Buy the Book, Get the Search Service

The digitized book market exploded this week. Google Print went live and Amazon, Microsoft and Random-House each announced new programs. The copyright issues in the lawsuits against Google Print are worth separate attention, but I want to focus on the interesting aspects of Amazon’s announcement. It says a great deal about the important issue of how we will sell digital texts and what that means for copyright law.

 

Amazon announced Amazon Pages and Amazon Upgrade. Pages is a pay-per-page model. Want to read only the juicy parts of the latest tell-all? You could go to the bookstore and stand there flipping through the book with a clerk looking over your shoulder, but now, with Pages you can go legit: you can just search for “Monica Lewinsky,” pay for the two pages you really want to see and be done with it.

 

Amazon Upgrade is something else entirely: digital access to books purchased through Amazon. This is a really clever move by Amazon. They are changing the basic scope of the book business and this will put even more pressure on independent book sellers and even large operators like Barnes & Noble and Borders. And they have come up with a structure that should put meaningful limits on the sharing of digital texts.

 

Many readers—including me—want it both ways: the joy of reading books on paper and the search capability of books online. If I am actually going to take the time to read the whole book, I want to be able to maximize my use of it. A paper copy and a searchable digital copy will do just that.

 

Amazon Upgrade does just that. The details are a little murky, but the core idea is buy the book, get the search service. Buy a book from Amazon—one click shipped to you—and Amazon will sell you the right to search that book online at Amazon.

 

Sell when? Just when I buy the book, as a bundle? Can I buy online access later? At the same price I could have paid at the time of purchase? Pay an annual fee and get access for all of my purchases through Amazon? Amazon hasn’t said yet.

 

But now we get to copyright and digital copies. Amazon doesn’t seem to be selling digital offline copies with the paper copies. Instead, Amazon is selling a search service. Everything suggests that Amazon intends to do this with the consent of copyright holders, presumably for a split of the revenues.

 

Here the difference between service and product is substantial. If I downloaded a copy of the digital book, Amazon (and the copyright holder) would have to worry about what I do with the copy. Do I try to make other copies? If it is wrapped in some encryption via digital rights management (DRM) software, do I strip off the wrapper and put the content into the open? It only takes one sophisticated person to break the encryption, and then, as Fred von Lohmann has argued, the content can circulate freely.

 

The service model limits that possibility considerably. Presumably, I will need to log on to Amazon as me to use the digital books that I have “purchased.” For me to share my access with anyone else, I will have to give them full access to my Amazon account. I will probably do that with family members, and maybe a friend or two, but I won’t do it with my 10,000 closest friends halfway around the world.

 

That was Napster and Grokster, but the service model gives me a strong incentive to control access to the copy. By linking access to the digital object to access to other attributes that I care about—my account information and the ability to ship books via one-click around the globe—the service model turns me into an honest trading partner. I don’t have that same strong incentive with a digital book product.

 

Two other points about the product as service rather than as a downloadable book. This structure is completely dependent on easy network access, but that is where we are now. Note also that the service model—and Google is the best example of this—brings with it the chance to capture clickstream information and advertising dollars.

 

Now consider what Amazon Upgrade means for competition in the book-selling market. When Amazon started, I feared for the state of the Seminary Co-Op, Hyde Park’s leading independent academic book store. The Co-Op has continued as before, perhaps with a greater emphasis on author events (especially at the 57^th Street store). I don’t remember getting any dividends lately, but I can live with that.

 

But Amazon Upgrade is scary, especially for academic books. Amazon Upgrade means that Amazon can sell me the physical book, plus the right to search it at Amazon. I don’t assume that this is a simple business extension for Amazon, but Amazon is already a server-based business with strong searching (the search-in-the-book feature). But for an independent bookseller—and maybe even the chains—this is likely putting a man on Mars.

 

There is no way to “extend” ordinary offline selling of books to this. The only possibility for that is if Google Print, or another service like it, provides this as a back-end service to the offline booksellers. Even that will be tricky, as you need to make the link between the customer and the search service at the point of sale. Embed some code in the book itself and you can be sure that some individuals will just grab the code without purchasing the book.

 

The other possibility is that owning the book and searching it won’t be linked and that consumers won’t care about actually owning the book. This is the Google Print fight, a subject for another post.

 

Amazon Upgrade? Indeed.

 

Comments

[RTushnet]

"Go legit"? I wasn't aware that I engage in morally, much less legally, dubious conduct when I browse in Borders (or any other bookstore). Setting aside shrink-wrapped books, I find your description of ordinary browsing quite troublesome, since it seems to buy into the idea that copyright owners ought to be able to control that activity even in the physical world. The fact that most books aren't shrink-wrapped suggests that even the private benefit of unconstrained browsing to copyright owners outweighs the private cost, and, even if it didn't, that would hardly make browsing "illegitimate." You also might want to look for a bookstore that treats its customers a little bit better, if yours hires clerks who try to make customers uncomfortable.

[Randy Picker]

Oh gosh, I was just having fun with the description. Many years ago, there used to be a book store in Hyde Park that did shrink wrap the books (Staver's was the name if I recall correctly). The woman who ran it claimed that she didn't mind if you took the wrap off as she would rewrap, but I am sure I bought very few books there.

[Tom Mandel]

Ah, but Staver's - located on 57th street, right where the Seminary Co-op is now - was a *wonderful* bookstore. It was no trouble to remove the shrink wrap, rather thrilling in fact. You recall the store as run by a 'woman', but I'm older than you and remember both halves of the elderly couple who in deep devotion to their stock, to the point of fetish I suppose, wrapped each volume. In a population itself devoted to books, it was a fetish many shared, and I think decrepitude did them in rather than those who like you 'bought very few books there.'

[Robert]

Hello. This post is in response to the comments mentioning Staver Booksellers. As it's been nearly a year since the original comments were made, I am uncertain as to if this comment will be seen. But just in case....

I am in the beginning stages of developing a web site on the history of the store. Any information, experiences, or memories you may have of the store would be very much welcomed. My contact information is located on the site at: http://www.staverbooksellers.com.

Thanks,
Robert

[Law Student]

You made many thought provoking and interesting observations. I agree that Amazon is on the right track with its new technology.

When considering these new delivery formats, I tend to prefer increased availability of free material, requiring people to pay for convenience rather than mere access. That is, everyone should have access, but people should be able to pay for convenience. Access may be in the form of reading a book at the library (in paper or computer format). Access may also be in the form of free access at home after a certain period of time---say, 20 years (like patents). Convenience may include online search functionality for a book you just purchased.

However, the notion that people should pay for online access seems to take a step backwards in light of the information age, where more information is available to more people, allowing society to benefit from the information, and using new revenue models (ads, for example) to reward content creators.

The current copyright period of life plus 70 years is laughable. It is out of touch with the constitutional purpose of copyright (advancing the arts and sciences) and it is the opposite of the free exchange of information that has propelled productivity since the dawn of the information age.

In summary, thank you for your thought provoking post. I hope this new technology is used to increase access and convenience for all rather than merely provide another way to make money by charging for access.