Changing Landscapes
As we all know, technology has been transforming virtually every aspect of our lives for as long as most of us can remember. In our early days of publishing, we focused primarily on how this affected computers and telephones. And, while these are still two of the primary focal points in our ever changing technological landscape, the evolution has branched out so substantially that there is really precious little that has not been profoundly altered in one way or another.
Publishing is but one of the realms that will "never be the same." Much like the music and film industries, the rules of yesterday simply don't work in the world of today. New approaches must be tried, new inventions embraced, an entirely new ideology applied. We've seen resistance to these inevitabilities and the ensuing frustration that results when the old ways don't mesh with the new world. And that is another aspect of evolution: the removal of that which cannot adapt.
As hackers, it would be somewhat counterintuitive to shy away from something new and different. We have an obligation to scope out the changing scenery and report back, in addition to figuring out ways of tweaking things and making them more interesting.
This is what we hope to accomplish with some new projects we've gotten involved with in the last part of 2010. We have taken the first steps into the world of electronic publishing with the hope that there will be many more. We intend to keep the world apprised of our progress, so that we can all see the advantages and risks involved with such new developments.
The first thing many people want to know is what took us so long. To answer that, we need to explain that our magazine is rather unique. We operate solely on the support of our readers. That means no advertising dollars to bring down costs, inflate numbers, and dilute material. Major publications risk very little when they splash their content onto the web because along with it are splashed all kinds of flashy ads that most people don't bother to block.
Advertising is what brings down the cost of paper publications (ever notice how many free ones are out there?) and makes it desirable to duplicate content, provided the ads are there, too. But this just isn't the case with a publication like ours. We try to keep things cheap and accessible in everything we produce without any sort of commercial sponsorship. And by keeping the support for this within the community, our message and tone won't be subverted by external forces with a completely different agenda.
If you don't believe this is a real threat to the hacker world, just have a look at all of the so-called experts out there who claim to understand what our community is all about - and who always have something expensive to peddle, whether it be software, conferences, seminars, or books. Because we face these unique circumstances, we knew things wouldn't be quite as easy for us. But where there is support and a desire to succeed and innovate, there is a way to accomplish what you want to do. We believe we're on that path.
Our first step was to create an ebook version of the Autumn 2010 issue which was readable on devices like Amazon's Kindle and the Barnes and Noble Nook. The technology involved in these devices is quite impressive and has made reading both desirable and easy. One of the best examples of how useful they can be comes from a reader who told us how he was stuck on an airplane that had a long takeoff delay. While sitting on the runway, with a few key clicks, he was able to quickly download an entire issue onto his Kindle and escape the surrounding unpleasantness.
This new edition was met with much enthusiasm and publicity. But we still had hurdles to cross. For one thing, we were forced to sell this first issue as a single ebook, rather than offer a full yearly subscription to the electronic version of the magazine. This was because the terms for magazines were utterly terrible, and clearly designed for huge publications with lots of advertiser support. What a bitter irony that such new and promising technology would somehow manage to penalize the small and independent voices.
And, as we promised to do from the outset of this project, we kept our readers in the loop on what we were trying to accomplish and what the challenges were. Miraculously, the terms for magazines changed within a month of our launch, making it much more acceptable for smaller publishers such as ourselves. As of this issue, we should be able to offer annual subscriptions on this new service.
But that was only the first step. We took another, relatively soon after this.
We've always wanted to offer something bigger and more comprehensive. The success of our two recent books (The Best of 2600 and Dear Hacker) demonstrates the need for this as well. So we created a new book out of material from our most recent full volume, comprising issues from Spring 2009 to Winter 2009-2010. The layout was changed, new artwork was added, and The Hacker Digest: Volume 26 was formed. In addition to having this available in the above formats, we also made a PDF version for sale at our online store. This version was capable of displaying graphics, pictures, and color in ways that would have been prohibitively expensive in actual print. And by not simply reproducing the material that was in these back issues, we wound up with something that was unique and useful - and only available in electronic form.
In addition, it was very important to us to not buy into the industry desire to control the publication through Digital Rights Management or DRM. This is, after all, what we were dragged into court for back in 2000, as the first test case of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. How hypocritical would it be for us to claim in court that people had the right to watch DVDs on whatever device they chose and then turn around and say they could only read 2600 on the devices we authorize? This is something we just couldn't do, despite going against what so many in the publishing industry were strongly advising. It's precisely this sort of narrow thinking that has stymied progress and annoyed the hell out of consumers. Perhaps this is also why such industries are in the downward spirals we've all heard so much about.
Clearly, this is serving as a test for us, and not one without risk. By going DRM-free, we make it easier for people to get our material just by copying it off a friend. As writers and hackers who primarily want the contents of the magazine to be out there, this is a good thing. But in order to sustain what we do (and the work involved simply in putting together the electronic editions was a great deal more than anything we had anticipated), we obviously need people to stand up and support our efforts. And that is how we're going to measure our success or failure in this endeavor and decide whether to expand it in the future and, if so, in what ways.
In a sense, this is a perfect test for the entire publishing world. If consumers are able to come forward and keep a publication like ours going solely through their support, as they have done with the paper version for the past 26 years, then we will have proven something about the value of advertising-free, non-DRM material. We will be saying that it's all about the actual content, and not the control of that content. Of course, the opposite could hold true and the industry giants may prove themselves more knowledgeable than we thought. If making our content available in an open manner results in the vast majority of readers simply grabbing it all for free somewhere, then our method of doing things clearly won't work.
Regardless of how it turns out, we're playing with this system and letting everyone know what it is we find out along the way. And isn't that what hacking is all about?