Confronted with the manifold requirements of digital distribution, publishers are finding that the direct-to-customer potential of the internet in fact requires middlemen. Rather than the direct, accessible, universal mode of distribution publishers have imagined in the past, publishing books online is in fact a complex and variegated proposition, with multiple channels, technologies, and formats. In a manner similar to print wholesalers and distributors, Digital Asset Distributors promise to counteract the confusion and disunity of the e-book marketplace by coordinating the needs of publishers with those of end-distributors (such as Google Books or Questia). In doing this, DADs offer an undeniably necessary service. However, DADs also serve as indicators (and perhaps perpetrators) of the trouble pending for online publishing, as they threaten to reinforce the multifarious, noncollaborative, and blockaded nature of the current digital distribution marketplace..

The benefit of providing content to end-users online is readily apparent, particularly for small-scale publishers. Digital distribution has the potential to reduce publishing costs significantly, combating the disparity occasioned by publishers working in markets of limited scale. In addition to eliminating the high costs of physical production, digital distribution has also been celebrated for its ability to eliminate the costly returns that plague traditional print distribution. Online distribution should, in theory, facilitate a more direct relationship between publisher and end-user, ensuring that customer demand will not be lost in translation between the middlemen of wholesalers and retailers. Furthermore, online distribution promises to make content more readily available. Books would no longer need to go out of print, and fewer barriers (excepting access to computers) would stand between content and users.

This optimistic vision does not, however, seem to have achieved realization. Many of the issues that plague print publishing have carried over to the internet. Consequently, many of the methods employed to address them have carried over as well. For example, in order to protect content and ensure revenue, print publishers have copyright. Digital publishers enforce copyright (and associated control over revenue) through digital rights management and copy protection. In addition, as with print, end-users do not communicate with individual producers for content, but rather visit a content provider (i.e., a store or a library) where they can find multiple content in a single location. These stores and libraries (or end-distributors - Questia, netlibrary, etc.) all have different methods of storing content, due to both individual preference and the need to control their data.

It is in this digital environment that the DAD becomes necessary. The role of the DAD is still developing, but it is establishing a presence due to the exigency of service it provides. That role is described by Mike Shatzkin in his recent booknetcanada presentation, entitled “Every Publisher Needs a DAD” (see http://www.booknetcanada.com/events/media/200703TechForum/Digitization_Standards_-_Mike_Shatzkin.pdf; simply, DADs help coordinate content management and “version control” (7). In a digital marketplace defined by variegation and a lack of uniformity, DADs ensure that each digital end-distributor receives content in their preferred format, complete with metadata that matches their needs. Concurrently, DADs superintend the end-distributor’s use of that content (e.g., they ensure that limited-term subscriptions to online libraries are cancelled if not renewed, and they also ensure that payments for copies distributed to end-users are received) (for information on a specific DAD offering this service, see Bob Gibson’s codeMantra slideshow, “Publishing for the Digital Library,” http://www.publishers.ca/Publishing_for_the_Digital_Library.pdf). The necessity of such a service is, in the current digital publishing marketplace, so strong that publishers like Reed, Thomson, McGraw?-Hill, and Wiley developed their own DAD infrastructures. For smaller publishers unable to afford the costs associated with the creation of their own DADs, outsourcing to DAD providers such as codeMantra or Donnelly can allow them to manage their digital content in a manner that smoothly meets the needs of end-distributors.

DADs are undeniably an expedient solution to the problems presented by providing content online. The dilemma they pose, however, is that they cement those problems. Rather than forcing publishers to confront and find solutions to the variance between publishers, end-distributors, and end-users, DADs avoid them. If online publishing is in an incunabula period, then the choices we make about the ways we provide content online has the potential to significantly shape things to come. Rather than look to DADs to circumvent the difficulties of a rights-managed, closed, and proprietary digital marketplace, a circumvention that institutionalizes barriers between users and producers, we should look for ways to make them unnecessary. Publishers must communicate with end-distributors, standardizing the ways that content is produced and stored. Admittedly, this would involve confronting the behemoth that is digital rights management, a confrontation that might well lead one to seek solace in a DAD. However, despite the easier road DADs present, it is important to be cognizant of the manner in which DADs are symptomatic of the current state of digital publishing. Instead of connecting producers to end-users and making information readily available, DADs in fact congeal a mediated internet, and institutionalize a lack of communication.

Nice! --jmax, Sun, 15 Apr 2007 00:40:02 -0700 reply

So, you already know I agree with the basic case here, but I must say this is eloquently and forcefully written. An excellent commentary.