Earlier this week, we got our first glimpse of the Kindle DX, Amazon’s upcoming E-book reader that has taken the original Kindle’s nearly prohibitive $359 price tag and bumped it up to an even more exorbitant $489 for good measure. Granted, the DX has one major improvement: a bigger screen that makes it suitable for textbooks, professional journal articles, and even newspapers. I’ve spent the last few days mulling over the future prospects of the new device, and up until a few hours ago my forecast was looking pretty grim. But then a lightbulb went off over my head: pirates are going to save the Kindle DX.
But before I get to that, let’s address why the Kindle DX is poised to fail.
The Newspaper Strategy
Three major newspapers have banded together for an experimental trial run on the Kindle DX, offering cheaper long-term subscriptions to customers in return for the fact that their distribution costs will be next to nothing. The newspaper angle might be attractive for a few people, but I’m not convinced that it’s actually going to sell many Kindle DX’s – at least, not without the newspapers subsidizing the device’s cost as part of a subscription plan. Over $500 after taxes, plus paying for the newspaper subscriptions themselves, for convenient access to content that is already available for free online? I just don’t see it happening.
Kindle DX As A Textbook Reader
The other big marketing angle for Amazon is that the Kindle DX is the ultimate textbook reader. This sounds great in principle: students won’t have to lug around massive tomes between classes, and their books may even be slightly cheaper to boot! Unfortunately, for anyone who has ever actually used a Kindle, it’s pretty clear that this isn’t going to be as amazing as it sounds. Sifting through an E-book looking for a certain passage or image when you don’t know its exact page number (some call it ‘random access’) is a strange and unnatural experience. The Kindle sort of makes up for this by offering text search, but this is only helpful if there’s a proper name or unusual vocab term that you can remember in the passage.
But the Kindle’s real weakness is its highlighting and annotation functionality. In a real book, you can mark up your textbook and make notes to yourself in the margins. The Kindle lets you highlight and take notes, but the interface is painful to use with any kind of frequency – E-ink doesn’t lend itself well to quick navigation, nor does the Kindle’s joystick/button interface. From a student’s perspective, the Kindle is badly in need of a touchscreen. And while some students may initially grab the Kindle DX as soon as it comes out for the ‘cool’ factor, practicality (and cost) will rule it out for most of them.
Unless..
Pirates To The Rescue
College textbooks are really expensive. As in, $300+ per quarter (a small fortune for someone with little to no income) for a set of books that you may only occasionally look at and will have no use for three months down the line. If you’re thrifty you can sell those books back to your school and get doubly screwed when they fork over a laughably small return. Selling them online through services like Chegg usually yields better results, but for whatever reason most students still don’t use them.
So why don’t these students, renowned pirates as they are, simply copy the books? Well, textbook piracy already exists. If you know where to look online, you can find many novels and textbooks scanned in their entirety as PDFs. But until now, pirated textbooks were more trouble than they were worth. Reading them on a computer screen is a pain for obvious reasons. The alternative, printing out hundreds of pages at a time, results in an unwieldly mess that also stands out like a sore thumb whenever you pull it out in class.
The Kindle DX changes that. Just find the book you want in PDF form, upload it to your Kindle over USB, and you’ve got a perfectly readable and convenient textbook. Sure, students will have to deal with the usability issues I raised above, like slow highlighting. But these books, frustrating as they might be, will be 100% free. That’s $300 per quarter in extra beer money. Most obstacles and morals fade quickly in the face of that much alcohol.
Now, this is an issue we’ve brought up before when the original Kindle came out, and it hasn’t really been a problem. But most of the books people have been buying up until now are available for a mere $9.99 from Amazon. For most people, the motivation simply isn’t there to figure out how to pirate a book. But when you’re faced with a price tag of around $70 per textbook there’s a far greater incentive to find a workaround. It’s easier to find pirated files on campus too – students will be surrounded by classmates using the exact same textbooks so there’s a better chance someone will have a pirated digital version. And there’s always the resident friendly geek down the hall ready to help with any tech support issues.
So the Kindle DX may wind up selling well to Amazon’s chagrin. Amazon is really in the business of selling ‘the blades’ – it cares more about selling books than it does about selling devices (this is why Amazon offers an E-book reader for the iPhone too). Then again, it might just work out for the company after all. Students may take the time to pirate expensive textbooks, shortchanging their publishers. But a New York Times Bestseller? Why, I’d save myself the trouble and just buy it for $9.99 off Amazon.
wat about the fact that the textbooks would have no color?
That would be an issue with ‘legit’ E-textbooks too. And really, color isn’t that important for most books.
Color is important in most textbooks though. Think about diagrams, maps, charts, etc.
Erm, that depends on what subject you’re studying. Think law, philosophy, history, english: it’s not all about the sciences you know.
Yeah, it depends on the subject- but science books stand to benefit the most from color, and also tend to be more expensive (and therefore will represent the most savings). English “textbooks” are just paperbacks that cost $10 in the first place.
Actually I would think art books would benefit most, especially ones on abstract art lol.
Yes and no. Law textbooks are all 35GBP, over 100GBP for practitioners’ texts. Don’t be blinkered, it’s not all about science.
At my University, a lot of students copy whole books at a nearby copy shop and without color of course . Then they pay around 15 euro and not 70 – 80 euro for a textbook.
Yes, it’s not convenient to have all the pictures in black and white but they can always take a quick look in the book from the student besides them when it’s necessary.
For sciences it’s definitely helpful to have color when you’re trying to differentiate important anatomical or cellular components.
I agree that color is very important for some programs of study but I’m sure a color screen is in the works already.
I heard about that product–the coming Apple Tablet, right?
E-ink has its advantages, but color isn’t one of them. For tomes that go beyond text, the Kindle won’t do it. Even the Wall Street Journal has gotten beyond shades of grey.
No advantage to colour if it’s on a screen that’s going to screw your eyes and only last a few hours, though. I love plenty of Apple’s products, but anything without an e-ink display simply isn’t good enough for extended reading, full stop.
The Acer Aspire 1, which I have, is smaller than the DX, and you can actually use it as a computer as well. Like Woah. What a rip off.
