Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

Earlier this week eMusic.com, which bills itself as the “Number one site for independent music,” announced that it would begin selling audiobooks from its website. eMusic, which operates on a subscription basis and is second only to iTunes in the digital music space, started offering the titles yesterday, and they include major publishers and titles from some of the biggest names in publishing, including Random House and Penguin.

What’s an interesting wrinkle is that the audiobooks will be issued sans digital rights management, which means the files can be listened to on multiple devices and/or computers. While iTunes offers some music free of DRM (at a premium price), its audiobooks (made available through Audible) are always swaddled with DRM. Because of this, listeners are restricted in terms of how (and when) they can listen to the files. eMusic’s move to offer their audiobooks without these restrictions, I think, marks another blow to DRM in general and points towards a future where people will truly own the digital content that they buy.

Of course, what’s also really important is the fact that eMusic is trying to get people who usually listen to music to also listen to audiobooks. And despite the outcry of purists who heap disdain upon audiobooks, saying that listening to one is a less-rewarding experience than reading the original book, this is indeed an encouraging development. Because it not only gives eMusic more content to offer to its users, but it has the potential to open up an entire world to music buyers who now may only be experiencing words in the form of song lyrics.

To celebrate the announcement, eMusic last night held a party at the Angel Orensanz Foundation for the Arts in downtown New York. The party itself was a literary/musical combination that included performances by a couple of bands, not mention DJ J.G. Thirlwell (who was playing snippets of audiobooks over the music, which sounded very cool). In addition, Indecision author Benjamin Kunkel also put in an appearance, talking about his novel and then introducing one of the bands (who, in their sweaters, looked very much like Weezer).

And while writers have occasionally held the stage with musicians (from Lawrence Ferlinghetti reading at The Band’s final concert to The Magnetic Fields working with Lemony Snicket), now that everyone has an iPod and is downloading music (and increasingly eschewing print for electronic entertainment), the time seems right for there to be a real collaboration between these two art forms.

In fact, on the back of the party invitation, eMusic lists a few suggested pairings of books and music, offering a number of food/wine combos: Macbeth and McCartney, White Noise and The White Stripes, Leaves of Grass and Panda Bear, Metamorphosis and Max Roach, and the obligatory Moby Dick and Moby. (What, no Cement Garden and Pavement? Not to mention Steppenwolf and, well, Steppenwolf.) I mean, mixing the vocals of Destiny’s Child with the music of Nirvana is one thing, but getting Nirvana fans to read Chuck Palahniuk is something else (Bleach and Lullaby). Because, while print may be dead words themselves are still alive, and are always seeking either an eye or ear to take them in.

Yesterday Amazon announced that it would, later this year, open up a music download store where MP3 files would be sold without any digital rights management (also known as DRM). This would enable the files to be listened to on virtually any electronic device: iPods, computers, laptops, even cell phones (more and more I’m seeing people with headphones on, bopping up and down to music, but the headphones are plugged into a Razr and not an iPod). This is a pretty big deal, and while EMI announced a few weeks ago that it would be the first label to agree to sell its music without DRM, Amazon is the first retailer (of this size) to open a digital store where everything is sold sans DRM.

As reported in The New York Times: “The move could be another step toward the demise of the copy-protection systems that have frustrated some online music buyers and created confusion about compatibility between digital players and downloaded songs. Critics charge that the software has slowed the public embrace of legal digital downloads while failing to stop illicit copying, at a time when the music industry is desperate for ways to make up for declining CD sales.”

The CD, as has been reported on this blog and elsewhere, is dead; digital downloads could be the thing that saves the music industry. However, all downloads are not created the same. With songs swaddled in DRM, consumers can only play them on certain devices. But to have them be unencrypted means that consumers will truly own the music that they buy, and will be able to do whatever they want with it. And in terms of piracy concerns, to repeat Tim O’Reilly’s quote (which I seem to do every six weeks or so), “Piracy is not the enemy, obscurity is.” With all of the competition that music now faces in terms of the amount of attention consumers have to spare — due to the rise of Myspace, Youtube, blogs, RSS and podcasts — the trick is getting them interested in music in the first place. And if this is a success (for Amazon, consumers, and the music business) this could lead to the disappearance of DRM for movies, TV shows, and even books, that are distributed and delivered digitally.

NY Times: Amazon to Sell Music Without Copy Protection