[A2k] O'Reilly: "Why Kindle Should Be An Open Book" [or die within 2-3 years if it sticks to autism]

[Claude Almansi]

Hi All,

Discussions  on this list about the Kindle have mainly concentrated on
the "disablability" of its text-to-speech function by authors and
publishers. But there already have been references to the root of this
problem, namely the proprietary format of the Kindle e-books and their
being controlled by DRM (being gathered under
<http://www.diigo.com/user/calmansi/kindleDRM>)

Tim O'Reilly, in "Why Kindle Should Be An Open Book" (
<http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/22/kindle-oreilly-ebooks-technology-breakthroughs_oreilly.html>,
also deals with the proprietary, DRM'd, unsharable, untransferable
nature of the Kindle and its e-books. But on the basis of precedent
failures of proprietary, closed offers going back to 1994, he goes
further, predicting  that "[u]nless Amazon embraces open e-book
standards like epub <http://www.openebook.org/>, which allow readers
to read books on a variety of devices, the Kindle will be gone within
two or three year".

If O'Reilly is right - and he tends to usually be - this means that in
2-3 years, if Amazon insists on maintaining the present autism of the
Kindle, Kindle authors and users - whether reading-disabled or
non-reading-disabled -  will probably reconciled in having been had by
Amazon folks, who in the mean time will have made heaps of money
anyway. Sure, authors will have made some too, but they will have to
deal with very peeved readers who will find the books they thought
they had "bought" in a no-longer supported proprietary format, on a
no-longer supported device.

Unless, that is,  if authors prove capable of looking a bit further
than 2-3 years, and stop obsessing about unfounded allegations that
text-to-speech creates a derivative that would deprive them of monies
and harm their "babies", and turn their energies to pressurizing
Amazon to follow O'Reilly's advice instead. If that should fail, they
would be wiser to look for less myopic e-retailing platforms.

On the other hand, considering the risk of a Google Books / Amazon
duopoly (1), maybe  the croaking of the Kindle in two years time
wouldn't be such a bad thing, in spite of the collateral damages to
Kindle authors and buyers.

Best

Claude

(1) By the way, did someone record yesterday's KEI brown bag about the
Google settlement?