The Aspire 1
valleyseek.com/product.action?itemID=128614
Acer Aspire ONE A150-1382 – Atom 1.6 GHz – 8.9 ” – 1 GB Ram – 160 GB HDD
It retails for between $250 and $300. I bought mine at Frys Electronics before I went to mainland China last week. May I say China is a WONDERFUL country. Much better than I expected. I was in Huizhou.
plus it’s dual core and has a color screen.
“plus it’s dual core” … this matters roughly none at all in this context (reading PDF files).
Pretty sure China is single core – only one political party allowed
But that single core can run multiple processes – there are multiple factions within the political party that have very different opinions
Yeah, I am totally going to take an Acer Aspire, lie down on the couch on my back and read while holding the laptop up.
I love it how the CPU fan warms my hands, and changing pages using the keyboard or touchpad is so easy.
Umm… wait a second.
Let us know when it can be used for days without a recharge, eh?
Ouch … +1
The N270 is single core.
It has HT and some paralellism. This gives it roughly a 50% boost when compared to a single-core x86.
It’s not blindingly fast, but it’s good enough for me (Emacs-Django-Linux).
hi jason…
your logic is poorly thought out, and seriously flawed….
given that amazon has signed agreements and some sort of relationship with some of the largest textbook pulishers, i’m fairly certain that the issue of textbook piracy has already been thought of and tested, or do you think amazon, and the team that’s created the device really are a bunch of TC/Simpson type engineers…
If I recall, the device has the ability to periodically phone home (firmware updates, book transfers, etc…). If Amazon hasn’t already, it’s pretty trivial to implement base level code to do a hash check on pdf files to disable the device, or to simply remove the files.
Without even seeing the device, or its packaging, I’m fairly certain that the device has T&C verbage that restricts the uploading of copyright protected/pirated material, and that Amazon has the rights to remove it if found….
Otherwise, why would anyone allow their material to be put on the device. Amazon would have had to satisfy these concerns at the very begining…
So please, walk through your logic before you start to type/publish..
This place is begining to sound more like the kind of place where the base head wakes up, and reads hios great idea from last night, and discovers it’s something like “blue is a great color, and loves me!!’…
you guys can do so much better….
and please ignore the spelling errs!!
if amazon remotely killed PDF files on kindles there would be a shit-show like no other that would break out against amazon.
exactly.
Turn off the wireless connection. Problem solved.
and then …
what the hell would you have brought a kindle vs a cheap laptop for???!!!!!
you buy the kindle because of the other functions that come with being connected to amazon!
again.. your logic is seriously faulty…
My idiotmeter is going berserk here. You buy the Kindle over a netbook for its E-Ink screen, not for its wireless capabilities.
The wireless capabilities are only to help you PAY for content. The web-browsing abilities would be better served by a netbook. You don’t buy it over a cheap laptop for its wireless connection to Amazon.
YOUR logic is seriously faulty.
Tom, the “your logic is faulty comments” are ridiculous. How can you be this idiotic?
1.) The prime source for pirated textbooks is textbooks that people LEGITIMATE:Y PURCHASED in pdf form, then redistributed on file sharing websites. Hash checking is going to stop that how?
2.) Sure, you could hash check a pdf. That will start the day after iTunes starts hash checking all the songs you try to import against originals and blocking “pirated” ones.
3.) Printed warnings against piracy have proven overwhelmingly effective in the past, so I’m sure that will help. (lol!)
4.) cbw87 is correct, your buying an eBook reader to read books, not surf the internet, so who cares, unless you’ve got subscriptions. And the whole premise here is that its college students using this to rip off textbooks. Let me tell you something, college student don’t pay for things like news paper subscriptions.
I’m definitely not a TC fanboy, but even I’ll admit this is an excellent post. “So please [Tom], walk through your logic before you start to type/publish..”
And as for textbook prices, I would love to only spend $300 a semester in textbooks. I’m an engineering student, most of my textbooks cost at least $150 each, and I need around 6 per semester. Last semester I spent $800, and that was with me buying 2 on Amazon. My cheapest semester has been $450.
hey dude…
if you think people/college students are going to buy a $400+ device to simply be able to put copied “pdf textbooks” of which you’re only going to have a few for the device. and to not be bale to make use of the rest if the functionality, then go for it.
amazon would love for this to happen. because people wouldn’t be coming back to utilize their network/services for updates/purchases, or for anything. i’m pretty sure amazon will make duckets just of the sale of the device, not as much as the overall purchase of the electronic content as well.. but the device isn’t being subsidized…
so feel free to buy the device and use it for an ereader.. go for it..
i prefer my $400 17″ 4G 600G Drive 2.0GHz laptop…..
but to each his/her own…
peace…
Tom, definitely going out on a limb here and pointing out that if you are buying a $400-500 device to use cell phone internet you’d be better served with a laptop with 802.11. It’s not an internet tablet – you can get about 384 kb/s from 3G if you’re moving at walking pace. It works to download books and browse wikipedia but you won’t love it.
It’s an ebook reader, it reads ebooks and that is what it does. I’m waiting for the price to come down but I want one just to read books. I’m studying law, my books are all black and white text and some of weigh a couple of pounds. It’s ideal.
I already live in a place where the wireless won’t work (hint: everywhere not in the US).
Problem solved.
Pirates always win. You’d think Microsoft with their huge amount of money would be able to stop piracy too. Hell, they have been in the software business a lot longer than Amazon and they still haven’t figured it out.
Microsoft doesn’t want to stop piracy. It helps them keeping a dominant market share. It also allows them to practice dumping without being accused of that.
Do you really believe the 111-1111111 serial number in so many products was an accident?
If this were true, then operating systems (Mac and Windows) would also have implemented these apps that are able to “zap stolen PDFs”. Not even to mention iphones, email providers and all the other ways that pirated PDFs are shared, distributed and consumed.
darla
not necessarily, the pc is a generic device.. you can load on it whatever you want.. the kindle is more like the iphone/ipod… you don’t have a lot of people pirating the songs from the ipod…
my point is that if a user wants to continually check back with the amazon service (which would be why you’d buy the device) then amazon could easily deal with pirated content…
if, on the other hand, you simply buy the kindle as a ereader device, then you’re probably overpaying for a device that wouldn’t be much more than a cheap laptop…
Are you kidding me?
90% of the music on iPods is pirated, Apple doesn’t automatically “zap” pirated music, despite offering its own legit store, and has no interest in doing so.
Your analogy proves the exact point you are trying to disprove.
