - especially given that that may be a year or two down the road, and the current rapidly-evolving technology will be that much more mature. And if a publisher picks it up and wants to do an "eBook" version, there's a good chance they'll want to put DRM on it. The only way I could stop them would be to instruct my agent to insist on a "no DRM" clause in my contract; and doing that would probably make it impossible to negotiate a publishing contract at all, because most publishers will not negotiate their standardized electronic-rights clauses under any circumstances. Authors with a lot more bargaining power than I have failed to get exceptions on that kind of point. Maybe vetoing DRM would cost me the possibility of "eBook" publication; more likely it'd cost me professional publication entirely. Will I really commit to taking the stand against DRM in that way? I don't need to answer that question today, but I will need to answer it soon.
UPDATE: Lulu have posted an entry about it in their Web log. They briefly describe what DRM is, and they say you might or might not want to use it. They link to an article by Tom O'Reilly on openp2p.com, in which he points out that piracy of electronic books really isn't a big deal anyway. I am unimpressed. This isn't about whether I'm informed about what DRM is and how well it (doesn't) work; suggesting that that might be a significant part of the issue (which they do all the way from the title of the piece) is an insult to my intelligence; and I note that they acknowledge absolutely no ownership of the problem themselves. It all has to be about whether we, reading the article, know what we're talking about. Although this posting has gone up on their Web log, which few people read, the front page of their site where they advertise "copy protection" hasn't changed at all. It appears that none of their actual behaviour in terms of trying to sell DRM to their customers has changed in any way in response to the community's concerns.
See the discussion of apologies we had on here a while back - Lulu is not purporting to apologize here, and that's a good thing, but they are certainly attempting to distance themselves from any responsibility for the situation. They're presenting DRM yes/no as a debate that exists in some outside world far away, with them as impartial observers just empowering you make your own choice freely. That doesn't work when they're advertising DRM as a product and trying to make a profit from it. It's like trying to run an abortion clinic without taking a position on abortion. You can't stand outside the controversy when you're participating in the action.
Comments
trythil from 71.239.75.66 at Sun, 08 Nov 2009 08:07:01 +0000:
Tor Books seems to understand no-DRM: Cory Doctorow has published _Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom_ and _Eastern Standard Tribe_ as Creative Commons-licensed, DRM-free ebooks, and both books were originally published through Tor.
I don't know how much Doctorow's celebrity factored into that decision. Also, Tor primarily publishes sci-fi and fantasy, and I don't know if _Kaago_ is going to fall into that genre. But they may be worth looking into.
Russell McOrmond from 76.10.145.8 at Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:18:49 +0000:
I don't think you are over-reacting by thinking of pulling your books from Lulu, and looking elsewhere. The main reason I promoted Lulu myself in the past is because I thought it would be a publisher that would have rejected DRM given it was founded by Bob Young. This to me suggests the company has lost its way, and is no longer relevant as it can be lumped in with all the other outgoing publishers.
There is a market for publishers who understand these issues. As you research, please keep everyone informed about what you find.
Note: If there is anyone reading this that doesn't understand what is wrong with DRM, or that believes it should be the authors choice, I offer the following. http://flora.ca/own
I believe that authors imposing technology brands on audiences (DRM on content) is even less legitimate/moral than audiences imposing prices on authors (IE: copyright infringement). I don't condone either, but consider DRM to be worse. I consider the activity of locking technology such that the owner does not have the key (DRM on hardware/software) to be a direct attack on property rights (IE: a form of "theft", that should be made clearly illegal -- not legalised or legally protected).
![[mskala]](/members/icons/mskala.png){kind=icon}
Matt (mskala) at Sun, 08 Nov 2009 16:49:56 +0000:
A point that I saw raised in the Slashdot discussion, on the extra fee for DRM: that's not a pure cash grab. It apparently costs Lulu some money to provide the DRM service because of licensing fees to the providers of the DRM technology. That's the main reason for charging $0.99 extra for it. A similar justification is put forward for the $1.49. These fees have the effect of making it almost impossible to turn a profit on downloads at a reasonable retail price, but they're not purely Lulu's fault.
I described the fees in the interest of providing a complete discussion, but the big deal for me is the moral issue of DRM, and I wish that that would be what other people cared about too.
Matt (mskala) at Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:07:39 +0000:
I'm not actually convinced that DRM should be "made clearly illegal". I think it's morally objectionable, but not all morality should be legislated. In particular, I'm really worried that any possible legal definition of DRM, for the purposes of banning it, would end up banning other things yet to be invented that really shouldn't be banned, and failing to ban some forms of DRM (possibly yet to be invented) that should be banned. I would much prefer for the law to keep its hands off both sides of the DRM debate and let it be settled by people voting with their wallets, and by technological arms race. Let publishers go ahead and DRM things - provided my property rights to make my best attempt at defeating the DRM on anything I buy, and share my work with others, remain uninfringed... The basic laws of how the universe works mean that the result of the arms race would be the good guys winning, as long as the bad guys don't benefit from DMCA-style legal interference.
