Looking Back to Look Ahead: Tips from the Music Industry to Trade Publishers

From Napster to Spotify, the music industry has been trying to navigate digital distribution. Over the past decade, the industry as a pioneer has struggled to deal with copyright and digital rights management (DRM).  With the rise of electronic book publishing, trade and commercial publishers are embarking on a similar journey.  E-Books and E-Readers become more prevalent, trade and commercial publishers have a blueprint for securing and profiting these services.  With each new service and device, there is a need for ethical and supportive relationships so that all stakeholders, such as content providers, creators and users, are satisfied.   Yet following in the footstep of the music industry will not solve some uniquely “print and press” problems. Publishers have the benefit of hindsight and time to adjust to their new market.

            Music was available years before ebooks hit the consumer market. Overtime the music industry was forced to adapt to the consumer demands and online retailers. With a larger library of trade e-books and the availability of lightweight, affordable e-book readers, the electronic publishing companies are on pare with the hurdles that the music industry once faced with piracy, pricing, and user services.

            Piracy is a formidable enemy to all digital media.  Instead of understanding how it’s done, it may best to understand why it’s done. Illegally downloading media through peer-to- peer networks has persisted in spite of legal action to deter the behavior, and can’t be deterred completely. When it pertains to piracy, users are more willing engage in this illegal activity because they don’t perceive the action as morally wrong. According to a business ethics study, “Deterrent messages regarding legal fines and legal prosecution, however, have not been found to influence intention to download; however, focusing on the probability of being caught to increase downloaders’ perceptions that the risk is serious may be more effective.” Content makers and providers had to find alternative ways to first deter piracy through other mean legal enforcement, such as instead going after individual file sharers, pursue action with internet service providers overall.

            In the beginning, Digital Rights Management seemed like a manageable solution for all stakeholders.  DRM is understood as a technology that allows rights holders to place predetermined restrictions on the file itself. This system would give retailers ability to control how media files where used, thus creating loyalty to a device or brand.  The best example how DRM worked for a time is ITunes. Having the largest music catalog available, iTunes controls 83% of the United States online music market share as well more than 90% of the device player market.  Until 2009, DRM kept music purchased in iTunes on Apple devices; however, ultimately the company bent to the demand for flexibility after various legal proceedings.

iTunes near monopoly on the music distribution shows how DRM could be effective, until the consumer demands the ability to have freedom over their purchased electronic materials.  The market for electronic publishing from the beginning is much more diverse.  Publishers and consumers alike are struggling with to deal with the restrictions of DRM such as lack on interoperability.  Instead of it being a solution to avoid piracy, DRM encourages people to get the product, disregarding quality, rather deal with the frustration.

For trade publishers, the idea of piracy is almost foreign to them as you could always just give a friend a book in printed form. Also before digital replication, photocopying a book could be more expansive than just buying the work itself. Setting the cost of the electronic books differs from publishing house to device. In the music, regardless of length or genre, can be played universally.  There is no one-way to publish a book electronic.  Digital publishers are dealing with format and function issues on intersecting levels. No way should at electronic book cost the same as a physical book; Once the book as unit is produced, whether it would be reflowing text or fixed formatted comes into question; the solution of how a page looks differs from electronic reading device versus consumer settings and options. In the future, books are working on ways than being more than just text; that type of literature will cost more to produce and have a worth value.

Despite unique challenges that publishers and authors have to face when venturing into electronic publishing, some tactics that the music industry has used could have potential in the realm of literature.  For example, free stream seems to be working the music industry. Applications like Spotify gives users a legal option to listen to as much music as they want, capped at 200 hours. Publisher could possibly formulate a service similar to that one. Magazine publishers are already trying to band together with their application “ Next Issue” to offer that type of service, yet there is no precedent for its success or if it can be replicated in other print areas.

            Publishers, authors, agents, retailers, and consumers are on a journey together. The music industry had over a decade to figure out what worked best for them. The book and print media world doesn’t have the luxury of time to figure things out as the technology is outpacing the development of retailer and legal structures

Robertson, K., McNeill, L., Green, J., & Roberts, C. (2012). Illegal Downloading, Ethical Concern, and Illegal Behavior. Journal Of Business Ethics, 108(2), 215-227.

 Trivedi, Priti  Writing the Wrong: What the E-book Industry can Learn from Digtial Music’s Mistakes with DRM, Journal of Law and Policy, Volume 18, Number 2, 2010.

Indvik, Laura. “All-You-Can-Read Magazine Subscription App Launches on IPad.”Mashable. N.p., 10 July 2012. Web. 14 July 2012. <http://mashable.com/2012/07/10/next-issue-ipad/>.