“You don’t have a log of people pirating the songs from the ipod.”
Best. Comment. Ever.
LOLOLOLOLOL.
so… i still stand by my statement.. show me the data that supports that people in mass are ripping the content from the ipod, and pirating the songs…
we all know that people can fairly easily upload songs to the ipod in the apple format.. but show me the data on the other way…
Is this a troll? It -must- be a troll. If he’s not laughing at us for answering him I’ll lose all faith in people.
Here is the summary:
tom doesn’t think people take music FROM their iPod TO their computer, so
tom doesn’t see why Amazon will let people upload material FROM their computer TO the Kindle.
Do you see how you’ve turned that around? The Kindle can’t (yet, anyway) scan textbooks into PDF, that’s what computers connected to scanners do. You then put the PDF onto the Kindle and read it on the Kindle. There’s no need to copy it from the Kindle after that, surely?
As soon as the text books are on Kindle they will be DRM stripped and readable on netbooks and EEE PC/Aspire laptops as well.
I spent so much on books for college years ago. I would have loved this.
Not the Kindle, but the free text books.
College kids are the most likely to use drm stripped media too because most of them are dirt poor.
if the kids are poor, then they aren’t shelling out 400 for a kindle…
They already *are* shelling out $400 for books every semester.
…or Mom and Dad are.
I believe that most college kids are oblivious to the costs of their education. They know how much a pizza costs, and how much beer costs. But their eyes glaze over when it comes to the price of school.
Look, son, you can have a 4-year private-school education, or you can go to a public school, and I’ll buy you a new BMW at the end of it. Get it? (no, they still don’t get it, Cuz their friend Chuckie is going to the private school, and so it’ll be worth it.)
Even if what you say is true, if they can and will erase PDF files from the Kindle then one thing will happen. Someone will write a Linux Kindle software that will download files from free sites. Linux is being put on everything, the ipod, iphone…most smart phones, Xbox 360, PS3, so whats to say that someone won’t do it for the Kindle?
i agree…
someone could put linux on the device… but as i’ve said, then you’d have paid +$400 for what would be a basic ereader device.. and keep in mind.. the linux that you place on the device, might seriously cripple the functions of the device, depending on the underlying hardware design/drivers/etc…
linux as you may/may not know doesn’t play well with a great deal of hardware!!
Its running an arm11 processor, Samsung ram and NAND flash. Novatel wireless module. I don’t know, some of the hardware seems like cell phone hardware. Hard to say. Funny if someone gets Android to run on it. Again I point out that the ipod has a version of linux so if someone can make that happen no doubt they can do it for the Kindle.
True you have +$400 for a basic divice, why wouldn’t just make a kindle emulator for laptops, seems like that would be a better way to go. Then take the DRM from the downloaded books and put them on the net for download.
“might seriously cripple the functions”
Just like it crippled my netbook that came with Windows…
Get real. Actually, it would unlock the device’s potential.
That doesn’t make much sense. Apple could have done this with iTunes as well, but they didn’t, because a) there would have been a giant consumer backlash, and b) it would have deeply impaired their ability to ship enough units to be a significant marketplace force. Ask yourself: what percentage of songs on iPods are purchased via iTunes versus legitimately ripped from CD or illegally downloaded?
Further, this is technically impractical. For any given book, there are an infinite number of possible PDFs that will be effectively the same from a user’s perspective, but very different from the perspective of software, especially the kind of software you can run on a Kindle’s tiny brain.
Apple made a tonne of cash from intellectual property theft – iPods only became succesful because buyers could load them up with illegally downloaded music or music ripped from CDs which is legal in some countries but questionable in others. (And in fact the iPhone is only successful because the iPod primed the market).
The same won’t work for Amazon because they’re trying to make money by charging for the content not the reader – which most people will take for free when they have the opportunity.
Huh? First off, if Apple made a “ton of cash from intellectual property theft”, then companies like Sony did so too, to about the 100th. power! VCR’s, dual tape decks in stereos, CD recorders for computers …. The same could be said about ALL of those technologies, and Sony had their nameplate on all of them. Funny though… Sony *also* sells music AND movie content!
And the iPhone was a success in its own right – not because the iPod primed the market for it. I know plenty of businesspeople carrying iPhones around who NEVER owned an iPod, and don’t even care much about listening to music!
The iPhone was a hit because Apple realized that 99% of the existing cellphones on the market were becoming WAY too difficult to make full use of, as they added feature after features, but didn’t make friendly user-interfaces for all of it. You had to dig through 4 or 5 levels of menus to find what you needed on your typical Motorola or Nokia. Most people couldn’t remember the commands to dial to enable or disable features like call forwarding, much less expect the web browser on the phone to function worth a darn.
You’re right that Sony made a lot of money from IP theft too. What’s your point?
“And the iPhone was a success in its own right – not because the iPod primed the market for it. I know plenty of businesspeople carrying iPhones around who NEVER owned an iPod, and don’t even care much about listening to music!”
The iPhone made Apple a major company in consumer electronics, without it Apple would never have been taken seriously as a phone manufacturer and certainly couldn’t have signed the deals with telcos and content creators that made it a success.
Without the iPod the iPhone would have been a very expensive phone with an unfamiliar interface from a financially borderline, niche company with no history of delivering content (music, videos, apps), little experience in producing consumer electronics (all of it bad – Newton? Pipin?), much less credibility, cool factor and name recognition.
Whether anyone listens to music on the iPhone is irrelevant. It’s not just an isolated device, its a piece of a global technology, financial and business system.
I agree the iPhone is a good phone and I’m going to get one as soon as my existing contract expires.
You aren’t making much sense. I think you need think about what you’re trying to say before posting it. How will Amazon distinguish between a legit PDF file and a pirated PDF file? Since we can make PDF files with ease nowadays there will be no way for Amazon to tell the difference. If they tried they would be shooting themselves in the foot. Just think about it, couldnt Apple have tried this same approach with MP3’s? But they didnt and look where they are at today…
michael…
it’s easy to create an electronic file that has a unique identifier built into it. Amazon might very well have a system in place that says that each file that’s downloaded from their system has an ebedded id which is tracked to the device/owner…
amazon might handle ‘pdf’ files by doing an inspection/hash of the file, or whatever, and maintaining a database of these files, so it can easily disable the device if it finds them, or simply disabling the device to read/view/display these files…
whether they do or not is not a tech issue, it’s a biz issue..
but if i’m a publisher, and amazon wants my ‘textbook/content’ on their device… they’re going to have to solve this issue to my satisfaction.. or as i said.. i’l see you in court..
but from a tech issue, given that the kindle is a closed device, and amazon has complete control over it.. it’s easy to implement a number of scenarios to only have content on the box, that the copyright owner’s not complaining about.
of course this assumes that the device connects back to amazon periodically…
peace
OHMIGOSH! I might have to add a blank page with my pirated Acrobat software, just so it fails the hash check!