That said, voting with our wallets does have an important place too. As you said on Slashdot, Russell, the situation here isn't an old-style publisher that formerly didn't allow electronic distribution at all, opening up (but not all the way) to allow DRMed electronic distribution. Instead it's a new-style publisher, who we thought was on our side, reducing its formerly open position.
It's also not just that they are *offering* DRM; they are *endorsing* DRM. They are acting like they think it's a good idea, and they're telling people who don't know better that it's a good idea. They are presenting it as a positive selling point for their service. One can say that actions speak louder than words, but this is also about words; what Lulu is doing is worse than just offering a DRM service. That, actually, is one reason I might (without committing myself either way at this time) actually not take such a strong stand against DRM on my professional publication project as I'm inclined to with Lulu: for a professional publisher to offer electronic distribution at all is a big deal, but from Lulu I expect more.
Someone else on Slashdot said something about "Would you deal with someone who sold slaves, even if you were in the market for something else?" and the Slashdot idiots, of course, whined a lot about how that was an over-the-top analogy without actually addressing the point. I thought of one that might be better: Would you deal with a marketing company that offered spam services as their top-of-the-line marketing service, even if you could buy other services from them instead?
Spam isn't on the level of slavery, but it's morally unacceptable. Moreover, even if you know that you're not buying spam services yourself and your money isn't paying for spam services, the fact that the marketer thinks spam is okay, and thinks you'll want to buy spam services, says a lot about what kind of marketer that is. It means they're probably a marketer you don't want to do business with even if the particular product you'd be buying is not morally unacceptable. It means they're a marketer you don't want your name associated with. Much the same thing applies here. Lulu isn't forcing me to buy DRM, but if I do business with them then I'm doing business with someone who thinks DRM is okay, and thinks I am likely to want to buy DRM, and I'm not sure I want to be associated with anybody who thinks DRM is okay or tries to sell me DRM.
Guy Lafleur's my dad from 216.239.83.177 at Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:31:05 +0000:
>Instead it's a new-style publisher, who we thought was on our >side, reducing its formerly open position.
And that's big deal for me.
Id expect that from the big publishing conglomerates but Lulu was seen as 'one of us' because of the whole Bob Young/RH angle so it is quite a disappointement.
DRM in music is luckily dying out but alive and well elsewhere.
I do not buy from the Apple store because of the DRM (they changed but too late) and am an Amazon client or any other company that sells DRM free.
If you have a choice, then I think its important to take a stand, no matter how small you might think it is.
But you are no Cory, so saying Doctorow does it is unfair. You have to do whats best for you but also you have to be true to your beliefs and it wont be easy to combine both.
I quit a good paying job years ago because one of our new clients was in the war business and I wanted no parts in it.
It was easy for me to quit then, I was young, not attached and my convictions were important to me and helping people in the death industry wasnt something I wanted to do.
Quitting was easy.
Now with two kids and a wife if I was put in the same situation would I do the same thing? My convictions havent changed, Im still a member of the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade and still am opposed to people claiming to kill in my name but it would be much harder for me to quit.
Am I less principled? No.
But the situation has changed.
I never once looked down on my old colleagues when I quit because the choice was mine as were the principles that guide me.
So Im not going to tell you or try to influence your choice.
In an ideal world, you could just say screw Lulu and find something else but since you will be playing the old school publishing game soon, youre going to have to play by someone else rules.
That's a decision only you can make.
I wish you the best of luck, no matter your choice.
Matt (mskala) at Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:09:54 +0000:
For what it's worth, yesterday someone bought a flash card download and Lulu did credit my account with $0.80 - so it appears that, as promised, their old pricing remains in effect for existing items.
Anthony from 74.213.159.129 at Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:46:13 +0000:
Lulu CEO Bob Young's Response: http://lulublog.com/2009/11/23/drm-debate-misses-important-point-—-the-goal-is-author-success/
Matt (mskala) at Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:46:32 +0000:
Thanks for posting that link, Anthony. I'm disappointed that, just as in the previous Lulu response posting, Bob Young still seems to think DRM critics don't know what DRM is. I don't think there's much hope of finding common ground until he acknowledges that we actually do know what we're objecting to.
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Steve from 165.154.153.58 at Sun, 08 Nov 2009 08:04:03 +0000:
Two words: Cory Doctorow