So, there was some point today when I briefly answered a few things on people’s blogs that I realized I was working out my thoughts on other people’s personal space (sorry, Mr. Hines). Most of it had to deal with the Macmillan and Amazon war going on, but some rather well-thought out posts also got me thinking about digital books.

I’ve usually struggled with the idea of digital downloads. iTunes left a bad taste in my mouth when I had to recover Fluffy’s music collection “yet again” due to a failing iPod, only to be told that each of the bad iPod’s was a separately registered device (same hardware) and she had to deauthorize everything to get things working again. I declared, with all honesty, that I would buy music again when it came without DRM slime covering its outer casing.

Then, Amazon started selling MP3′s without DRM.

And I bought them. Quite a lot, actually.

It was wonderful. My little Linux player, my Sansa 1 GB (with Rockbox firmware), and Fluffy’s Mac laptop could all play it and I didn’t have to worry about screwed up hardware or limited numbers to register it. And, I didn’t go out and give it to all my friends. I just used it as I intended, for me and my personal family. I also have two boxes in my basement which I haven’t touched since we moved, filled with CD’s I either ripped or don’t listen to anymore.

I’m using that point of music, from the amazingly expensive music player I won in an essay contest (Sneaking Linux Into Business) somewhere in ’97 to today, to frame everything else.

Books, movies, and TV shows. They are all following the same pattern of music. Fluffy can watch much, but not all, of her shows online. And she does so, nestled up to me on the bed or waiting for my bath to end. But, the site-specific does get annoying, mainly because a local source is more reliable than streaming from Hulu or a network site. Which would also explain why we get DVD box sets and rip them onto the home media server.

I’m hoping some day, we can just download from Hulu or some place to our local drives, to have it show up on the MythTV media server or on the hard drive. I have the 1.5 TB, might as well use it.

Of course, that leads to movies. I have a lot of DVD’s and a few weeks ago, I started ripping them and putting them on my media server. Why? Because we lose about a dozen DVD’s a year due to falling, cracking, or scratches. We have 4 copies of While You Were Sleeping running around, but one is ruined and one is on VHS tapes. Having them on the media server is fantastic. I can just scroll to the movie and click… instant movie.

But, I have a hard copy in the file cabinet downstairs. If pushed, I can prove that every movie on my media server has a correlation in my basement. And probably tracked on my computer. I also don’t make mass copies of the movies and give them to anyone. Period. My brother has asked a few times, but I haven’t let him have a single bit though it would be trivial to send a TB drive to him with a ton of movies. I just can’t get over the copyright/ownership thing yet.

Ripping is annoying. I honestly feel that I’m doing the legal thing, but there are things that stop me. They have bad sectors and copy protection, mainly to stop mass copiers who I already know don’t have a problem with them. Most copy protection schemes don’t stop the commercial shops, they stop the little guy from doing exactly what I want. (Side note, the Digital Copy feature is a joke and a waste of my time, I usually end up tossing it into the recycling bin.)

Sooner or later, I’ll get the movies direct as a download. I won’t bother, like music, until they are DRM free and come in a nice format I can run everywhere. Yes, this doesn’t make Hollywood scared nor do they care about me. But, my shopping for DVD’s has gone down from 3-5 week to 1-2 month because of that annoyance. If it becomes digital, I’ll probably start downloading a lot more, but I need to own the file. I need to know that it won’t disappear one day or that I can’t put it on any device I own. I need it to be completely mine. There is a social contract that says I can’t share it, and frankly, I probably wouldn’t.

And then there are books.

I love books.

When I moved to Iowa, I had about 35 cubic feet of books. It only comes out to about 109 feet worth of shelf space, but I think that is pretty significant. Books take room and they get moldy and crackly, cats pee on them, and eventually they fade and I have to buy a new copy. The idea of electronic books (eBooks) is a lure. I’d love it if I could have a /books directory right next to /movies and /music. To throw it up on the MythTV media server or to download it to my Nokia n810. If I could, for a couple grand, get every book in my library on my computer (legally), I would do it in a heartbeat.

I struggled with the same ideas as movies and music. I couldn’t get over the hurdle of ownership. I need to own the file. I need to be able to play it wherever I want, to take advantage of new technologies as they come up, instead of being limited to platforms I don’t like (Windows, sorry). I’m a hacker and part of that community. Sometimes, there are great little programs that do Exactly What I Want™ and I want to use them.

This weekend, with the entire Macmillian/Amazon thing, I finally decided to iron out my thoughts on digital books. It came down to seeing how hard it would take to get MG or my current novel into an eBook format and on my n810. Remarkably, since I switched to the pure text format recently, it wasn’t that hard. Just a few Perl and bash scripts and I have it. And, sitting at my words on the little 5″ screen, I finally got over that hurdle.

I’m willing to buy eBooks. I want to buy eBooks. They need to have the same lack of limitations as my music and where I want my movies. Free to play anywhere, but I’m willing to pay for them. If they ever come out, I’ll re-buy the ones I love and probably start finding new ones to throw on my screen. As long as they run on my platform with my programs. I want the right to avoid advertising and I don’t want to worry about someone deleting them later (or removing my access because I have to authorize every use).

I know that isn’t the Macmillan/Amazon dispute. That is about who is in charge of pricing and I really don’t care. If I want a book, I’ll go over to B&N or preferably my local book store. I’m not going to buy a Kindle and probably not a nook. Sooner or later, there will be an eInk reader that I fall in love with, and I’ll get that. I highly suspect it will say “Linux Inside” too.

I’m at the point where I was with music, back in ’98 when I got to that point. It took 12 years before I got where I wanted. I suspect books will take less time, but it might be years. But, I’m probably going to do my thing to encourage it.

I found out Lulu actually allows you to see unencrypted (no DRM) ePub files of novels. One of my medium-term projects is to convert my novel over to ePub. It is mostly done, I just need to polish up my odf2creole formatter and then it will be integrated into my toolchain. For my current novel, ePub is just a toy since I’m honestly hoping to get a publishing house for it.

One of the key parts of writing is being able to say “I did this.” Holding a book in my hand is such a rush. I got a bit of the same thing browsing through my WIP on a computer.