My stupidimeter broke reading your post, Tom. Just because a device phones home (think ANY iPod) doesn’t mean that they can just strip stuff from the device.
Are they going to take my pirated MP3s? What about the term paper I wrote while using my pirated Microsoft Word?
You really have no idea what you’re talking about. Before you come on a site like TC and claim to understand something, at least do some basic research. Go on PirateBay and see just how many textbooks there already are that you you can download. The Kindle doesn’t “phone home” to check for pirated material – it can’t do it. There’s no way to distinguish a non-DRM’d pirated textbook from a PDF of any legitimate document.
If you had just raised these questions without claiming to be some sort of expert on the subject, you wouldn’t look like such a fool.
weatherman…
you have no clue to what you’re talking about if you’re claiming that amazon can’t prevent a pirated copy of a textbook from one of their publishers from being on the device…
if the device conencts back to amazon’s system, amazon would be able to detect it..
whether they do or not is a complete biz decision.. but it’s technically doable..
but as i’ve told students as a TA years ago.. that’s a lesson for the reader..
peace
period.
Tom, Amazon can’t prevent a pirated copy from being displayed on a textbook unless it completely disables all user generated PDFs. Since anyone can make a PDF from any electronic document, checking hashes would do nothing. Modify a PDF slightly and, oh look, a new hash. Without individually scanning each document for copyrighted material, there is no way to check every document. I don’t think Amazon is about to tell everyone that they individually scan every document put on the Kindle. Do you realize the public backlash if they did? Privacy concerns would run rampant.
The key line: “Most obstacles and morals fade quickly in the face of that much alcohol.”
I totally agree about the highlighting function in the kindle. It’s quite ridiculous. As a reader of non-fiction, I really need to be able to highlight passages, add usable bookmarks and then be able to scan quickly over what I highlighted.
Adding an annotation to my Kindle is painful — hardly worth the effort at all. Plus, can I print out my annotations? Not easily — I haven’t figured it out myself and I work in technology. It’s not efficient at all.
I think with each new Kindle that Amazon releases, they hurt their credibility more and more because they are not addressing these fundamental problems.
A successful e-book is going to need to be part electronic and part paper or writable computer (a la Wacom tablets)– a veritable etch-a-sketch, if you will. Sure, I can read a newspaper on my Kindle but I can’t do the New York Times Crossword. I can’t tear out a page I want to remember. I basically must consume it, retain the information in my itty bitty brain, and if I want to share any of it with others, I have to go to said papers’ website, search for the article and email it from there.
Having said all that, reading fiction on the Kindle is a dream!
I agree – the Kindle is a great reading tool, but poor for every other function.
Oh, and crime doesn’t pay. Ever, for anyone. Ever heard of karma?
knowledge of what karma actually _means_ seems to pay off though.
it’s cause and effect, not the upholder of your personal views of right and wrong
way to be culturally ignorant
Crime really pays when it’s widespread, largely unchecked, and practically considered acceptable.
Not sure I agree, I’ve written about this in my blog (http://www.tcoz...-my-kindle.html).
I’m a tech guy, and study music. While I love the Kindle 2, and use it all the time now, it’s not big enough for manuals of that sort. I have already pre-ordered the DX because it’ll satisfy that need.
As for the functionality, I find it intuitive and easy, and the fact that highlights, notes and bookmarks get compiled for you into a separate “book” of it’s own (My Clippings) so that you can go back to points in the book easily, is GREAT.
And…what if you lose your book, with all it’s notes and such? On the Kindle, no problem…well, you have to get another device, but, you’d have to buy the textbook again, and it would be a blank slate. You get another kindle, download the book again, and bam…all your notes, highlights, bookmarks, restored. It’ll even open to the page you left off at. It does this because all your notes, highlights etc. get backed up.
The keyboard; kids today thumb type far more than they write. I think they’ll take to this naturally.
Navigation; at the start, yes, moving around is a little awkward. But, after a time, you get proficient, and, there are all kinds of keyboard shortcuts to speed you up. It’s a curve, but, not prohibitive, I already fly around it.
Searchable textbooks. Omg. Leave it at that. Talk about speeding up research and reference.
Need audio to accompany (like the piece to go along with the score)? Dump it on the device, and play it back while viewing the piece…one device.
Books…CHEAPER. WAY. That’s great. And I don’t have to store shelves of textbooks that I just throw away eventually anyway. Think about it; a student will pay how much over four years for textbooks? In the end, they probably save money. This would be an interesting analysis, particularly if Amazon creates a student edition and/or pricing.
Overall, for me, the device is indispensable and I’ve owned it for a week. I look very forward to receiving the DX so I have the personal and work size ones for all book types. And I’ll probably never pirate a book (well…never say never I guess).
Don’t get me wrong – some of the features can be very useful (particularly text search). I just don’t think the Kindle’s UI for highlighting will ever be close to as fast as just dragging your finger across some text. And none of what you said seems to contradict the idea that students will probably start pirating textbooks.
Unless I misunderstand, the point of the article is that the DX will likely fail without pirated books, not that people will or will not pirate them. My counter is, the DX has plenty of utility to make it stand alone; pirating may augment the success, but will not be the deciding factor at all.
FYI, they’ve already started the mill about an 8.5×11 touch Kindle by Christmas. Frustrating that I’ll already own two Kindles if that’s true, but meh, the oo-aa curve is always a pocket smack.
Here’s a sample of the rumored Kindle (I’ve seen at least three)…
http://www.gadg...e-than-a-rumor/
I agree that the Kindle is overpriced, and the lack of touch is a killer. that entry price alone might make the piracy a non-starter
The idea of a more versatile reader though that supports users interacting more naturally with their content (a notepad style device http://tr.im/OBMNotepad) is hopefully the way forward once the challenges of battery life etc can be resolved.
