Why would anyone in this world spend US$200 - US$699 to buy a simple electronic device just to read costly "e-books" being sold on the Net?

What's an e-book, you ask?

Well, if you have to ask, then obviously it hasn't--and likely won't--make much of a difference in your life.

Just for the record, here is the definition: An e-book is any kind of published work stored in digital form for access on computing devices. That's the easy part. Here is the totally commercialised, adulterated, profit-generating definition:

An e-book is any kind of published work a publisher can store in digital form so as to cripple its accessibility with copyright-protection software and arrange it so that buyers cannot easily read it on just any computing device, nor print, copy, lend or exchange it with others without paying extra.

Some publishers must be thinking, "Hey, what a great way to save printing costs and totally prevent unscrupulous book buyers from avoiding further purchases from us whenever they want to lend or exchange the book we worked so hard to make available to these ingrates! We'll make millions back from them for all that they've already saved from abusing our paper book editions!"

Taint a great idea and turn it into commercial mush
It's not hard to see the benefits of having books in digital form for access on computers. After all, digitisation of information invariably leads to greater exploitation via information technology.

Wrong timing?

With e-books, you can make use of the computer's built-in dictionaries, search functions, bookmarking and multimedia capabilities to make research easier, and reading a more tactile experience.

But like every great contribution to entertainment and learning, the technology invariably has to be tainted by ugly human selfishness, greed and impatience.

So, by the first, altruistic definition of e-books, you can convert your son's award-winning sixth grade essays into an e-book (ok, ok, e-anthology), and distribute it online to let anyone with a computer or PDA read it, print it, lend it.

By the second e-vil definition, the same e-book can only be downloaded one page at a time; you will be allowed to read it on-screen only--no printing allowed. Neither will you be able to lend it to friends, because proprietary e-book will detect unauthorised use. Corporate paranoia over piracy has even prompted e-publishers to encode some e-books so that they can be read only on specialised handheld devices called e-book readers (US$200 - US$700) that aren't of much use beyond serving as difficult-to-read screens.

E-books in Asia? Wrong timing!
Lycos Asia has been selling chapters of some works of Singaporean writer Catherine Lim. Assuming you have the patience to wait two days to download and pay for two chapters each time, you would still not be able to print the book out for offline reference, "due to copyright restrictions."

On another front, e-book technology in its non-commercial altruistic form, is making inroads at Asian academic institutions in countries like Singapore and Japan.

Wrong target for e-books in Asia

The caveat is that academic users are not using the traditional e-books that require expensive dedicated electronic readers. Instead, users tote ordinary notebooks and PDAs, to access unprotected digital documents that can be shared freely--in other words, the users are enjoying e-books using versatile non-proprietary devices, in the true spirit of information sharing at low cost.

Even then, only countries in Asia with strong Information Technology can afford to try e-books out. Educational institutions in countries like Singapore and Japan are eagerly testing electronic books.

It therefore doesn't take much imagination to see that Asia, with its current state of IT and economic reach, high piracy potential, lower preference and literacy rate for English, is definitely not a prime candidate for e-books devices within the next five years.

Scene 3 Take Note:
E-books in Asia? Wrong target!

Just because consumers are not buying e-books and e-book devices doesn't mean publishers are not investing in the game.

Microsoft is buying into the e-book concept with big names such as Penguin Books, R.R. Donnelley & Sons, Bertelsmann, HarperCollins Publishers and the like. Bertelsmann, which owns Random House and has a stake in Barnesandnoble.com, also has committed US$16.5 million over three years to milk money out of the technology.

Let's not for one moment think the publishers are not aware that saddling e-book devices with complex anti-piracy technology won't help speed consumer adoption. Software readers, such as the Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader Plus V2.0, do not allow someone to read the same e-books from more than one computer or to copy e-book data files from one computer to another.

Marketers, buck up!

But publishers say they have "no other choice." Hogwash! It's the same chicken-and-egg issue of over-protected copyright that has stopped so many other potential great technologies from ever taking off quickly worldwide. In their profiteering little minds, development costs and royalties must all be passed down to consumers, however unpalatable the final pricing structures will be. To anyone with eyes to see, the US may be more tolerant of such capitalistic mediocrity, but Asia is the wrong target for these strategies.

Buck up, e-book marketers
So the real problem with e-book technology lies in the over-protective, over-profiteering way it is being marketed.

E-books are padlocked with security software, and designed (for commercial gain more than anything else) to be read mainly on dedicated e-book devices that cost at least US$200 to own. These readers are basically useless for any other purpose, unlike PDAs and notebooks. The readers are also cumbersome to use and peruse from, available only for English, and basically take all the fun out of reading. And, even sharing the file with your friends is not always possible.

Also, not everyone likes reading for extended periods, off a small LCD screen. Not for work, and definitely not for pleasure. Scrolling and flipping through pages just isn't the same on any computer, screen size notwithstanding.

People just aren't warming up to these "drawbacks", which are overwhelming the advantages of having books in electronic form.

So until publishers pull out all the stops on opening up the technology for accessing e-books and let low-priced e-documents be easily accessed from computing devices that people already own, they should not expect any support from buyers at large--Asian or otherwise.

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