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E-books may take a page out of digital music’s book

The International Digital Publishing Forum is considering a lightweight DRM.

On Friday, an association of e-book publishers—including major companies such as Harper Collins, Random House, and Barnes & Noble—issued a statement suggesting an outline for a new “Lightweight DRM.” This proposed Digital Rights Management standard could increase interoperability of books on hardware like e-readers.

Don’t get excited yet—the outline was only an invitation to a conversation that the association, called the International Digital Publishing Forum, wants to have. Still, it suggests the traditionally conservative publishing industry is learning how to do business in the Internet era. Hopefully, publishing is realizing something that the music industry has known for years: DRM is dead.

Of course, publishers aren't giving up entirely on DRM yet—they just want a different kind. But the IDPF suggested version of content management doesn’t require a lot of proprietary hardware or software to decrypt e-books (like the system we have today). In DRM’s current incarnation, books bought on a Kindle won’t work on a Nook, and books purchased on a Nook won’t work on a Kobo.

In the Friday statement, prepared by Bill Rosenblatt of Giant Steps Media Technology Strategies, the IDPF said a lightweight DRM option would lower production costs in terms of providing secure hardware and robust software. It would also reduce intensive client-server interactions. And of course, the IDPF suggested a new format would be favorable to consumers because it would be easier to use and understand.

The IDPF also said that content distributors (like Amazon and Barnes & Noble) are not clearly gaining when publishers use content protection. DRM, "is subject to a single over-arching limitation: the entities that want DRM (i.e., publishers and copyright owners) do not typically pay for it," Rosenblatt wrote for the IDPF. "Instead, the cost of DRM is usually passed on to content distributors and retailers. Apart from its use for 'lock-in,' these downstream entities have no incentive to protect content other than as a contractual obligation to content licensors. Thus it is understandable that distributors and retailers have been highly reluctant to pay for DRM-related features that do not directly benefit them."

Earlier this year, J.K. Rowling released her Harry Potter series without a heavy DRM standard—instead the books are digitally "watermarked", by stamping the user’s name and the time of purchase. That way, people who share the books illegally are theoretically traceable. People who want to lend the book to friends, or read the same book across many devices, have that freedom. Science fiction publisher Tor Books, which is owned by publishing giant Macmillan, recently ditched DRM as well.

This publisher resistance to heavy-duty content restrictions is not really about goodwill as it is about good business. It seems more people will buy e-books if they can transfer them between devices, or if DRM was easier to understand. At a recent conference held by the Digital Public Library of America, Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle answered an audience member who asked “what will it take for publishers to nix DRM?”

”Wanting to have a business at the end of the day?” Kahle answered sarcastically.

The new DRM that Rosenblatt and the IDPF suggested would involve more than simple watermarking, which is not totally protected by laws that prevent the circumvention of a copyright holder’s protections. The IDPF proposal would involve fewer restrictions than the varied proprietary encryption processes that pepper publisher content today. Rosenblatt often referenced PDF as an example of a format that lightly encrypts the document and prevents users from making modifications. That’s not to say the IDPF imagines that any new specifications would be enough to deter piracy: "To be very clear on this point: we expect that a lightweight DRM (in reality, any DRM) will be cracked, and we are relying on anticircumvention law for some level of crack protection," the statement read.

The IDPF noted that it would prefer to build the new format out of existing technologies, but would consider building an entirely new format altogether if there were interest. And, if such a standard were agreed upon, content distributors and reading system suppliers would be required to license the EPUB LCP [Lightweight Content Protection] format before getting access to the specifications. So there’s no telling if a new format would actually reform the fractured DRM system, as publishing companies would have to scrap their current DRM system and license the new one first. The Forum is currently requesting comments from "members and interested parties."

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