Looking at the business model that Amazon is currently proposing for KindleDX and newspapers I don’t think it’ll be viable for content producers to play in this space for long (especially with the total cost vs getting the dead tree version delivered)
To compare it to MP3 piracy, a lot of people really don’t know you can turn a textbook into a PDF and share it as a file. Just the same, back in the day, a lot people didn’t really realise that the computers that they typed their essays on could actually convert music into MP3s. Getting people to realise that the option is there is the first step – today pretty much everyone knows this.
The MP3 format doesn’t need to be played on an iPod, it’ll work just fine on the computer you already have. If the piracy is based on PDFs you don’t actually NEED the Kindle, you just need a device that can read PDFs. The Kindle gives you a lovely, paper like screen but it’s not required to take advantage of free textbooks.
You’d probably prefer reading the PDF files on the Kindle, just like you might prefer listening to MP3s without being tied to your computer, so you’d eventually choose to upgrade to an e-ink device.
Totally agree with your comment about newspaper subscriptions . . . You can get more news than you have time to read on any single day from worldwide sources for free. Why would anyone pay $5.99 a month for a single publication? Kindle DX will not be saving the newspaper industry from obscurity with this economic model.
A monthly subscription of $5.99 for the convenience of unlimited access to a wide range of international publications might fly.
Personally, I’d pay $6 a month for the New York Times even though I can get for free. Why? First, I’d rather get it without ads. Second, quality journalism is important to me, and I want to support that. For me, there doesn’t need to be a quid pro quo.
You can get all the news you want for free (well, a lot anyway) right on the Kindle, every day. Just use the web browser to go to NYTimes, CNN, etc. etc. I’m looking at today’s paper right now.
That aside, I believe that eventually more of that will be free (news etc), or some kind of one-time access fee. No doubt they’ll try to get what they can now, but if that compromises the model they’ll change it.
I like to read news in places I typically can’t (or won’t) break out a laptop in; in fact I rarely read news on the computer for more than a few minutes. Go Kindle.
In the Kindle DX promotional material I read, carrying your files with you to have and read sounds great except for the privacy issue. Imagine your doctor/accountant/lawyer/other having your case file and notes on KindleDX with the Amazon service monitoring that KindleDX.
And it seems that you cannot load your files manually onto KindleDX in readable format from computer only able to send files to/via Amazon to format and forward to your KindleDX.
Maybe the promo was incomplete or in error but Amazon’s control of everything on your KindleDX seemed clear in what was and was not said.
The Kindle 2 had the PDF conversion built in as an afterthought; the DX supports it natively (again frustrating, hopefully fixable with firmware update, I dunno though).
Privacy; I see doctors talking into tape recorders used for playback out of the office, walking around with notes in plain old notebooks, all that, I don’t think the Kindle ads or detracts from this issue.
I still believe Apple will release a tablet or other ultra portable device that will allow easy reading of eBooks and other digital content. The only obstacle I see is the dsiplay quality. (The kindle’s display is really easy on the eyes.) If Apple can solve this and still have a device that’s nice for web browsing, viewing multimedia content and running apps then they’ll be the frontrunner.
MANGA MANGA MANGA.
The original Kindle was not good for Manga–low resolution, poor greyscale, small screen.
The new Kindle DX with pdf capabilities will make it perfect for manga. The screen will actually be larger than most manga are printed, and the image quality may even be superior.
Manga also really lends itself to a subscription model for series.
No worry about highlighting, or color, or note-taking.
Most manga is consumed once, or a couple of times, and it is a pain to keep large bookshelves full of it.
Amazon has a HUGE opportunity to tap into the manga market with the DX.
This is a good point. I also assume this is true for American style comics as well, not just manga.
test
Just bought a DX the other day, spent the extra $$ for both the screen and easy PDF pirating.
College textbooks? good luck finding an equation or a footnote in there… it’s 1000 times faster to use your PC rather than those ugly devices.
by the way how fast is kindle dx? is turning pages not a nightmare?
Not anymore
http://www.wolframalpha.com
That might be true to a point, but probably much less so than you state (the search is fast), and that would assume that the entire document is 1 page, not spread over several links (which is common). Page turning is slick too, there’s a quick refresh and that’s that. Originally e readers did this poorly, which is one of the reasons I stayed away from them, but the latest gen seems to have solved it.
The Kindle DX will soon face bigger competition. The first tablet Netbook will soon be on the market. The Acer T91 should hit before next school year. It will have the touch screen and color. Using a PDF viewer you can highlight and and notes to the textbooks. You also will be able to use it for basic computing (no games) and it will be around $100 more.
$100 for a color screen and touch is worth it. The computer functionality is just a bonus. People will overlook the 1/2 inch difference in screen size.
There is a huge difference between reading on e-ink screens vs LCD screens. I’d go blind trying to read a manual or textbook for hours on a LCD screen.
I have read many books on LCD screens and continue to be the only member of my household not in need of reading glasses. There is a difference but i have not had eyesight diminish from reading on an LCD screen. Your statement is not universally true so i stand by my original assessment.
It depends on many things.
* Using an LCD in a dark room can diminish eyesight.
* Long periods of time viewing the same item at a consistent viewing distance, blinking rarely and not refocusing your gaze can diminish eyesight. (this might be the LCD screen or the e-ink display).
* Proper lighting when using a computer screen can mitigate damaging effects the screen may have on eyesight.
Wouldn’t the same logic apply to other eBook Readers? Why aren’t they as successful yet then?
For the sole use as a textbook, an eBook reader doesn’t need the subscription or wireless connectivity options. USB connectivity and enough storage for books (SD/Internal) should serve absolutely fine.
Foxit reader should be a player to watch.
I don’t believe that same logic applies. Amazon has a very integrated model with remote backups of books and notes, one click purchase, and multi-kindle device sync, including iPhone (and anything else they’ll eventually put the reader on). One of the reasons I went Kindle was for this model, which is iTunes-like easy.
I’m surprised you guys are blogging on the weekend..LOL
Services like Chegg don’t work out because it’s much easier to buy/sell via the university newsgroups, which serves as a de facto craigslist. It’s quicker, easier and there’s no middleman to deal with (at least this is how was when I was in school a few years ago, not sure if it’s changed).
What do you mean about rampant piracy saving the Kindle DX.
