AASL and Amazon learning the hard way
Saturday, July 18, 2009 at 08:22AM 
Two interesting happenings this week on the long march toward an all-digital information future:
Chris Harris started quite the discussion about what he considers to be AASL's overly restrictive protection of its student standards. (Joyce Valenza's in her NeverEndingSearch blog does a great job of catching the tone of the conversation on AASLForum listserv here and here.)
AASL is in a Catch 22 situation - it wants its standards widely seen and used, but it also wants to control how they are used and wants them to earn the organizationrevenue. (Oh, despite these being written by "volunteer members," such standards are expensive for organizations to produce.) Judging by the tenor of the discussion on various library lists, the ill-will being generated by the controversy is costing AASL a lot in lost membership and good will. A quick (oh, I forgot that that quick is not in AASL's vocabulary) policy reversal, placing a share-alike, non-commercial use CreativeCommons license on the standards would show it listens to its membership. (#FreeTheStandards ) AASL and ALA will need to move into the 21st Century someday, whether they want to or not.
The other step back comes from Amazon that has deleted some Kindle titles, not just from its online inventory, but apparently from users' actual devices. (David Pogue's take here.) According to the NYTs, the publishers did not have the rights to offer these titles. Some critics have compared this move of Amazon's to waking up and finding books missing from your bookshelf with check for their value in their place. Personally, I see it more like turning on your television and finding some of your cable channels gone. Amazon doesn't sell e-books; it leases them to readers as long as they have a working Kindle reader. Adjust your thinking.
As anyone who has ever implemented a new way of doing business knows, even the best planned, most thoughtful transitions ever go off without unexpected hitches. All membership organizations like AASL will eventually find that they need to give very liberal copyright permissions to their materials if they really want them to be widely used - which in turn increases the power of the organization. A model for compensating authors that does not involve the use of DRM schemes like those used by the Kindle will happen and all publishers will realize that all their materials will need to be made available in scary, easily stolen electronic formats.
The directions seem clear - fewer restrictions, digital formats, alternate forms of revenue generation for producers. But these little detours are interesting!
(Added July 21 - E-book banning's potential demo'd by Amazon <http://bit.ly/11t2IC> - Manjoo writing in Slate. OK, ALA OIF - where are you? Maybe this is more serious than I first thought!)
Reader Comments (5)
"Amazon doesn't sell e-books; it leases them to readers"
That's odd. Right on the Amazon site itself it says "buy" in regard to the e-books for Kindle. In fact, I can't find anything about "leasing" books on their site.
Perhaps AASL officers should read the newly released book, _Free_ by Chris Anderson. It's a free audio book download on iTunes right now (http://freeitunessongs.blogspot.com/2009/07/audiobook-chris-anderson-free-future-of.html). Or perhaps reading about the developing Open Source movement. Check out the article by David Wiley on T.H.E. Journal entitled "Open Teaching Multiplies the Benefit but Not the Effort"(http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/3884/david-wiley-open-teaching-multiplies-the-benefit-but-not-the-effort). I think it would be fair to say that open standards multiply the benefit.
I guess I always understood that when I "purchased" anything in digital format from Amazon or iTunes, I only purchased the right to read the book or listen to the song. The song or book does not belong to me. However, if I woke up one morning and found some of my favorite songs missing from my iTunes library, I would be extremely upset. At the very least I would hope that my money would be refunded. There is no doubt in my mind that things have to change. Little children should not go to bed at night worrying that when they wake up in the morning, all of their favorite cartoon movies will be "erased" from their little iPods. For crying out loud people. . . this is the 21st century!
Hi Peter,
You are right of course. But with any material in digital format that requires a device to read or play it, to pragmatically say that you "own" it depends on having functional technology on which to play it. I must have 200 VCR tapes I bought when my son was small, which for all practical purposes, I will have lost "ownership" of when VCR players are no longer available.
All the best,
Doug
Hi Rob,
I understand the "free" concept. (Gladwell did a good rebuttal of it <http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/07/06/090706crbo_books_gladwell>.)
Having been a board member of a number of professional organizations, I tend to be a bit more sympathetic toward AASL's reaction. It's pretty scary giving up a tried and true revenue source without having a solid replacement. The discontent members might have with the permission on the standard might be minor compared to a dues increase precipitated by loss of publishing revenues.
I am glad I don't have to make that decision!
Appreciate the comments,
Doug
Hi Kelly,
I think most of us would be upset if something we purchased disappeared without warning. I do think Amazon was honorable in that they refunded customers money after they found out they had sold what was technically stolen property. Not every business would do that, I'm guessing.
All the best,
Doug
"I must have 200 VCR tapes I bought when my son was small, which for all practical purposes, I will have lost "ownership" of when VCR players are no longer available."
You will still own them but what probably matters to you (one may assume) is the information on them, not the medium.
Regardless, my point is that Amazon ebooks are not "leased", and it's a mistake to encourage consumers to think of them this way. "Leasing" is a matter of property law, not copyright law. Encouraging this thinking is to encourage thinking of copyright as property. We can think of copyright as property, but that doesn't mean we should.