Is it that everytime a shipment of Kindle DX’s leave Asia, a boatload of Somalian pirates are going to stop this overpriced pile of tush from reaching these shores.
LOL.. you rule
The reason e-books haven’t made it big yet is because:
1) The price hasn’t come down enough yet.
2) The tech isn’t quite there, but will be (remember the 1st mp3 players, like the rio?).
As far as newspapers: the author of this article is probably right that no one will be interested in the Kindle (at its current price) just for a reduced subscription price.
…The newspaper’s should request permission to collect and track info on users, in exchange for subsidizing. That would be great for advertising, and most users, as long as they understood the info being tracked, may be fine with it if the subsidy is sufficiently large.
I agree that the DX does have its limitations but Amazon seems to know what they’re doing with the Kindle. At the very least, this is a great first step towards electronic newspapers and textbooks.
Text to speech. That’s going to be a key selling feature for college students. As far as note-taking, in college I wrote a notes to my laptop for each chapter as I read. It would be pretty sweet to just prop up the DX next to my laptop and listen/read-along as I took notes.
Another point worth noting. If the DX does take off, I imagine it wouldn’t be difficult for Amazon to rapidly build out some unique textbook and newspaper functionality for DX2. Textbooks and newspapers could come to life… audio from famous speeches, videos of historical events and science experiments, interactive diagrams, simple multiple choice self-study tests… stuff that a lot of publishers already include on CD-ROMs and secure web sites for book owners.
Most text books and news stories are versioned and regularly updated. It would be terrific to have free updates for a period after initial download.
If Kindle is a good reader for DRM-protected content, it would be just as good a device for pirated, unprotected and revenue-free PDFs. After all, Apple sold over six billion songs on iTunes, but that’s still dwarfed by the pirated music scene…much of it on its iPods.
[...]
If Kindle can provide evidence that there’s a profitable repurposed-print market that can fuel hardware sales with a healthy margin, Steve Jobs would be more than ready to jump into the fray. At which point — if PDF is the format equalizer — the battle shifts largely to hardware design, back-end service, user experience differentiation and overall value. Precisely the areas where Apple is peerless. Amazon’s revisionist “bookpad” vs. Apple’s recombinant “mediapad.” Rear-view mirror into a lethargic industry vs. windshield towards a non-print centric future.
A Kindle in the wind: Amazon’s strategic dilemma
http://countern...05/08/kindledx/
Wish I had that option in college. Text books are so over-priced and rarely get used. Glad to see the chance to save all that wasted money.
I have the Amazon Kindle 2 and I love it, the only problem is that they didn’t come out with the DX sooner. I’ll want to wait and see what Plastic Logic comes up with and if someone can integrate colored e-ink with good clarity. Hopefully also a touchscreen will be implemented better then Sony’s latest reader (I heard cut DPI in half from it’s last version).
I wrote an article about the Kindle DX here (http://www.gadg...dle-dx-is-huge/). Check it out for some specs and a little information on it.
It will be interesting to see just how the Kindle and Kindle DX does. I just feel that someone aka Apple, will swoop right in and take over this market with a much better device.
I think the Kindle and other ebook readers will always suffer from their specialized position on an advancing technological slope. I would buy a device that has a flexible high resolution color screen that rolls up for easy portability. And since this would be so great, I would want the ability to write on the screen occasionally. And I would like to write up my own documents with a wireless keyboard. And now, since it does all this so well, I want to be able to watch video using this great screen. Etc.
So, once the technology is out and affordable enough to make a really appealing portable device, it will be too good to keep strictly as an ebook reader rather than say a tablet pc with wireless optional components.
I think nothing will be the Kindle’s savior. And nothing is going to save the newspaper and magine. They are all will go to hell. The only thing is going to win is website. We will use website to comunicate, not newspaper anymore, not text book any more. The are only website, website, website.
Perhaps it is sufficient for the threat of rampant piracy to be presented so as to motivate the publishers of textbooks to adopt the medium.
If they are no longer paying shelving prices to near monopolies (Ye Olde College bookstore), and they are no longer shipping their tomes and paying costs along the way, a mere quarter-pound of flesh per book might prove sufficient incentive against the zero-sum of being Napsterized.
If piracy for $1 apps on the iPhone App Store piracy is as high as 80%, why wouldn’t $10 book piracy be just as high?
well, youth has many advantages but economic forecasting for boomers is not one of them. Today , I bought my wife, who ravages three books a week a kindle; why? not to save money but to save trees and bulk packing books vs. bathing suits for vacations and forever eliminating trips to the book-store and oh, yeah, instant gratification with a nice hardware format to read on vs. a laptop (bulky and battery constrained. The Kindle is a home run…take a look at Amazon’s stock price and watch this device change its business like the iPod changed Apple’s:)
You are right on Danco, everything I have read about the kindle makes me think that they have spent much of their time building the device for their best customers, not kids who pirate things for sport.
just curious why so many articles on techcrunch have spelling errors…. like “thifty” in the above article. is there such a rush to get these published that there is no time for a proofread?
Sometimes, but the more common reason is that we usually rely on the built-in spell checkers in our browsers (the red squiggles). But when we save a draft in WordPress and the page refreshes, sometimes the built-in spell check gets messed up.
Right on about why buy Kindle when you can read news for free online. Little known fact, but even WSJ, who has a online subscription model, provides their articles for free online if you know exactly what to do
So I don’t quite buy into the recent press about Kindle saving newspapers. That’s just seems like a marketing gimmick, not much in the form of explanation has been provided by Amazon on how. Interesting pirating angle though!
BTW, hoping that Michael moderates our Stanford/MIT VLab Journalism 2.0 event (http://www.vlab...le.html?aid=271) on May 19th. Working on getting Kindle on the event panel. So would be interesting to have Mike help get some of these questions answered at the event.
Folks…news is free on the kindle. There is a web browser. I read CNN and the NYTimes on the Kindle, they even have bookmarks preset on the device already. You can zoom the pics, jump around articles, all that. True, sometimes the formatting is a little wonky, but it’s free, and even the wireless connection to access it is free (the GIVE you Whispernet, which I believe is Sprint 3g).
FREE NEWS ON KINDLE. IT’S THERE.
Apple NetBook comes out before start of most school years at $699. Kindle DX and Kindle itself become a niche for hardcore book readers.
Sorry, but Amazon just has no hope competing against Apple in this device space. Apple is far and away the best tech hardware and OS designer (maybe Microsoft competes OK with their OS).
Kindle will win with battery life due to eInk. NetBook, like iPhone, slays in every other category, so people really just wont care that much re: battery.
I am seeing nothing to indicate that Kindle has a long life ahead.
“Rip. Mix. Burn.” Wait to see what happens in the text book market when the NetBook hits.
I will probably get a netbook when it comes out; I love my macbooks.
But I will most definitely not throw awah my kindles.
THey are different devices. I would not walk into a subdued setting of any kind, like a restaurant bar etc., and pull out a backlit, laptop-like device (a netbook is a laptop with a touch screen, that’s it), to start tapping and typing, but I have no problem taking out my kindle.
I would also not take my netbook to the beach…camping…or for a two hour car ride. I take my Kindle everywhere.
I think they’re apples and oranges, they complement each other, exactly as my macbook complements my kindle now, and vice versa.
to the guys who come up with the 80%, 90% of music on ipods is pirated, care to back those stats up with real/verifiable stats/links, and not some website that’s not worth crap…
thanks
by the way…
don’t get me wrong, i’m not saying you can’t have piracy.. i’m simply saying that Amazon wouldn’t really allow it to happen in mass for textbooks that are from its partners, given the stakes…
but i firmly believe that you’ll eventually have a model where textbooks will be advertisement supported, or sponsorship supported, in which case the cost to the student would be dramatically reduced, and piracy would be a good (although stupid) thing. stupid, because if the student simply downloaded the ‘book’/content, then the student would in all probability get more/better coupons from the local businesses for the college, that would be useful to the student…
Allow me to spell it out for you:
There is no such thing as 100% protected content. The technology doesn’t exist.
Why can’t you grasp that?
coldbrew,
never said that amazon, or anyone could completely eleminate piracy of textboks on the kindle, i said they could handle it.
think about it. assume you’re amazon, you want publishers to develop content for the device. the very 1st question to amazon from a publisher. “how are you going to deal with some idiot copying my text/content” and making it available for someone to put out for everyone with a kindle to freely pirate it and read it?”
amazon: doh, we’re not…
publisher: we’re not going to create the content for your device, and we’ll see you in court
or would amazon think/come up with multiple solutions to attack/minimize the issue…
remember, without content directly from the publishers, the kindle is pretty much a straight ereader device…
so.. give the world your thoughts on this…
Amazon’s solution to this will be the same as Apple’s solution: they will make it as easy as possible to buy books, make it mildly inconvenient to share Kindle book purchases, and otherwise ignore the question of piracy altogether.
Book and magazine publishers will go along with this for the same reason that music publishers have gone along with Apple. They would like to keep their 1980s business models intact, but they now realize, at least intermittently, they can’t. Their choice isn’t between piracy and no piracy: that’s a fantasy. Their choice is to participate in digital content delivery or lose out to competitors who do.
Signing up publishers to do Kindle editions will be 10x easier for Amazon than stocking the iTunes store was for Apple. Book publishers are already used to dealing with Amazon. The publishing market is much less concentrated than the music market, so any individual publisher has less power to resist a trend. They’ve had plenty of time to watch music publishers fail to sweep back the digital tide. And book and periodical publishers are scared about competition from all the free text on the Internet in ways that music publishers aren’t.
william…
sorry. there’s a fundemental difference between the itunes/kindle model.
with itunes, you as the end user have the ability to choose the music you want to listen to. you can choose which artist you want, and therefore have multiple choices…
regarding the issue if textbooks on a kindle, you as the end user can’t choose to use another book if the prof selects a specific book. which means you can’t simply go find another one..
so, the textbook publisher is going to have a great deal more power in the relationship to amazon.
trust me, amazon will figure out how to manage this process to not screw the textbook publishers.
in a similar manner, if the publishers decide that too much piracy occurs regarding their textbooks on a given campus, they will simply go straight to the pres/legal dept of the university, and eventually implement a process where the digital content of the textbook library is made available to the university, and the university will in turn simply add a ‘textbook’ cost to the financial bill of the student..
the bottom line, the publisher will get their slice of the pie..
“remember, without content directly from the publishers, the kindle is pretty much a straight ereader device…”
Piracy obviates the need for content to come direct from the publishers. As long as the content exists in some form, and if many people want it, it will get convertered to a free format.
“regarding the issue if textbooks on a kindle, you as the end user can’t choose to use another book if the prof selects a specific book. which means you can’t simply go find another one..”
… but you _can_ go find a different source for the same textbook.
Same deal as for movies, if someone wants to see the latest Batman film without paying for it then they’re not going to be satisfied by seeing the latest Spiderman. So they download Batman.
“in a similar manner, if the publishers decide that too much piracy occurs regarding their textbooks on a given campus, they will simply go straight to the pres/legal dept of the university…”
… has been tried several times by music publishers and failed completely.
Jason, I think there’s another kind of ‘piracy’ that’s equally important.
Most of the music on my MP3 player is ripped from CDs I own. But now that I have it, I’ve been purchasing more and more music on line.
The thing pushing me away from the Kindle is that I already own a bunch of books I intend to read or re-read. Getting a Kindle would mean having to re-buy them. Ripping physical books is a lot of work compared to ripping CDs, so I’ll never do that. But if I can easily download PDFs of the hundreds and hundreds of books I already own, I’d switch over to a Kindle DX in a heartbeat.
From the publisher’s perspective, I’m sure they’d count my downloads as piracy, but for me, that the DX allows fair use is a giant step forward.
The Irex Digital Reader 1000S is much better than the Amazon Kindle DX, it has an amazing wacom touchscreen and WiFi. It’s perfect for piracy of books and textbooks. It’s running open source OS and software. It’s not much more expensive than the Kindle DX. Yet the Irex Digital Reader 1000S isn’t exactly a huge hit.
I think though those devices will eventually be a hit. The Kindle DX sucks though for not having a touchscreen, not having WiFi and not having an unlocked 3G modem. But the brand of Amazon should help push the concept forward more.
I actually checked out the IRex, it was a close call between that and the Kindle. But Amazon’s sheer amount of content (IRex sports “thousands”, Amazon sports “hundreds of thousands”), and the whole notes/highlighting backup, and one-click purchase/store integration, sold me. The IRex, imho, is a less consumer-friendly package all around. Similar to the iPhone; a lot of people argue it’s not the best phone overall, and they’re probably right. But the app store, itunes integration, and almost full featured web browsing, you can’t beat the package.
Well sure if you prefer paying for stuff the Kindle is better.
But you can also pirate just about anything online, including textbooks.
1. If there is any chance someoe can remove something from my machine without my consent I will NOT buy an E-Reader
2. Newspapers and magazines are a case in point. After a while all those back issues are a valuable research tool.
3. Textbooks. This should reduce the price. I had a math textbook published a few years ago and the publisher abandoned it. I want to self publish the pdf at around £10. I think that is low enough no one will want to pirate it. I also want to to do the same with an anthology of poetry.
Basically however textbooks are overpriced. Selling cheap textbooks that self destruct in a year, more expensive ones you can keep for ever but not transfer, and expensive ones you can resell sounds a good model.
Perhaps the best defence against piracy is that textbooks tend to go out of date rapidly. Why pirate a cheap text that will be worthless soon (IT Texts are a case in point)
Personally I think the Kindle will fail but point the way. Right now a laptop is a better option and if weight is a problem get an airbook.
I still want the potrait format of an E-Book reader. Most PDFs have pages too big for the screen. And I want to make notes, bookmarks etc. Not easy with current technology, unlessyou have deep pockets
Laptops and Ebook readers are entirely different devices, they don’t serve the same purpose at all; this is a common theme in this article. I can’t read for hours on a laptop, I can on a Kindle, and I won’t break out a laptop on a subway or in a car (distracts the driver), or in any kind of subdued setting where a laptop, or even a cel phone, is inappropriate. There is no issue with this on a Kindle.
Regarding removing something from your device without your consent, that happens all the time; updates remove one thing from your machine and replace it with another all the time. Apple, or Microsoft, could torch your entire machine, just look at the Genuine Windows checker that gets dumped on your machine by Microsoft to make sure your box is registered. If it’s found to be out of license in any way, your machine will cease to boot into the desktop.
I’m telling you, I used to say all this stuff. But I bought one, and it completely changed my perspective.
Look at these two recent news lines, I don’t see any future for the policy that Amazon is following?
“…In October, Google, authors, and book publishers announced a $125 million settlement that will create a registry of online books, and allow U.S. consumers and institutions to purchase access to that material…” (http://www.pcma...,2346188,00.asp)
“…But downloading music, that’s still wrong, right? Nope. If you live in China, you can download music legally from Google for free. No problem…”(http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/31/stealing-music-is-it-wrong-or-isnt-it/)
Jason, one thing that you need to take into account: those students who would be able to afford a Kindle DX likely have parents who pay for their textbook expenses. As a result, many students may not be as concerned about the cost savings as would otherwise seem.
Not going to work. Where would you find these textbook trackers? Who is actually going to spend the time and money scanning 300+ page books? A proper scan of these textbooks requires a person to rip the pages out, scan them, then put them in pdf format. Once the pages are ripped out, then you cannot return the book and if you’ve made a photocopy before you’ll notice that the crease makes it hard to read those few words or see the full graph. The reason why books are easily available is because the publishers have made them available for the uploaders to grab and upload for the world. This is not the case with textbooks. Also, I would never spend that much on just a glorified screen.
Interesting idea and a great point about piracy saving Kindle. At the same time, it is kind of odd that it costs as much as a laptop for most consumers (not counting students subsidized by Amazon).
If they can properly take care of complicated, high-resolution tables, graphics, annotations, that would indeed make this a very powerful tool for textbooks. The impact on traditional newspaper is less clear, unless Kindle can have a very low price point.
I don’t have a Kindle but checked one out from a friend. The screen is very neat and unlike most standard back-lit LCDs. If you get a chance, check it out. Kindle’s display is VERY cool and more comfortable for all-day reading.
In any case, it is awesome that there is another, larger screen, Kindle coming out. It is pretty exciting that Amazon is putting a ton of effort into revolutionizing and popularizing eBooks.
On the note about Amazon, I came across an interesting table that shows Amazon’s discounts in various categories.
It is at http://www.uberi.com
Maybe someone will find it useful too, or at least somewhat amusing…
I welcome digital textbooks with the ability to search. But I’m afraid this will be difficult for most universities to adopt as they run their own in-house bookstores that resell used books bought back from students. If Amazon can somehow demonstrate that they can help the universities earn more revenue the Kindle should perform well for them.
I agree. Kindle does not get hot and battery life is off the charts compared to a laptop/netbook. Another point Kindle has over textbooks is weight and just the size the textbooks take up.
Not all textbooks are available on the Kindle.
Wonder if students will ever be able to sell their purchased electronic textbooks to other students? Hopefully book vendors will “get” doing business in the digital age and will leave from the total mess that the music indrustry has made for themselves. You CAN make money in the digital age–but it requires a paradigm shift.
Students pirating books is legal because it’s for educational purposes or not?
Copying (or pirating) complete books that have a valid and current copyright is NEVER legal.
This might help
http://onlinebo...du/okbooks.html
It is legal to copy a work that you already own for backup purposes.
If your crunchpad is able to read pdf, will anybody buy a kindle?
They might, because of battery and readability in bright light.
It won’t fly as a textbook replacement in a lot of cases.
Think about classes that have open book tests.
Open book means textbook and your own notes alone.
The professor can’t let you use your Kindle with the textbook on it during the test, because it’s a whole frickin web browser, not just a book. You can go Wikipedia’ing in the middle of an exam.
So you have to pay $150 for the textbooks for those classes on top of the $500 Kindle on top of whatever books you can’t pirate and have to buy the digital versions of, for only slightly less than printed price.
I think most students will just charge the books to their student loans (”free money, with ma & pa’s signatures as cosigners”) rather than deal with all that.
Or they could upgrade the educational systems to allow students to use the Internet, which makes much more sense.
Yet 100% less likely to happen.
Do you want your next surgery performed by a medical student that looked up all the illnesses on his exam, instead of learning them?
1) Open book tests that I’ve taken include open note and open laptop.
2) Your surgery example is perfectly silly, as I wouldn’t want a doctor holding anything sharp if his final exam was conducted open book anyway.
Sorry, med school exams (they’re called “boards”) aren’t open book, and never will be.